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“What’s that from?” I asked, pointing to the necklace.

“None of your business,” he said without missing a beat, stone cold.

I didn’t flinch. I was proud of that much, at least. Of course I knew he didn’t owe me an answer, but a few hours ago he had been hard between my legs—it was a chilling reminder how little that meant in the world.

I took the first-aid box and pulled out the last few butterfly bandages. The task was just a distraction. I didn’t meet his eyes while I smoothed the tiny strips of white into place over gashed, bloodstained skin.

“Will you be safe?” I asked softly, still looking at the wound.

“Of course,” he said, sounding surprised. Though I wasn’t sure if he was surprised because I cared or because I had ever doubted his ability to defend himself. There was a time I wouldn’t have doubted it. As a scared teenage girl on the run, he had seemed like some kind of god, invincible and capricious.

He hadn’t been a god last night.

He had been raw and wild and vulnerable. A man.

I already knew I would never forget the fear I’d felt for him, finding him leaning against my door and bleeding. I would never forget how he made me feel with his hands on my hips and his cock a hot pulsing presence against my sex. He made me feel like a woman.

A woman strong enough to ask the question we’d been avoiding. I straightened and forced myself to meet his cold, challenging gaze. “If it’s safe there, why did you come here?”

His eyes were an unfathomable well, too deep and dark to see beneath the surface. “I’m always here. Wherever you go, I follow. Watching you, waiting for you. Wanting you. The only difference is last night—I didn’t leave.”

Chapter Fourteen

H
IS WORDS FELL
like bombs in my chest, igniting years of doubt and denial. It should have been a childish crush, my love for a man fifteen years older. For a criminal with enemies all over the city.

It had always been more than a crush.

And if he felt the same for me… God, my heart. It didn’t feel like relief—not the visceral bodily sigh of pleasure from last night. No, this was a minefield being set off all at once. This was destruction.

How could I let him walk away, knowing he’d wanted me all this time?

But how could I go with him and leave my entire life, my entire future behind?

He solved my dilemma with a half-smile and a tap of my nose with his forefinger. It was the way an adult would treat a child, a return to our roles within this little play. It was a reminder that he had never asked me to go with him, so it wasn’t like I even had a choice.

“Don’t worry about me,” he said.

“You aren’t invincible.” I ran my hand over his side, an inch away so I didn’t touch his injury. The whole area radiated intense heat, as if the destruction and fire came from within. As if the violence had always existed inside him, just waiting to get out.

“I’m going to die one day, kitten. And I don’t want you to mourn me.”

The thought of his fierce light going out made my heart clench. “That’s not up to you.”

“Isn’t it?” His expression darkened. “Everyone in this city does what I tell them to. You should listen if you know what’s good for you.”

“Did the person who did this listen to you?”

Philip’s expression was grim. “He didn’t live to regret it.”

I snatched my hand back, burned. A killer. That was what Philip was. Of course, if the person had been hurting him, it would count as self-defense. Somehow I doubted Philip was innocent in the whole thing, though. I couldn’t straighten out the tangled-vine morality of bad men doing bad things to each other. That wasn’t for me.
He wasn’t for me.

“Well,” I managed to say, my voice uneven, “then I’m sure you’ll be perfectly safe now that he’s gone.”

That was a lie, and we both knew it. There would always be men lurking, waiting to take Philip down. It was a parting shot, because once he left, I doubted I’d ever see him again. This night would feel like a dark dream, much like the days hidden away in his house felt now. I’d fallen down the rabbit hole and somehow found my way out.

I didn’t think I’d be so lucky a second time.

His voice sounded hollow as he echoed me, “Perfectly.”

My heart twisted. Our relationship may have been frozen in the wasteland of impossible dreams, but I still cared about him. I still needed him to be safe.

The shrill of the phone made me jump. I wasn’t sure I had ever heard the landline ring before. Mostly I used my cell phone. The beige plastic phone attached to the wall came with the room.

Philip must have seen the trepidation on my face. “You expecting a call?” he asked.

I shook my head. Why would someone be calling now, right when I had a big, dangerous, wounded man in my room…unless it was about him?

