Savages (Depraved Sinners 3)

“That’s what we’ve come to ask you,” Roman says, his tone a subtle warning not to fuck with him. “Up until last night, my father was staying in Victor’s home, yet when we arrived … poof,” he says, blowing his fingers out in front of him. “Gone.”

Phillip laughs. “And you think he would come to me?”

“If we thought he had come here,” Marcus says with a sick grin. “You would be dead on your doorstep by now.”

Phillip eyes him cautiously before turning his gaze back to Roman. “So if you do not think he is here, then why come here at all?”

“Because apart from the fact that you have something that belongs to me,” he says, referring to Ariana and making my heart bleed when he says he still considers her his. “You’re one of the last people to have been in contact with him, and I need to know what you know.”

A noise sounds on the stairs behind us and I flick my gaze around just in time to see a little girl dressed in her nightgown. Realizing something is going on at the bottom of the stairs, her head shoots up and a soft gasp pulls from between her lips. She looks to her father, and for a moment, I want to hate the boys for not having checked if anyone else was in the house, but then that’s on my shoulders as well.

“Daddy,” the little girl says, her wide eyes terrified as she takes in her eldest cousin who she no doubt had been trained to be fearful of. “What’s going on?”

Phillip swallows hard. “Nothing, honey. Your cousins are just here for an early morning business meeting,” he says, making my stomach churn with how sweet he is to his daughter while another woman rots away, most likely in some dungeon cell beneath the foundation of this home. “Go and watch your shows. Mommy will make you breakfast soon.”

The little girl, who must only be four or five, glances at the three boys again, and I have to commend her for the caution that spreads over her face. Assuming she somehow gets away from her father, she might even grow into a really smart girl who can save herself from this messed up world, something I should have done before I allowed it to corrupt my soul to the point of no return.

The girl scurries away and all eyes turn back to Phillip. “You need to leave,” he says. “You never should have come here where my children sleep.”

“The ball is in your court, Phillip,” Roman says as though this is some kind of hostage negotiation. “Tell me what I want to know and handover Ariana. No one needs to get hurt, but fail to give me what I’ve come for and well …”

Roman’s sentence trails off as his gaze sweeps back to the stairs, letting Phillip know exactly what he would do. My stomach twists at just the thought, but a part of me has to believe that Roman is just bluffing. He would never hurt that little girl, but Phillip doesn’t need to know that.

Rage burns in Phillip’s gaze before he finally nods. “False wall in the east wing office. She’s down there.”

Roman nods before glancing at Marcus. “Go. Take Shayne with you.”

Marcus silently walks away and my eyes widen, realizing this is really happening. I scurry after him, not wanting to be left behind as I hear Roman going on. “And my father?”

We disappear around a corner before I get to hear Phillip’s response and I keep myself right behind Marcus, not wanting to get separated from him in this big home. Who knows what other dirty secrets are buried here.

We find the office a short moment later, and Marcus pushes through the locked door with ease and we step into a massive room. It’s bigger than my whole fucking apartment, but I’m not surprised. Everything in this world is big and coated in luxury. It’s ridiculous and most likely funded by drug money.

Despite it being just past six in the morning and the likelihood of someone walking these halls are about the same as the likelihood of me spreading my legs willingly for Giovanni, I close the door behind us.

Phillip said something about a false wall, but I don’t see a damn thing. Marcus moves across the room, searching for what’s hidden in plain sight as my hands skim over the walls. This isn’t exactly something that I have experience with, but I’m not going to lie, it’s sending adrenaline through my veins like a wildfire.

Not finding anything on the side wall, I step in front of a massive floor-to-ceiling bookshelf and scan over everything. It’s packed with books that I’m sure Phillip has never read. There are fancy bookends, limited edition books, and gold trimmed photo frames. Ornaments and fancy sculptures fill every available space and I stare in wonder. Now, if only the books had titles like ‘The Hornets Slutty Hornbag’ then I’d really be impressed. Hell, I might even believe that Phillip had read them.

Reaching through the bookshelf, I gently tap on the expensive wooden backing and listen to its sound. It’s definitely hollow on the opposite side, and just like in the movies, I start pulling on the ornaments and sculptures until I can finally figure it out. “Here,” I tell Marcus as he stands across the big office, searching behind the mahogany desk. “It’s behind here. I just can’t work out how to open it.”

Marcus rushes over and examines the bookshelf with a trained eye, but a gold skull catches mine. Everything else on the shelf is old school, but this is new and shiny, and it definitely doesn’t fit with the rest of the office. Reaching through, I curl my fingers around the skull and try to move it. It’s stuck to the shelf, so instead of tearing the fucker right off, I try twisting, and after turning it just enough that the skull faces the massive window overlooking the manicured gardens, the whole bookshelf falls back.

“What the fuck?” I breathe, my eyes wide as I look over it.

“Took the words right out of my mouth,” Marcus says, quickly glancing my way with an arched brow, most likely wondering what hidden rooms have been waiting to be discovered in his family home all these years.

Not wasting any more time, Marcus grips the heavy wooden shelf and pushes it back inside the wall. A loud click sounds through the office, and I hear the faint echo on the other side. With the shelf clicked back into place, it slides effortlessly, and a small walkway appears before us.

As if knowing that there’s no way in hell that I’ll be going first, Marcus steps into the dark walkway and I follow closely behind him, not liking the look of this at all.

A set of stairs leads down into the darkness and everything inside of me screams for me to not go down there. I’ve done the whole dungeon cell thing before and it’s really not my jam. There’s only a sliver of light shining past the bookshelf, but beyond that, there’s nothing.

Going against every cell in my body, I move forward, following Marcus into the unknown, and letting my fingers drag along the wall to guide me down the concrete stairs. It smells, but it doesn’t hold the same pungent stench as Giovanni’s basement. This is more like a damp room that hasn’t seen the light of day for years, plus there’s a heavy scent of sex in the air that has my chest tightening with unease.

My fingers brush over something on the wall and I double back, making Marcus pause to watch me over his shoulder. Feeling a switch beneath my fingertip, uncertainty settles through me. This switch could be for anything, but there’s also a good chance that it’s a light.

My face twists with a cringe but the chances of finding Ariana down here without a light is next to none. Letting out a shaky breath, I flip the switch and a dull light spreads through the underground cell and settles the unease pulsing through my stomach.