by Sophia Gray
But they both ignored me, not that I could think up of a job.
“What do you mean?” he asked slowly.
“What do I mean? Come on, Trenton! You can’t expect—”
“A mechanic!” I shouted. “Trenton, you could be a mechanic. Just think about the amount of money you could charge per hour! It would be perfect! You like motorcycles, right? You have to be handy with them.”
He didn’t even glance my way. The look on his face as he stalked toward Sage left me terrified. “What do you mean I’ll have to skip town?” he asked, his voice terribly cold.
I tried to jerk my wrists, twisting and yanking, trying to loosen the impossibly tight restraints, but I was bound too tightly. I couldn’t get free.
Sage backed up. “You…You don’t listen to me,” she said, her voice quivering.
He advanced more. “You don’t listen to me half the time.”
She bumped into the TV as she kept backing up. “You don’t care about my friends.”
“You never cared for mine.” He narrowed the distance between them.
By now, Sage was as far away from him as she could get, trapped in a corner.
He stood in front of her, arms up, pining her there in place. “You aren’t planning on leaving me, are you?”
There was a raw edge of pain in his voice. Despite his loudness, despite his threats, despite his anger, he cared, almost too much. He had made Sage his whole world, pinned all of his faith and trust in her. Too bad he didn’t know how to treat her right so that she’s stay by his side.
“Trenton,” she said desperately.
I had to say something, anything to get them to stop. “I have to pee!” I shouted even though that tactic hadn’t worked earlier.
Neither looked at me.
“Well?” Trenton demanded.
“I…I don’t…”
“Don’t what?” His grip on the gun tightened. It wasn’t pointed at her, but how long would that remain the case?
“Fire!” I shrieked, desperate enough to try screaming again. “Help! Someone call the police! We’re being—”
Something hard slammed against my head. For a second, my vision darkened to total blackness, but then I blinked and lifted my head.
Trenton was staring down at me. “You pull that shit again, and I swear I’ll kill you.”
My head was pounding, and my ears were ringing. I knew I mouthed the word, “Fire,” but whether or not I actually said it, I didn’t know.
He brought up his arm again.
Sage grabbed his arm and pulled back. “Don’t you hit her!” she shrieked. “You stupid fuck. Don’t you see you ruined everything? I thought I loved you. I wanted to live with you, to marry you, to have our lives be one. I didn’t need money. I needed you! But you had to go and get sucked back up into the darkness. You had to go and fuck it all up.” She took a deep breath, and I thought she was going to burst into tears, but she just narrowed her eyes and slammed her fists onto his chest. “You—”
He grabbed both of her wrists with one hand. “‘Loved,’ huh? You mean to tell me you don’t love me anymore?”
Her eyes went wide, and she twisted around to look at me.
Tell him you love him still, I tried to tell her with my eyes.
“I…” She hesitated.
“Don’t look at her!” Trenton shook Sage.
She shrieked. “You’re hurting me!”
“Do you love me?” Trenton demanded.
“Do you love me?” Sage countered.
Good. That might work.
“Or do you love your drugs or money more?” she continued.
Fuck.
Trenton went to strike her.
I lunged forward, and the chair tipped over, clattering to the ground with me still tied to it.
Trenton, cursing under his breath, put me back upright. He kept his face inches from mine. “You did this. You twisted her against me.”
A sudden wave of lethargy washed over me. “No,” I said, my speech slurring slightly. “You did that yourself.”
Sage was back to crying again, like she had when I first came. Had he broken her? Damn it. This wasn’t good. What the fuck could I do to get us out of this mess?
“Trenton,” I said desperately.
“Shut up,” he directed toward Sage. He turned back to me. “That goes for you, too.”
I glowered at him. Who the fuck did he think he was? The sympathy I might’ve felt for him was swiftly disappearing. At some point, you had to stop using your upbringing as an excuse and start taking responsibility for your actions. And his actions weren’t of a man in love. More like a man who desperately wanted some measure of control. “Trenton, you have one last chance,” I said. “Let us go. I’ll give you some money. You can create an alias and start over fresh, away from the drugs and all of that crap. Or you can wait for Grant to come. Because you know he’s coming. And it won’t be with the money.”
“You think Grant’s gonna save you, honey?” He laughed long and loud and obnoxiously. “Grant doesn’t give a damn about anyone.”
A shiver ran down my spine. I didn’t believe what he was saying. I couldn’t. Grant did give a damn—about me, about Trenton even.
“If you thought he doesn’t give a damn about me,” I said slowly.
He started to nod. “Then why the whole ransom bit? Just in case. I’m running out of options, and that makes me desperate.” The guy actually stroked his gun, petting it.
