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Deep:
A Twisted Tale of Deception
C. N. Phillips
www.urbanbooks.net
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Epilogue
Urban Books, LLC
300 Farmingdale Road, NY-Route 109
Farmingdale, NY 11735
Deep: A Twisted Tale of Deception
Copyright © 2017 C. N. Phillips
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without prior consent of the Publisher, except brief quotes used in reviews.
ISBN: 978-1-6228-6479-9
This is a work of fiction. Any references or similarities to actual events, real people, living or dead, or to real locales are intended to give the novel a sense of reality. Any similarity in other names, characters, places, and incidents is entirely coincidental.
Distributed by Kensington Publishing Corp.
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Prologue
“You can run, but you can’t hide, Anna. I’m going to find youuuu!” an eerie voice rang out in the cold air.
Hearing the voice behind her made the panicked young woman run faster through the dimly lit concrete tunnel, feverishly checking behind her to make sure her stalker hadn’t caught up to her. She had tears streaming down her face and her heart was pumping with terror, but she willed her legs to go as quickly as they could carry her. It was a task because whatever drug was still in her system was slowing her down and making the world around her a big blur. She cried out when she heard the voice taunting her because she knew the last place she wanted to be was in the clutches of her stalker.
“Please leave me alone!” she yelled behind her. “Just let me go!”
Dried blood coated her body, and the back of her once pretty, long, straight hair was matted. The more the drug wore off, the more she felt the pain from the open gashes crisscrossing her back.
“Anna,” the voice echoed from a ways behind her, “you aren’t going to make it out of here. Why are you running? Nobody leaves the Opulent Inn.”
Anna sobbed uncontrollably but kept going. She didn’t care that she was in shredded lingerie, or that she had black mascara running down her face, blurring her vision. She paid no attention to the fact that the skin on her body was sliced up to the point that it looked like she was fresh off the set of a gory horror movie where she, unfortunately, was the lead. She only had one objective: survival.
Finally she reached the end of the long hallway and fell into a tall wooden door. Feeling the rough shards of wood under her cheek, she used her shaky hands to grip the cold gold doorknob. She paused and tried to catch her breath. Knowing that she was lost underground somewhere, she just prayed that the door was unlocked and that the room she was about to enter had a window.
Twisting the knob, her heart leaped when it easily turned; and, without allowing another second to go to waste, she clambered through the open door. She glanced over her exposed brown shoulder and saw a shadow rounding a corner a ways away before she slammed the door shut behind her.
After she turned the lock on the doorknob she backed away from it slowly, trying to give her eyes time to adjust to the darkness of the room. The air was stuffy, making it hard for her to breathe, and the stench in there was almost unbearable; but she tried not to let that faze her.
“Window,” she muttered to herself once she could see in the dark. “I need a window. Please, God, let me find a window.”
On the floor there was a light that could only be given off by the moon, and Anna’s insides fluttered with hope. She followed the light, ignoring the cold of the stone floor under her bare feet, until she finally found the source of the light. There was a window on the far wall and she saw that it was just big enough for her to get through it. Underneath it there was a box that she hurriedly stood on to reach what she hoped would be her salvation.
Anna extended her hand up and tried to unlatch the hook; but, for some reason, no matter how hard she tugged it wouldn’t budge. Behind her she heard the doorknob begin to jiggle and her eyes darted toward the ground underneath the door. There was a shadow moving there and Anna began to sob. She was so close to evading her captor. All she had to do was open the window. She stood trembling on the tips of her toes so that she could get a better look at what she was doing. What she saw was enough to make her scream. There was a padlock on the other side of the window; there was no way to open it without a key.
“No!” she whimpered in disbelief. Balling her hand into a fist she tried to hit the window but she was far too weak to cause any real damage.
Anna stepped down from the box so that she could find something to bust through the glass with, but it was too late. The door was already wide open behind her and a sinister silhouette stood there holding a sharp machete that gleamed in the light. Anna knew there was nowhere to run, but still she was not ready to meet the fate staring her dead in the face. Defeated, Anna dropped to her knees and she wept.
“Please don’t kill me,” Anna begged through her sobs. “I don’t want to die. Please don’t kill me!”
Instead of responding, the silhouette walked slowly toward her, coming out of the shadows. Her figure was finally visible and the heels on her feet clicked with each step. When she finally reached Anna she knelt down and put her red lips next to the trembling young woman’s ear.
“I told you not to run,” she whispered into Anna’s ear. “And you did.”
“Please, Madame,” Anna begged in a barely audible voice. “I don’t want to die.”
“If you don’t want to die, then why would you run?” The woman put the cold metal of the machete against the nape of Anna’s neck. “The only thing I asked from you was for you to be obedient, like the others, and in turn you disobeyed me. I could detach your head from your body and watch as your body twitched and your blood stained the floor . . . but I’m not going to.”
