Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 68576 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68576 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
Sage slow blinked a couple of times before snarling and launching herself at me.
I stepped out of the way, unsurprised by her act of violence.
That was another thing she liked to do.
Hit.
That was, in my honest to God opinion, why the men she was with always beat the shit out of her.
I imagined that they didn’t start out violent.
What I assumed happened was that Sage would lose her shit and then launch herself at him and beat him. He would have to calm her down—which she eventually would, offering so many apologies for her outburst—and then the pattern would repeat itself. Over and over again. Until you either reacted, or she grew bored.
Most of the time, I assumed, the men she was seeing—that she was abusing—grew tired of being the punching bag and snapped.
Some would leave—but they were the kind of men that Sage didn’t want anyway, so she didn’t pursue them. She wanted the ones who would get angry. She wanted the ones who would react.
She wanted the ones who would fight back, so she could eventually use that to her advantage.
Hell, I was fairly sure blackmailing a guy who hit her had been how she’d paid for her first car.
Expecting her attack, and expertly defending myself against it, I let her momentum roll with her and used it against her.
See, Sage was only fueled by anger and a mental disorder.
Me, on the other hand?
The first day I was well enough to go to a class after she’d beaten the hell out of me, I’d started taking Jiu Jitsu.
I’d learned how to protect myself against her.
Since then, I’d started taking multiple other kinds of martial arts, and deflecting her blows was easy.
“Would you just stop,” I said after the fourth time she ran at me. “Be an adult about this, Sage.”
“Fuck you!” she snarled, reaching into her purse.
Hopefully she didn’t have a gun in there.
But she came back out with a knife, making me roll my eyes.
“I’m gonna go,” I said. “But if you want to talk it over like two adults, I’ll be at the fancy hotel off the interstate that’s all black. That’s where I’m staying for the time being.”
I didn’t tell her about where I worked.
She didn’t need to know that.
Though, I had no doubt she’d figure it out.
She was a super sleuther.
She also slept with people to get what she wanted.
Oh, and had the sexually transmitted disease to prove it.
Not that she shared that information with the partners she sex-tortioned.
Again, another sparkly facet of my sister’s personality.
She was a real gem, wasn’t she?
“Fuck you!” she cried.
I walked out of her apartment.
I’d gotten the information about where she was living from a friend of a friend who was good with computers.
I didn’t have to resort to sleeping with people for information like my sister did.
I hoofed it down the stairs, and headed to my car, my phone already in my hand.
“How did it go?” Everest asked when he answered.
“Probably not good based on how her face looks,” Tarrant drawled.
I’d Facetimed both of them so they could be my alibis in case Sage tried to pull some bullshit on me like saying that I had hurt her in some way.
This way, they could see that I’d left free of any scrapes or bruises, relatively unharmed.
“It went splendidly,” I grumbled. “I’m just calling to establish an alibi.”
Both of my brothers laughed.
But they knew just as well as I did that I was being serious.
My sister liked to make up sensational stories and blame me for stuff I didn’t do. I wouldn’t put it past her to file a police report for hurting her in some way.
Jerk.
The only thing I want from the streets are tacos.
—Atlas’s secret thoughts
ATLAS
“What?” I asked, voice incredulous at Sage’s words.
“You heard me.” Sage gritted her teeth. “My sister is in town, and she’s working at that bakery that y’all love.”
Pie Hard.
Maven’s place.
Then a sick sort of understanding started to fill my gut.
That’s why the woman had looked so familiar.
Because she was Sage’s sister.
Fuck.
“Why is she here?” I asked, trying to hide the disappointment I felt.
I’d heard all about Pepper Solomon.
And what I heard, I didn’t like.
That’s when I felt my belly sink to somewhere below my knees.
I didn’t like tears. I especially didn’t like tears from someone I cared about.
And Sage was full on crying now. “She came to rub it in my face that my mother passed away, and they didn’t tell me, and I missed her funeral.”
That fuckin’ bitch.
“What?” I asked, voice aghast at her words.
“How fucking hard was it to make a phone call?” she sniffled.
I pulled her into my arms, patting her on the back.
I wouldn’t say that Sage and I were best friends, by any means. But I cared about her. I was worried for her safety.
We hung out once every couple of weeks, and she updated me on her life plans. Today was the day we’d scheduled; it just so happened to coincide well with her sister’s blows.