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.
