Ignoring the blood streaming down her face, he asked, “Did you have a nice call last night?”
She should have known they were watching her. “I just called to talk to my friend,” she sputtered.
“Liar, you called to check on him.”
Sage’s heart stuttered inside her chest. “Who?”
“Your precious Alex.” At her shocked expression, he asked, “What? You think I didn’t know?”
She’d never mentioned her feelings for Alex, never once let on that he was anything more than a friend. “Alex is just a friend, Carlos. There’s nothing to know.”
“Liar,” he screamed, hitting her again.
That fight earned her five stitches from the creepy doctor and five days locked inside her room. Rosa took pity on her. Each time Carlos left the house, she snuck Petal in for a visit.
That time, when he offered his apologies and excuses, Sage knew better than to believe him.
“Estamos aquì, Miss Sage,” Alon whispered.
Sage jumped at the interruption. We’re here! “In Matamoros?” she asked.
“Sì. Silencio,” he replied, and motioned for them to cover up.
“What is it, Mommy?” Petal whispered as Sage pulled the blanket over their heads.
“Quiet, baby.”
Alon rolled down his window and they heard him speaking Spanish to someone. A minute passed before the rear door screeched open, causing them both to jump.
“Shhh,” Sage whispered in Petal’s ear.
What seemed like forever later, the door slammed shut, and they were once again on the move.
Not long after that, Sage felt the truck slow to a stop.
“Estamos aquì, Miss Sage,” Alon called out.
A gush of pent up air shot from Sage’s mouth as she gingerly pulled the blanket from their heads. The back door screeched open, and the glare of a flashlight spilled across them.
“Sorry,” a voice said, and the light quickly disappeared. Even though it was dark outside, Sage could still make out the man in the open doorway. He was wearing a t-shirt, jeans, and a baseball cap.
“Welcome, Sage and Petal. I’m Martin,” he announced in perfect English. Petal flinched back behind Sage.
“It’s okay, baby, Martin is going to drive us home,” Sage told her.
Alon urged them to hurry. “Come, come.”
Sage held out her uninjured hand and he latched onto it. Her muscles had tightened up from sitting for so long, making the pain close to unbearable. She was sweating by the time they got her out of the truck.
Martin took one look at her face and started drilling Alon in fluent Spanish. Sage noticed his jaw getting tighter and tighter during Alon’s very lengthy response.
Finally, the conversation ended, and they were ready to go. After saying their goodbyes to Alon, Martin helped get them settled into his Durango.
“What time is it?” Sage asked.
“A quarter ‘til eleven. How much pain are you in?”
“If we’re talking on a scale of one to ten, I’m at a fifteen.”
“I didn’t realize you were this hurt. Luca didn’t tell me. He said to bring pain medicine, but I didn’t realize—”
“Please,” she whispered, “just drive.”
He held up a pill bottle. “I have Ibuprofen.”
“Thanks, but no thanks,” she replied.
He shook the bottle. “It’s got codeine in it.”
“Gimme,” she said, grabbing the bottle from his hand.
As his eyes scanned over her face, she noticed he was a decent-looking man. Too bad he was involved with a drug cartel. “How long has it been since you’ve slept?”
“Mommy was awake the whole way here, and that was like a gazillion hours,” Petal chimed in from the backseat.
“Tattletale,” Sage teased.
“In that case, these are going to knock you on your ass. You’d better call your people before you crash.” He extracted his cell phone from the cradle and handed it to her.
Sage thought about calling Lucy, but it wasn’t Lucy’s club she was asking for protection. It was Steele’s. Thankfully, she’d memorized his number.
Steele answered on the third ring. “Hello?” Sage could hear music playing in the background.
“It’s Sage.” That was all she got out before the floodgates opened, and she broke into a sobbing, snotty mess.
“Turn it down!” Steele shouted. “Sage, darlin’, I need you to calm down and talk to me.”
Martin took the phone from her hands and said, “This is Martin. We’re two and a half hours from Corpus. Fair warning, she’s banged up pretty bad.” A long moment passed before he said, “Yeah, her face is banged up, and her arm may be broken. She hasn’t slept in who knows how long, and I’m about to dose her with codeine.” After another pause, he said, “The kid’s with us,” followed by, “Great, man, see you in a few.”
“Is Mommy going to be okay?” Petal asked.
“Your mother is going to be just fine,” Martin replied, handing Sage a bottle of water. She was shaking so badly she couldn’t get the pill bottle open, so he opened it for her.
With a quiet “Thanks,” she swallowed the pills. The last thing she heard before she drifted to sleep was the sweet sound of her daughter’s laughter.
Chapter Three
THE SOUND OF a phone ringing pulled Ax from a dead sleep. Between work, the club, and his social life, he’d had a busy few weeks. The late nights and early mornings were starting to catch up to him. Lack of sleep was messing with his head, causing him to do stupid shit like putting a carburetor on the wrong bike. That happened earlier this afternoon. It was a stupid mistake, something a rookie—not an experienced mechanic—would do. Pissed at himself, he decided to cut out early. He rode straight home, where he ate an early dinner and crashed. Now the phone was ringing. If he wasn’t trying to win the VP position, he would have turned the damn thing off before hitting the sack. Irritated, he rolled onto his side and reached for his phone while at the same time thinking that this on-call-twenty-four-seven shit was killing him and that maybe he didn’t want to be VP after all. Phone in hand, he slowly peeled an eye open and squinted at the blurry screen. Shit, Steele was calling.
“Everything okay,” the sleepy, sweet-voice beside him asked.
“Gotta get this,” he grumbled before swiping his finger across the screen and answering, “Yeah?”
“Did I wake you?” Steele asked. He replied with a grunt, to which Steele responded, “Brace brother. I just got a call from Sage.”
Ax’s eyes flew open, his entire body tensing at the mention of Sage’s name. “Shit, hold up a minute.” He kicked off the covers and rolled out of bed. Halfway across the room, he bent down and scooped his jeans from the floor.
“Ax?”
“Go back to sleep, babe,” he tossed over his shoulder as he headed out the door, making sure to pull it shut behind him. He made it to the living room before asking, “Is she okay?”
“She’ll be in Corpus in just over two hours and needs a pickup. Doc and I are taking the cage to get her.”