Page 7 of Deep (Chicago Underground 8)
She sighed. “Fine, don’t tell me. I’m calling you Ella.”
Great, she had named me. Like a pet.
I pulled my arm away. “Whatever you want.”
“Sweetheart, if you’d said that twenty minutes ago, I wouldn’t be in this mess.”
If I’d said that twenty minutes ago, I’d have been torn apart by a group of stockbrokers.
“What’s kee
ping you?” I wasn’t sure I would have ever recovered from that. I shivered, chilled just by the possibility. “Leave already. I don’t give a shit.”
“Come on,” she said with a thin thread of patience. “We need to get you out of here before Henri shows up.”
I winced at the mention of that name again. Henri. How could I trust her? If she worked for him, she would have incentive to rein me in. Maybe she would even get a bonus. “I’m not going with you.”
“We don’t have time for this,” she said. “Let’s go.”
She seemed sincere, but in the past week I had learned not to trust anything or anyone. “Why, so you can take me to him?”
Her eyes widened in surprise.
Then she shook her head, something world-weary and devastated in her expression. “The truth is, I’ve been thinking of getting out myself. Well, now I’m out. Maybe you did me a favor, kid.”
“I’m not a kid.” Not after what I’d seen in that penthouse. And I seriously doubted getting out would be as simple as walking away. “And isn’t he going to be angry at you too?”
“‘Favor’ may have been too strong a word,” she admitted. “I’m going to try to keep you safe.”
“Try?” It didn’t inspire much confidence. Then again it was the best offer I’d gotten in a while. Even my adoptive mother and father couldn’t have cared too much about what happened to me—if they had paid their debt, I would have been free.
She met my eyes, her gaze steady and sure. “I can promise you this: you’ll be as safe as I am. Now, how the hell do we get out of here?”
There was a maze of doors, all with little black plastic rectangles beside them that required security clearance to get through. At least I hadn’t dropped the security card I’d swiped, unlike the wallet. I held it up. “Got it covered.”
Chapter Four
HER NAME WAS Shelly. And she had transportation in the form of a nice Mercedes.
Apparently working for Henri paid well.
There was a lightness in my chest I did my best to ignore. I couldn’t count on her. She was a stranger to me. She could just as easily turn on me as help me.
Even with her help, my odds weren’t looking too good. Helping me had made her boss angry. Henri. She took us to a friend of hers—or maybe he was more than a friend. And he was a cop, so he could help. Until we found out that the cops were looking for us too. Apparently Henri had dirty cops on his payroll, and it wouldn’t be safe for us there—not even in police custody.
It wouldn’t be safe for us anywhere.
That was how we ended up at the door of a mansion.
The high gates and tension in Shelly made my heart skip. “I don’t want to go here.”
“Sorry to say, we’re running low on options. What, you don’t like rich people?” She glanced at me, and I read the truth in her eyes. Whoever owned this mansion was dangerous. Even more dangerous than the man after us. That was the only way we’d be safe.
Safe had become a relative term. “I don’t like men,” I said, my voice shaking.
“Men aren’t for liking, Ella.”
“What are they for, then? Fucking?” My stomach turned over at the memory of the men in that hotel room. Of the men in that empty house, coming in to use the bathroom while I was chained to the pipes. Of all men, everywhere. “For money?”