“Y . . . you’re not?”
“Of course not. Why would I kill you? You, my dear, have heart.”
With quivering lips Anna looked up into the empty eyes of the person who had taken her entire life away. Freedom had been her desire for the past two weeks and she couldn’t believe that she was going to be granted that. Maybe it had all been a test. A sick test.
“Y . . . you’re going to let me go?” Anna breathed.
“I said I’m not going to kill you,” the woman said and chuckled at the naïveté of the girl before her. She gently gripped the bottom of Anna’s chin and stared coldheart-edly into her eyes. “But you will never be free. You belong to me. And this?” The woman motioned to the machete and placed it in Anna’s hand before standing. “That is yours. Follow me. You have work to do.”
Chapter 1
“Stop looking back!” a voice yelled into the night air. “And keep up before you get hit!”
The sound of automatic rounds being fired plagued the night air as two thieves ran for their lives. Both were dressed in all black and had a duffle bag on their shoulders. Heart
s pounding violently, they kept their hooded heads ducked down as they pushed their feet to go as fast as they could. Bullets ricocheted off of the concrete and found homes in the cars parked on the street of the neighborhood they were running through. The neighborhood they were in was lit up by the streetlights, and people were peeking through their windows to see what all the commotion was outside of their homes.
“Move! Move!” one of the thieves shouted to a young woman who appeared out of nowhere. She had just stepped out of her white Toyota Corolla clutching a bag of groceries in her hand. She stood like a deer caught in a pair of headlights as she watched the two people running her way, waving wildly at her to move.
The warning came too late; she didn’t even see her death coming. She was clipped by multiple bullets in the center of her chest and blasted backward off of her feet. Her body slid down her car, smearing blood on the white paint the whole way down, and her eyes would forever be frozen open in surprise until somebody closed them.
There was no time to be sad at the innocent life lost because the assailants running after them weren’t letting up. The thieves were forced to make a quick right turn through somebody’s open gate and run on their neatly trimmed yard. The two lucked out because the backyard of the house led straight into the alley where they had parked their getaway vehicle. The first thief dropped the duffle bag onto the ground while still running full speed in front of the second. Jumping the fence effortlessly the thief waited for the partner to throw both duffle bags over before following suit. Once they were both over they picked the bags back up and continued their pace toward where the 2010 all-black Chevy Tahoe was parked in the shadows.
“They’re getting close!” the first thief said, jumping on and sliding over the hood of the truck.
“Hurry up and start the truck then!” the second thief yelled, yanking open the passenger’s door and hopping in before slamming it shut.
Looking to the right they saw the young thugs still toting their automatic weapons and climbing the fence.
“Go! Go!” the second thief said, and ducked just in time because the thugs wasted no time unloading their bullets into the vehicle.
The windows on the right side of the truck were instantly shattered and the first thief ducked down in the driver’s seat. The rapid fire made it almost impossible to sit back up, but with still hands the thief turned the key and started the engine. Driving was slightly hard due to the fact that both of their heads were ducked and neither could see, but the driver was adamant about getting them out of there. Turning the steering wheel all the way left, the driver hit a U-turn and mashed on the gas. With a loud screech they made a swift getaway before their opponents were able to get too close to them. They kept their heads down until they were sure they were out of range of the guns shooting at them.
“Hit that right.” The thief in the passenger’s seat guided the driver with expertise through North Omaha. “I parked off of Twenty-fourth and Lake by where the Blue Lion used to be, so take the back streets.”
“Why would you park so far from the job?”
“So if they followed us it would give us more time to lose them. Just shut up and drive, dude. You always have something to say.”
The tension in the car wasn’t uncommon after a job that led to a near-death experience for the pair. They didn’t head in the direction of where the second car was parked until they were certain they weren’t being followed. Once they got as close as they needed to, they parked the shot-up truck in front of an abandoned house and wiped down the inside of it before grabbing the two duffle bags. It wasn’t the first time the two had ditched a car so they both knew the drill; nothing was left behind. Shielded by the night sky, they ran the remaining two blocks to the gold 2002 Chevy Impala they had stolen earlier that day.
“What time is it?”
“Almost ten,” the second thief said, pulling away from the curb and finally removing the face mask. “Take your mask and hoodie off so we can dump them on the way home.”
“Sometimes I swear you’re the big sister and not me, Rhonnie.”
Rhonnie smirked at her older sister as she drove up Lake Street. “You know I’ve always been the more responsible one. Two years means nothing, Ahli.”
“Sike. Just get us home. Turn on some Eric Bellinger. His voice always calms me down after a night like this.”
