Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 71226 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 356(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 237(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71226 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 356(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 237(@300wpm)
Every appeal that I filed was shot down before I could even formulate a plan.
But then, one day while I was getting jumped, one of the guys told me the reason that this—this being the beatings—would never end was because I’d “taken the woman.”
I took that to mean that, since I’d taken Sage up on the marriage proposal, I’d foiled their plans.
Taken away something more important than Mario’s life.
I’d taken away the woman that needed to be punished right along with me.
By doing that, I’d outsmarted them. We’d outsmarted them.
Something in which they would never allow to let stand.
Honestly, Apollo’s offer to get me out couldn’t have come at a better time.
I’d denied the divorce decree and they hadn’t liked it.
I would’ve been dead within a month.
Speaking of Apollo, my phone rang and I noticed his name on the caller ID log.
“You get her here?” I asked.
Apollo chuckled. “Of course I did. She’s on her way.”
I breathed a sigh of relief.
There was no love between Sage and me.
She was a gorgeous woman. Looked like a woman right out of every man’s fantasy.
But the times had been tough when we’d been pushed into each other’s lives.
She was the reason that I’d lost my son.
That was something that I could never get over.
Not to mention, she wasn’t going to want someone who was ten years older than her and reminded her of one of the worst moments of her life.
However, that didn’t mean that I wanted her to suffer.
If Apollo could hide me, he could hide her.
I just had to get her here.
And hopefully convince her to change her name and delete herself off the face of the earth.
In the meantime, Sage would have her trail deleted, her bank accounts hidden, and all of her paperwork through the agency she’d taken the six-month job for changed to reflect a different person.
In essence, Apollo would be deleting her entire footprint without actually informing her.
It was underhanded and all, but I couldn’t risk my new life for her.
I just hoped she forgave me when she figured out why I’d done it.
Not because I wanted to save Sage, but because I wanted to stick it to Dario O’Neal. To Devin Rice. To the mob leader, Sean O’Sullivan.
Fuck them.
Fuck them all.
I hoped that, despite my reasoning for bringing her here, she integrated well. Oh, and decided to keep the name change and change her appearance and possibly create herself a new life far away from the freaks that were her family.
And not draw attention to herself.
“It’s all set up and ready to go,” Apollo said. “She left yesterday in my boy’s truck. No way for anyone to track it, either. She did us a favor and cleared out her bank account. I was able to finagle it with the bank that they gave it all to her, and none of it will be able to be traced. They were non-sequential bills. And all of the money was moved in such a way that there’s no way to trace it. Bank manager only knows he helped someone. He doesn’t know who that someone is. I have a couple of guys following her out. I don’t want that money stolen or her to be hurt.”
When I’d first asked Apollo to get Sage out, I’d originally wanted her to be as far away from me as possible. But Apollo had pointed out that it was kind of hard to create a secure area for people without having safeguards in place. And that I was asking a lot of him by not making it easy for him.
The man did have a point.
I blew out a relieved breath. “Thank you.”
I didn’t know why I was doing all this.
Hell, I didn’t know why I’d gotten her name—or a nickname of her name—tattooed on my chest.
I didn’t know why I worried about her every second of every day.
Didn’t know why I dropped that damn dog off with her the day before I was sent to prison.
I didn’t know what it was about her that made me fucking care.
I just did.
“Thanks, Apollo,” I repeated sincerely. “This means a lot to me.”
“I fuckin’ hate when people try to intimidate the little guy,” he said. “It’s disgusting.”
I never thought of myself as a “little guy” until I saw what money did for the “big guy.”
It bought everything.
And fuck everyone else that got in their way.
Four
Live. Laugh. Toaster Bath.
—Or whatever that sign said
Sage
The news of Gentry’s death hit me like a physical blow.
I was in shock.
For seven years, he’d been safe.
No news was good news, according to the prison warden.
Then, all of a sudden, the hospital where I was working in was shook.
Inmates were on their way to the ER, and everything was being shut down because these inmates were the worst of the worst.
I’d been terrified that I’d see Gentry there among the wounded.