Destroy For Her - R.B. Hilliard Page 0,6

from his hand.

As his eyes scanned over her face, she noticed he was a decent-looking man. Too bad he was involved with a drug cartel. “How long has it been since you’ve slept?”

“Mommy was awake the whole way here, and that was like a gazillion hours,” Petal chimed in from the backseat.

“Tattletale,” Sage teased.

“In that case, these are going to knock you on your ass. You’d better call your people before you crash.” He extracted his cell phone from the cradle and handed it to her.

Sage thought about calling Lucy, but it wasn’t Lucy’s club she was asking for protection. It was Steele’s. Thankfully, she’d memorized his number.

Steele answered on the third ring. “Hello?” Sage could hear music playing in the background.

“It’s Sage.” That was all she got out before the floodgates opened, and she broke into a sobbing, snotty mess.

“Turn it down!” Steele shouted. “Sage, darlin’, I need you to calm down and talk to me.”

Martin took the phone from her hands and said, “This is Martin. We’re two and a half hours from Corpus. Fair warning, she’s banged up pretty bad.” A long moment passed before he said, “Yeah, her face is banged up, and her arm may be broken. She hasn’t slept in who knows how long, and I’m about to dose her with codeine.” After another pause, he said, “The kid’s with us,” followed by, “Great, man, see you in a few.”

“Is Mommy going to be okay?” Petal asked.

“Your mother is going to be just fine,” Martin replied, handing Sage a bottle of water. She was shaking so badly she couldn’t get the pill bottle open, so he opened it for her.

With a quiet “Thanks,” she swallowed the pills. The last thing she heard before she drifted to sleep was the sweet sound of her daughter’s laughter.

Chapter Three

THE SOUND OF a phone ringing pulled Ax from a dead sleep. Between work, the club, and his social life, he’d had a busy few weeks. The late nights and early mornings were starting to catch up to him. Lack of sleep was messing with his head, causing him to do stupid shit like putting a carburetor on the wrong bike. That happened earlier this afternoon. It was a stupid mistake, something a rookie—not an experienced mechanic—would do. Pissed at himself, he decided to cut out early. He rode straight home, where he ate an early dinner and crashed. Now the phone was ringing. If he wasn’t trying to win the VP position, he would have turned the damn thing off before hitting the sack. Irritated, he rolled onto his side and reached for his phone while at the same time thinking that this on-call-twenty-four-seven shit was killing him and that maybe he didn’t want to be VP after all. Phone in hand, he slowly peeled an eye open and squinted at the blurry screen. Shit, Steele was calling.

“Everything okay,” the sleepy, sweet-voice beside him asked.

“Gotta get this,” he grumbled before swiping his finger across the screen and answering, “Yeah?”

“Did I wake you?” Steele asked. He replied with a grunt, to which Steele responded, “Brace brother. I just got a call from Sage.”

Ax’s eyes flew open, his entire body tensing at the mention of Sage’s name. “Shit, hold up a minute.” He kicked off the covers and rolled out of bed. Halfway across the room, he bent down and scooped his jeans from the floor.

“Ax?”

“Go back to sleep, babe,” he tossed over his shoulder as he headed out the door, making sure to pull it shut behind him. He made it to the living room before asking, “Is she okay?”

“She’ll be in Corpus in just over two hours and needs a pickup. Doc and I are taking the cage to get her.”

Ax’s chest constricted. “Why, Doc?”

Steele hesitated a fraction of a second before replying, “The guy driving said she was hurt.”

“Fuck! Hurt, how?”

“He said her face was banged up and she might have a broken arm.”

“Petal?” Ax barely managed to choke out.

“She’s with them.” Before he could ask, Steele said, “The guy only mentioned Sage being hurt.”

Ax lowered his head and stared at his feet, his gut burning at the thought. Why was Sage hurt? Better yet, who’d hurt her? “I’m coming with you.”

“Fine, we’re at The Cave. Get here as quick as you can. We don’t want to leave her waiting too long.”

Ax ended the call and pulled on his jeans before making his way back to the bedroom.

“You okay?” Em asked.

His mind was so filled with Sage