Chapter Eight
LUCY RETURNED WHILE Petal was in the bath. Trudging behind her, loaded down like a pack mule, was one of the new prospects. Sage was pretty sure his name was Art. At Lucy’s instruction, he placed his cargo on the foot of the bed. His eyes touched on Sage’s face, anger flashing in their depths before he turned and walked out of the room. It was sweet that everyone cared so much, but she was getting tired of the tense-jawed, angry-eyed looks.
“That was fun,” Lucy announced.
Sage gawked at the insane number of bags now littering the foot of the bed. “What did you do, buy out the entire mall?”
A wicked grin slowly spread across Lucy’s face. “Oh, this isn’t on me, sugar lumps.”
“Steele?” Sage asked, her eyes bulging in surprise.
“Nope, Ax. He said, and I quote, ‘Get them anything they need.’ So, I did.”
Sage’s heart soared; at the same time, her stomach pitched. This was too much. Tomorrow, she was going to figure out her finances so she could pay him back.
“Wowza!” Lucy exclaimed, “I didn’t even know this room was down here! I love the blue and taupe color scheme, and the recessed lighting almost makes you forget you’re in a basement with no windows.”
Sage was too busy rummaging through the bags to comment. Her crazy-ass friend had purchased everything from underwear to stylish outfits—and all on Alex’s dime. “This must have cost a fortune,” she grumbled.
Lucy rolled her eyes. “Ax is good for it. Where’s Petal?” She kicked off her heels and dropped onto the bench at the foot of the bed with a loud sigh. “My feet are killing me.”
“In the bath.” Sage held up a pair of obscenely short jean shorts. “Please tell me these are for Petal.”
“They’re for you. You should have told me about Carlos,” Lucy scolded.
“I know. I’m sorry. Don’t be mad.”
“I’m not mad; I’m worried. I knew something was wrong when you called. I should have said something, done something, I—”
Sage cut her off. “If I’d told you, you would have come for me. Carlos would have killed you, and that would have killed me. Believe me, I was tempted. I dreamed about home, about escaping or being rescued, but the risk of losing all of you was more than I could handle.”
Lucy picked nervously at her fingernail. “He would have killed me because he was cartel?”
Sage snorted. Someone talked, and she bet that someone was Alex. “Who told you?”
“Ax and I talked. Don’t be mad. He didn’t give me any details. I wanted to hear those from you.”
Sage wasn’t mad. If anything, she felt relieved. “He played me from the very beginning. I thought he was a businessman. If I’d known he was a lieutenant in a freaking drug cartel, I would have ended it. I certainly wouldn’t have gone with him to Mexico. He knew that, so he lied—and I didn’t ask because I didn’t care. I just wanted out. The real Carlos didn’t appear until shortly after our arrival.”
“The real Carlos?” Lucy asked.
“You know how awful Ryan was? Well, Carlos makes him look like a joke. He’s evil, Lu, and I’m not just talking about what he did to me. I’m talking down-to-his-black-hateful-heart evil. He knew every move I made, sometimes before I even made it. He’s a control freak and a narcissist. He would have seen you coming from a mile away and would have taken you out before you ever stepped foot on his property.”
Years ago, before Buck and Alex joined the club, they worked for a man named Dooley Shane. Dooley was a madman. He did horrible things and ended up dead because of it. A little over nine months ago, his son, Ryan, showed up in Austin wanting revenge. Ryan was insane, but Carlos was worse, way worse.
Lucy gave her an accessing look. “Lieutenant means what exactly, that he’s the boss?”
“It means he gives the boss’s orders to the rest of the men and everyone jumps. If they don’t, he kills them.”
“Ahhh, a small man on a power trip, which means that he’s most-likely expendable,” Lucy noted. “Does Steele know all of this?”
He knew most of it. She had yet to tell him the rest. “I talked to Alex and Steele before breakfast.”
“Alex is worried about you.”
“I know.”
“You know I love you, but what you did was both reckless and idiotic.”
“I know,” Sage whispered while trying not to cry.
“Okay, well, I’m going to just come right out and ask, did Carlos rape you?”
Wow, talk about blunt. Staring at her hands, Sage thought about how to respond. Did she always want sex with Carlos? No. Once the beatings started, she didn’t want it at all. Did she tell him this? No. She was too scared. “When I think of rape, I think of the girl I knew in high school who was dragged behind the bleachers and left for dead. This wasn’t like that. You don’t tell a man like Carlos no. I didn’t want it, but I also didn’t stop it from happening.” She shrugged. “I’m not sure what that makes it.”
“Sounds like rape to me,” Lucy muttered. “Move over.” Sage scooted sideways, and Lucy piled in next to her. When they were settled, Lucy said, “Tell me about the abuse.”
Sage told her everything she’d told Steele and Alex, but with more detail. She was getting to the part that she had yet to share with them when Lucy’s phone rang.
“Hold that thought.” Lucy crawled off the bed to retrieve her purse. After a short conversation with someone named Stan about some misfiled legal documents, she ended the call. While shoving her phone back inside her purse, she mumbled, “I swear, they can’t do anything without me.”
“Go, we can talk later,” Sage told her.
“I’m sorry,” Lucy sighed. “I promise we’ll talk later. I still need to catch you up on some things.”
Lucy left and Sage finished putting the new purchases away. After getting a squeaky-clean Petal ready for her nap, she headed to the bathroom. Bathing proved difficult with the use of only one hand, so she more or less did a quick soap and rinse. By the time she was out of the bath and dressed, Petal was fast asleep—which was good because she was too exhausted to pretend anymore. Her wrist hurt, her face ached, and her heart was in tatters. She was barely holding on by a thread—a thread that was unraveling faster than she could keep up with. She wanted to cry, to rage, to lose her shit in a way that she would never get it back, but she couldn’t. Instead, she had to put on a brave face and keep it together, just until she got things settled with Lucy and Alex, and then she could fall apart.
A quiet moan slipped from her lips as she crawled into bed beside Petal. How long had it been since she’d slept? Too long. After swallowing two of the pain pills Dr. Harvey had prescribed, she nestled in and tried to relax. They were safe, for now.
While waiting for the pills to kick in, she put a timeline to her plan. She figured she had about a week before Carlos came for her, maybe less. This meant she had a lot to do and barely enough time to do it in. First, she would talk to Lucy. She knew Lucy wouldn’t hesitate to take Petal. Yes, she would hate the circumstances, but she would never tell Sage no. Alex was a different story. He would argue. He wouldn’t understand—would want her to fight—but he didn’t know Carlos. He didn’t know the lengths Carlos would go to or the levels to which he would stoop. She was a possession, not a person. Carlos would take her leaving as a personal affront. She had no doubt that he would find her. When he did, he would kill everyone she loved. She was putting her friends, her family, in danger. Because of this, she had to hurry. Lucy could take care of the legal stuff. She and Alex would raise Petal, they could manage the money until Petal was of age, and Sage could return to Carlos knowing that her daughter was safe. She thought of Alex and his damned sense of honor. Funny how the same honor she’d once despised, she was now counting on.