“Answer it,” Philip said softly, no mercy in his gaze.

This was one of those moments with the earth shifting beneath me, splitting apart right under my feet. Like finding out my parents had adopted me. Like meeting Philip and discovering the dark side of myself. This was one of those times when I knew everything was about to change—had already changed, and I was just going to find out how.

“Hello?” I said, my voice strangely normal.

“Ella?” A whisper. “It’s me.”

Confusion flickered through me. Why would he be calling me? “Sloan?”

“There’s some people asking about you. Cops.” Then I remembered he worked in the building office downstairs.

“Cops?” I squeaked. Philip’s gaze sharpened.

“They’re on their way up,” Sloan said. “Are you okay? Do you need me to—”

The line went dead. Philip had his finger on the button.

“Hey,” I protested faintly.

He wasn’t listening, though. He was already crossing the room toward the window, stopping only to pull a gun from his suit jacket. “How much time do we have?”

My heart stopped at the glint of black, the smooth barrel. The confidence and grace with which he wielded it. This was who he was. A criminal.
A killer.

“Not long,” I said, my voice shaking. I doubted they would have lingered at the front desk once they flashed their badges and got my room number. They were probably already on the elevators. “You’ve got to get out of here. Take the fire escape.”

“They’re waiting for me.”

“The cops?”

“Worse. They’re waiting for us to go out that way.” He gave me a resigned look. “We’ll have to take our chances with the cops.”

Relief filled me. “Thank God. I’m sure if we just explain what happened—”

A surprised laugh. There was something like tenderness in his eyes. “You’re adorable, kitten.”

“I’m starting to think the
kitten
thing is condescending.”

One eyebrow rose. “Do you want me to stop?”

No.
“What I want is for you to be safe.”

“Good,” he said, opening the door.

In one smooth move he pulled me into the hallway. I stumbled in surprise—and would have fallen, except he hauled me up against him, my back to his chest. His arm was a thick band across my shoulders. I didn’t understand why he was holding me this way.

At the end of the hallway there was a
ding,
and then the elevator doors opened.

Something hard and small pressed against the side of my head.
A gun.

Suddenly I did understand why he was holding me this way. My heart pounded against my ribs, fighting to be free. The rest of my body went completely, unnaturally still.

“Philip?” I whispered.

His voice was soft. “Try to act scared.”

Act scared? He had a gun pointed at my head. I was terrified. “That won’t be hard.”

A low laugh. “Good kitten.”

Then we were moving. He propelled me forward, which was handy because I didn’t think I could move. My gaze was on the cops—they pulled their weapons and shouted threats to stand down—but the rest of me was focused on the metal barrel pressing against my hair. Would he really shoot me? God, even holding the gun to my head was a risk. What if his finger slipped?

I shouldn’t have let him into my room. I never should have trusted him.

“Hello, boys,” Philip said as casually and confidently as if he were meeting men for business across a conference table. “What brings you here?”

“Give it up, Murphy,” one of them said. He looked like he was in charge, a scowl etched into his face and hatred burning in his eyes. His skin was brown and weathered, his hair white at the tips. It was a rough-hewn appearance, as if he’d been hunting us through the woods instead of up an elevator. “Let her go.”

“Somehow I don’t think that’s in my self-interest. Come to think of it, I don’t think a pretty little coed getting killed on your watch is in
your
self-interest.”

I gasped in outrage even as a small, horrible part of me liked being called pretty. “How dare you. Let me go.”

Both men ignored me.

The cop’s eyes were threaded with red veins as if he hadn’t slept in days, weeks. Maybe he hadn’t. Those eyes narrowed, completely focused on Philip. “Hostages aren’t your style, Murphy. Getting desperate?”

A soft laugh—this one somehow completely different from the one he’d given me a minute ago. That one had been genuine amusement. This was hollow—a mocking sound but somehow weary. “Detective Barnes, do you really think you’re going to nail something on me that I can’t shake off?”

