was tempted. I dreamed about home, about escaping or being rescued, but the risk of losing all of you was more than I could handle.”
Lucy picked nervously at her fingernail. “He would have killed me because he was cartel?”
Sage snorted. Someone talked, and she bet that someone was Alex. “Who told you?”
“Ax and I talked. Don’t be mad. He didn’t give me any details. I wanted to hear those from you.”
Sage wasn’t mad. If anything, she felt relieved. “He played me from the very beginning. I thought he was a businessman. If I’d known he was a lieutenant in a freaking drug cartel, I would have ended it. I certainly wouldn’t have gone with him to Mexico. He knew that, so he lied—and I didn’t ask because I didn’t care. I just wanted out. The real Carlos didn’t appear until shortly after our arrival.”
“The real Carlos?” Lucy asked.
“You know how awful Ryan was? Well, Carlos makes him look like a joke. He’s evil, Lu, and I’m not just talking about what he did to me. I’m talking down-to-his-black-hateful-heart evil. He knew every move I made, sometimes before I even made it. He’s a control freak and a narcissist. He would have seen you coming from a mile away and would have taken you out before you ever stepped foot on his property.”
Years ago, before Buck and Alex joined the club, they worked for a man named Dooley Shane. Dooley was a madman. He did horrible things and ended up dead because of it. A little over nine months ago, his son, Ryan, showed up in Austin wanting revenge. Ryan was insane, but Carlos was worse, way worse.
Lucy gave her an accessing look. “Lieutenant means what exactly, that he’s the boss?”
“It means he gives the boss’s orders to the rest of the men and everyone jumps. If they don’t, he kills them.”
“Ahhh, a small man on a power trip, which means that he’s most-likely expendable,” Lucy noted. “Does Steele know all of this?”
He knew most of it. She had yet to tell him the rest. “I talked to Alex and Steele before breakfast.”
“Alex is worried about you.”
“I know.”
“You know I love you, but what you did was both reckless and idiotic.”
“I know,” Sage whispered while trying not to cry.
“Okay, well, I’m going to just come right out and ask, did Carlos rape you?”
Wow, talk about blunt. Staring at her hands, Sage thought about how to respond. Did she always want sex with Carlos? No. Once the beatings started, she didn’t want it at all. Did she tell him this? No. She was too scared. “When I think of rape, I think of the girl I knew in high school who was dragged behind the bleachers and left for dead. This wasn’t like that. You don’t tell a man like Carlos no. I didn’t want it, but I also didn’t stop it from happening.” She shrugged. “I’m not sure what that makes it.”
“Sounds like rape to me,” Lucy muttered. “Move over.” Sage scooted sideways, and Lucy piled in next to her. When they were settled, Lucy said, “Tell me about the abuse.”
Sage told her everything she’d told Steele and Alex, but with more detail. She was getting to the part that she had yet to share with them when Lucy’s phone rang.
“Hold that thought.” Lucy crawled off the bed to retrieve her purse. After a short conversation with someone named Stan about some misfiled legal documents, she ended the call. While shoving her phone back inside her purse, she mumbled, “I swear, they can’t do anything without me.”
“Go, we can talk later,” Sage told her.
“I’m sorry,” Lucy sighed. “I promise we’ll talk later. I still need to catch you up on some things.”
Lucy left and Sage finished putting the new purchases away. After getting a squeaky-clean Petal ready for her nap, she headed to the bathroom. Bathing proved difficult with the use of only one hand, so she more or less did a quick soap and rinse. By the time she was out of the bath and dressed, Petal was fast asleep—which was good because she was too exhausted to pretend anymore. Her wrist hurt, her face ached, and her heart was in tatters. She was barely holding on by a thread—a thread that was unraveling faster than she could keep up with. She wanted to cry, to rage, to lose her shit in a way that she would never get it back, but she couldn’t. Instead, she had to put on