Page 44 of Hunted By Them

“Stupid fucking bastard,” I muttered, shoving the photo into my pocket.

Sage wasn’t here. She was probably staying at a friend’s or at a hotel until the door was fixed. She was safe…for now, but this kind of rage…I glanced around. It was unpredictable, and that made Connor very dangerous.

I stood in the wreckage of her apartment and swore to myself. Connor was breathing on borrowed time.

Sage

The hotel water scalded like Hades, but I didn’t care. I stood under the spray until my skin was red. Scrubbing until I didn’t know if I was washing off my anger or wishing that it were hands making my skin sting.

The cops’ questions still echoed like an interrogation tape.

“Did you notice anyone suspicious? Do you have enemies, Ms. Harlow? Why do you think it’s your ex? You’ve recently been through a traumatic experience. Could this have something to do with that?”

I’d almost laughed at the last question and had to rub my face to hide my reaction. No, it definitely didn’t have anything to do with my three masked men. If all three of them had broken in, the apartment might have been tossed, but not like that. And unless my boss hated me enough to risk breaking a nail terrorizing my apartment, this was Connor.

Shutting off the tap, I leaned against the tile, breath fogging the sliding doors. My hands still trembled with anger. Anger at Connor, at the cops, at the universe that kept yanking me around.

I felt trapped in the strange space between the hollow normal life I didn’t want and the wild storm I couldn’t stop craving.

Toweling off, I pulled on the thin hotel robe and padded into the room. I’d splurged and decided to stay at the nicest hotel in the city, and that meant they had a minibar. But tonight, I was calling it my guilt-free friend. I poured a tiny bottle of vodka into a plastic cup, topped it with cranberry juice, and swallowed half of it in one go. The burn grounded me.

My phone buzzed with another message. I didn’t have to look to know it was Mom.

Sighing and grumbling under my breath, I called her.

Mom answered on the first ring, voice filled with panic.

“Sage? Thank God. Are you okay? You said there was a break-in? What happened? Did they hurt you?”

“I’m fine.” I sank onto the bed. “I wasn’t there at the time, and there was no they. It was Connor. My lock is busted, so I’m at a hotel for tonight while maintenance replaces my door.”

“I’m flying out. I’ll be there tomorrow.”

“No.” The word came out harder than I meant. “You’re not.”

“Don’t tell me no. You’ve been missing, you’ve been found, and now your apartment was broken into, and you say it was Connor. Sage, what the hell is going on?”

“The two things don’t have anything to do with one another.” I sighed, running a hand through my damp hair. “Connor is pissed that I won’t take him back and threw a tantrum. I can handle it. I don’t need you flying across the country to hover. I love you, but no.”

Her voice sharpened, part of it fear, part of it fury.

“So let me get this straight. You go from having a stable boyfriend who is quite the catch, talking about marriage and the next stages of your life, to what? You break up with Connor, you disappear without a trace, and ignore my calls. What the hell is happening to you? Is this some sort of midlife crisis?”

I glared at my phone. “It’s pretty hard to have a midlife crisis when you’re still in your twenties, Mom. Unless you plan on me dying at forty,” I snapped, annoyed now.

“You know what I mean.”

“No, I really don’t. I told you that Connor was cheating on me, not once, not a mistake, not an oops or whatever other adjective you want to put on it…an ongoing affair. Might as well tell you I quit my job today as well.”

“You what? You loved your job.”

“No, I liked my job, but my boss is a nightmare, and she has only gotten worse. Margaret is a toxic nightmare, and I’m not wasting my life making her look good anymore.”

“You need stability, Sage!”

“What I need is to breathe.” My voice cracked, surprising me. “Please. Just…let me figure out what I want for my life. It’s my life, and if I want to travel the world, or decide to live off the grid, or start my own business, then that is what I’m going to do. I’m not going crazy. I just realized that I’m not going to settle for a life that I’m not happy with.”

Silence stretched. Then Mom sighed, weary.