I swallowed hard. He had crossed the line into madness. Whether or not it was drug-induced or full blown, I didn’t know and it didn’t matter.
Think, Victoria! How can you calm him down?
Talking about the past was out. That would only get him to remember bad memories. Talking about the future was out, too. Money issues would only cause him more stress. What about right now?
Thinking about Corinne made me think about the beach, and I blurted out, “What about a destination wedding?”
Sage burst into a fresh round of tears, and I did my best not to grimace. Yeah, dangling her before him might not be for the best, but Trenton wasn’t the only one running out of options.
“You could pick an island. Get married on the beach. Start a new life. Trenton, you don’t have to do this!”
He kneeled down in front of me. “Oh, but, Victoria, here’s the thing: I already am. And aren’t parents supposed to encourage kids to see things through until the bitter end?”
“The end doesn’t have to be bitter,” I said softly.
Trenton glowered at Sage over his shoulder. “It already is.”
Fuck. If he thought things between him and Sage were really over, it would only make him that much more desperate, that much more unpredictable.
“Yes, it is,” Sage said. She continued to cry, but she seemed angrier now. “How can you expect me to want to be with you when you would tie up my mom? Threaten us with a gun?”
“I was doing this all for you! Can’t you see that?” he asked, almost pleading, although his tone was getting edgier and angrier, too.
“I think—” I started, but neither of them were paying me any attention.
“You’ve always been so demanding,” Sage said.
“Me? What about you? You always wanted me to buy you shit like that stupid dress that made your ass look huge.”
“There’s no need for—”
Again, they ignored me.
“Maybe if you had been truthful about how the dress looked on me—” Sage started.
“It’s not about the fucking dress!” he shouted.
“Damn straight it’s not. It’s about how you couldn’t be completely truthful ever. I liked you right from the start because you were mysterious, you were a bad ass, and you had charm. But you took forever to open up to me to shed the mystery, you could be just a plain ass, and you were charming only when you wanted to be.”
“I opened up to you,” he protested, his voice not quite so loud this time.
Sag
e was breathing heavily, but she also seemed to be calming down a little. “Yes, but even that was like getting you to pull teeth. You only give me little bits here and there, and honestly, Trenton, I’m still not sure I have the whole story.”
“You do,” he said, but he lowered his head, no longer looking at her. At least he put his gun away—that made me breathe easier, although I still didn’t have a good feeling about things.
“You know my whole story.” Sage sniffled some.
“I do.” Trenton nodded. He reached toward her, but then he lowered his hand. Good. He better not touch her.
Because Sage slid me a glance. She was back to acting again, I could tell, but if he touched her, that spell she was weaving might crumble. How in the world had she gotten so strong?
“So how could you have done this?” Sage asked quietly. “How could you have turned to drugs when you know my mom did that? She picked drugs over me, Trenton.” Her voice was low, but intense.
“I didn’t—”
“You did. You’re using again. Damn it, Trenton! You said the last time would be the last, and I believed you!”
What the hell? Sage knew he’d used drugs recently? Why hadn’t she told me? Why hadn’t I been a better mom that she would come to me with that kind of info?
“I was clean for—”
“What, five months? Trenton, we’ve been together how long? Why—”
“You’ve never done drugs,” he said, snarling. “You don’t know what it’s like.”
“And I don’t want to know! I’ve never wanted to know! Drugs ruined my mom’s life. She’s in jail because of it, and I’m glad!”
“Is that what you want for me? Is it? Huh?” He stalked toward her.
Sage didn’t back down. “I think you need help.”
“Help?” He moved so quickly Sage didn’t have time to react—he backhanded her.
She gasped, and her hand went to her cheek.
“Don’t you dare hit her!” I yelped.
The gun came back out, and, eyes wild, he stared me down. “Don’t you dare tell me what to do!”
“Trenton!” Sage shrieked. She didn’t back away yet, and she visibly tried to gather her bearings. “Sometimes…Sometimes you have to let someone g-go…”
He said nothing, his gaze shifting back and forth between us, the gun somewhat gestured in my direction.
Better me than Sage.
“Sometimes you have to let someone go when you love them,” she said, her voice trembling.
“That’s bullshit,” Trenton said. “You never loved me, did you?”
“Of course I did!” Tears streamed down Sage’s face, but silently. She wasn’t sobbing.
“You never cared about me. You’re all the same. No one…” Trenton shook his head, crossed over to me, and pressed the gun to the middle of my forehead.
“Do it,” I taunted him. “Do it and you’ll never be with Sage again.”
He pressed harder, and I did my best not to wince. Hell, did that hurt! “I’ll do it. I’ll off you. Off her. Off myself. We can be together,” he breathed. “You and me, baby. Together forever.”