Rhonnie did as she was told and turned on her sister’s favorite song by Eric: “Imagination.” Although she wanted to discuss the contents of the bags they had in the back seat, she knew it wasn’t the time or the place. She knew that their father had sent them on the mission for a reason; but usually they robbed people of cash and jewels, sometimes artwork. Not—
“Stop thinking so much,” Ahli interrupted Rhonnie’s thoughts with her head laid back and her eyes closed. She already knew what was going on through her sister’s nosey head. “I want to know too, but we can ask him when we get home.”
As always, Ahli was reading her mind. Sometimes Rhonnie felt like the two of them should have been twins by the way they were always in sync. Rhonnie couldn’t do anything but sigh and continue driving. She was trying to get back out West as fast as she could because she knew their current area would soon be swarming with cops and that was the last thing that they needed. They rode, listening to the soft crooning coming from the speakers for the next thirty minutes, until they finally reached their destination.
Pressing the circular button on the remote hanging from the Impala’s visor, Rhonnie pulled the car into the garage of the vast five-bedroom brick house. She planned to dump the car early the next day; however, at that moment, they needed to sit still for a while. The streets were too hot for them to be anywhere but home right then, especially since they knew for sure at least one person got killed.
The girls grabbed the bags from the back seat of the car and walked inside of the house, but not before shutting the garage door behind them.
“Dad!” Rhonnie yelled out, not able to contain herself. She didn’t care if he was asleep. “Daddy!”
“Chill, NaNa,” Ahli said, shooting her little sister a look as they made their way into the living room of their home.
“Fuck that,” Rhonnie said, dropping the bag she was holding on the coffee table. She plopped down on the black leather couch. After she kicked the black Timberlands off of her feet she crossed her arms and shook her foot impatiently.
Her eyes were focused on the spiral staircase by the foyer of the house, and they stayed there until she saw the familiar Ralph Lauren house slippers making their way down the carpeted steps. When Quinton Malone entered the living room a smile spread on his face as soon as he saw both of the duffle bags on the black marble coffee table.
“Good work,” he told them; but his smile soon faded when his eyes met his younger daughter’s. “Why the long face, NaNa?”
Rhonnie took a deep breath before she mustered up the courage to come at her father with any form of disrespect. She glanced at Ahli, who in turn just shrugged her shoulders.
So much for backup, Rhonnie thought. “Daddy, why you got us stealing coke?” she finally asked. “You had us getting shot at for cocaine! Of all things! Since when did you become a drug dealer?”
Quinton figured that the question would be coming so he was prepared for it. He sat down in his favorite chair, the La-Z-Boy diagonal from the couch that his daughters were sitting on. He observed them and saw the sweat still glistening on their foreheads and the tiredness in their eyes. He felt a small pang of guilt, but not enough to regret sending them to do the job. It wasn’t the first time that they had been shot at, and he was sure that it wouldn’t be the last either. He stared his daughter square in the eyes until she blinked.
“I never said I was a drug dealer.” He spoke in a smooth voice, but his children knew him well enough to recognize the deadly undertone. “The contents in those bags are probably only worth fifty thousand dollars combined. I have a buyer who is willing to pay double that.”
“Exactly the reason I didn’t say anything. I need you both to trust me.”
“Trust you? I do trust you but, Daddy, having that in the house is probably the dumbest thing we have ever done. I don’t want to be around it. Period. And you had us out there risking our lives for it. I thought we were there to grab bags of money. This was supposed to be one of our last jobs.”
“That is money, or it will be. This is an opportunity that I can’t pass up. Can you?”
“If I would have known I was going to be robbing a house full of people with automatic weapons I definitely would have,” Rhonnie shot back, not letting up on her dad.
Quinton sighed and rubbed his large hand down the neatly trimmed beard on his face. Whereas Ahli was more like their mother, Rhonnie was just like him. From her bullheaded frame of mind to her stubborn attitude, she was definitely Quinton Jr. However, he knew she had a “get money” mentality just like him, so that was what he homed in on at that moment.
“So, you’re going to let the job you just did go unpaid for? A’ight, go drop those bags off somewhere then, miss out on all of that money. I’ll hit Lance up and see if has another job for you.”
For that, Rhonnie had no comment. She had become accustomed to being able to drive any kind of car she wanted and being able to wear whatever designer she saw fit. Instead of responding to her father she just looked at her feet. Inside she was fuming but, he was right, she didn’t just risk her life for nothing.
“When do they expect us to deliver?” Ahli finally chimed in. “Because, Rhonnie is right, we need to get that stuff out of the house as soon as possible, Daddy. I don’t feel right being around it. I know we do some bad shit, but we ain’t never had to lay a hand on narcotics. If this is the first time, it has to be the last time.”
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