“It’s only a matter of time.” He nodded toward Philip’s side, the wound there. “There will be DNA evidence—”

“Oh, that. I had the unfortunate luck to be mugged. So you might find my blood in the room. I don’t think CPD is in the habit of arresting victims of crimes, but maybe you’ve changed some things since you took over the shop from Daddy.”

“I will catch you,” Barnes said coldly, nostrils flaring. “And you better pray there are people around when I do.”

Even the other cops looked a little shocked at his words.

“Until then,” Philip said, sounding unconcerned. He gestured with the gun to the side, and the cops reluctantly moved to make way for us.

The hallway was so narrow that I could reach out and touch one of them. I expected them to make a move for the gun, to get me to safety, but they didn’t. I couldn’t help but feel a little betrayed by that, even if they didn’t have a choice. I didn’t want anyone to get hurt; I just wanted someone to care about me, someone besides Philip. And that summed up my entire existence.

Philip pressed the button to go down, and there was a tense silence while we waited for the elevator, in a stalemate with the cops.

The door opened, revealing Sloan inside.

His eyes widened when he saw me. “
Ella.
Oh God.”

“Move,” Philip said, his voice like granite.

Sloan scrambled out of the elevator, and before I could even think of what to tell him—
help
or
please don’t help, you’ll only get yourself hurt
—Philip had moved us into the elevator and the doors were sliding shut.

And then it was only Philip and me, alone in the elevator, heading down.

My room was on floor twenty-four. The display flickered to twenty-three. Twenty-two.

He still held the gun, but at least it wasn’t pointed at my head anymore. I jammed my elbow into his stomach, and he grunted. I moved to the other side of the elevator, clinging to the cold metal bar.

“I hope that opens up your injury,” I said.

His expression was taut with pain—but a faint smile flickered over his lips. “That’s right, kitten. Give me hell.”

I crossed my arms over my chest, confused and upset. Why did he have to change the game?

I had known he was a dangerous man, but I had always sort of trusted him. After all, he had saved me when I was at my weakest. But then, maybe he had only done it for Shelly. They were having sex at the time—
fucking
was the word she would have used—and I had suspected he was in love with her.

She had ended up marrying someone else—a cop, no less. So maybe being nice to me, or at least not killing me, was off the table now. Maybe it didn’t matter what happened to me with Shelly out of the picture. Something cold settled into my stomach. My breath came a little faster, the air thin and stale in this elevator.

“What the hell?” I asked, my voice small. I hated how hurt I sounded.

I hated that I let him hurt me.
Floor fifteen. Fourteen.

He didn’t even look at me, his gaze on the gun as he flicked some small lever. Then he held it up for me to see, sideways. “Turning the safety back off.”

Realization flooded through me. The safety had been on while it had been pointed at my head. At least, if I believed him. I didn’t know enough about guns to know if he was telling the truth. “It was still dangerous,” I said. “The cops could have shot me.”

“They wouldn’t have done that,” he scoffed.

Horribly, tears sprang to my eyes. I fought them. “That’s not the point. Anything could have happened. There were guns everywhere, and you put me in the middle of it.”

He sobered. “I’ll always protect you, Ella. That’s a promise.”

The words filled a space inside me that had been hollow for too long. And I couldn’t regret that he had held a gun to my head, if that meant surviving. Couldn’t regret that he had come to me in a moment of weakness. He’d been in a vulnerable state—a rare moment for a man like him. And he’d trusted me with it. There was a kind of power in that.

A dark kind of hope.

We were on floor five now. Almost to the bottom.

“So what’s next?” I asked, a hitch in my chest. “Am I still your hostage?”

“I thought I’d told you, kitten. You’re with me now, for better or for worse.”

With those disturbing words, the elevator dinged its arrival. The doors slid open.

Chapter Fifteen

W
E MADE IT
through the lobby without any threats at gunpoint.

We did earn a lot of stares, however.

The lobby of the dorm had seen many wild things, drunken antics and one notorious whipped-cream dunking booth. There had never been a man like Philip Murphy, clearly dangerous, clearly powerful—shirtless and bloody as he strode to the exit. He nodded once, politely, at an openmouthed student clutching a pile of textbooks. And the entire time he kept a firm grip on my arm, propelling me forward.