“In life, Trenton,” Sage said, sounding the scariest she had yet. “In life, Trenton, not death!”
“What kind of life will we have, Sage? Tell me that. I’ve fucked it up. I’ve fucked it all up. I know that.” His hand was shaking, but the gun was always facing me. “We can’t have a life together.”
“You…You don’t know that…” Sage dashed forward and yanked on his arm.
“If Grant comes with the money,” I said.
“I don’t think he will.”
“Why not? You’re a part of Devil’s Horns, right? You’re a part of his family. He would never hurt—”
“He cares about you,” Trenton interrupted me. “You’re his family now. And I crossed the line. I know I did, and I did it anyway. I’m screwed. Either Grant will come for me or the drug lord will, and I’m gonna end up dead either way. I’m a dead man.”
He turned toward Sage, but I could still see his face. There was love there and fear—so much fear.
“We don’t all have to die,” Sage whispered.
Just like that, the love in his eyes died.
Desperation rolled over me, and my stomach was so twisted and knotted that I thought I was going to throw up. “Grant doesn’t think of me as family,” I argued. “We fucked a few times, yeah, but that’s it. We’re nothing serious.”
Trenton wasn’t even looking at me. “You would rather live without me than with me.”
“Because of the stunts you pulled lately, well, yeah! I know people make mistakes, Trenton, but this…” Sage started to sniff. Back to the angry crying. “This is bullshit, Trenton! Let me and my mom go!”
“I can’t. I can’t. You…Sage, I know I screwed up—”
“Shut it, Trenton. This isn’t something you can fix with words or money or sex. We’re…”
“Don’t you dare say it,” he growled.
“We’re done!” she shouted.
Trenton lunged toward Sage. She darted to the left, but he grabbed ahold of her hair and yanked her backward. Fuck. He still had the gun!
I jerked and twisted and jerked some more, and my chair moved slightly toward them. Sage was clawing at Trenton’s face and arms, and he yelped and threw her away from him and onto the floor. He didn’t point the gun at her, though. It was pointed back to me.
Sage’s eyes went wide. “You wouldn’t dare!”
“Wouldn’t I?” His eyes were wild. “I have nothing to live for if I don’t have you. There’s no going back now.”
“There…” Tears streamed down her face, and I could barely make out what she was saying. “There won’t be if you kill my mom. If you ever want a chance for us…If I ever meant anything to you…”
Trenton’s hand began to shake. “I can’t handle this,” he muttered. Sweat appeared on his forehead, and he was shivering. “Sage…” He had pinned all of his hopes and dreams and happiness on her, but she hadn’t been enough for him. He was too damaged. No girl would’ve been enough. That was the thing. One person can’t equal your happiness. You had to create happiness within yourself and without, too. You needed someone to balance you out, someone who challenged you, someone who opened your eyes to new horizons. You needed someone who made you a better person.
Trenton sure as hell didn’t do that for Sage considering how many fights she and I would get into after she spent some time with him. Trenton had no respect for authority, not after the stunts his parents pulled. Grant had tried to straighten him out, and Sage had done some, obviously. I never would’ve thought Trenton would have talked to me like he did earlier. Then again, those other sides of him, like when he hit me with the gun, that was the asshole who needed to get the hell out of our lives pronto.
These thoughts flew through my head in seconds. Sage lunged forward toward Trenton.
Trenton jerked away.
I tried to move my chair more, but it was caught.
The gun when off.
Sage screamed.
I did, too.
Chapter 21
Grant
The miles trickled by, far slower than I would’ve liked. Why couldn’t we be there already? While I hoped Trenton wasn’t doing anything stupid, I was growing sick with worry.
Damn traffic. There was an accident, and we were at a crawl. It had been more than four hours now since Trenton had called, and I couldn’t handle it. We had to get the fuck out of this fucking traffic, and we had to do it the fuck right now.
“Drive along the shoulder.”
“There’s a cop not far back,” Bob protested.
“So?”
“We can’t afford to be pulled over.”
“So don’t pull over.”
Bob glanced over at me, raised his eyebrows, and gave me a hell of a devilish grin. He would have to find a way to merge over to reach the shoulder, but it would be worth it.
While he work
ed on that, I checked my gun over. Everything appeared in working order. The fuck was Trenton thinking, pulling this shit. Obviously the punk wasn’t thinking.
A part of me absolutely hated that we were doing this—that we were readying to take up arms against one of our own. But, honestly, a lot of the guys had always viewed Trenton as more of a comrade than as a full-fledged member. Some of that was because of his age, but some of it was also because of the stunts he pulled. Trenton had always been a little immature, and he didn’t understand that you couldn’t just take, take, take. Everything should be give and take, and the ones who abused others were not tolerated for long, not in my world.