Victoria
My stomach was churning like mad, so badly I almost thought I would have to pull over to be sick. While I was thrilled that I would be seeing Sage soon, the way our last conversation ended left me on edge.
At a red light, I grabbed my phone. A few of my texts hadn’t gone through. Great. Before I could try to resend them, the car behind me honked, and I slammed down on the gas to jolt forward. I merged onto the highway and managed to call Sage as I wove between traffic, driving a good fifteen to twenty above the speed limit.
She didn’t answer.
Was Trenton holding her somewhere against her will? I wanna come home, she had texted, which suggested she couldn’t come home, right? Or else she would’ve just come home.
I want you to come home, too.
Or maybe Trenton wasn’t the bad guy in all of this. Maybe someone was holding them both against their wills. I appreciated Grant telling me Trenton’s backstory. Even though I hadn’t liked him from the start, I was a firm believer that everyone deserved a second chance.
Even Sage’s birth mom?
Okay…maybe I wasn’t as firm of a believer as I liked to think I was, but if Trenton really did turn his life around, if he really did love Sage, if he was trying to help her out of whatever situation they were in, I would change my mind on him so fast I would get whiplash.
But the drugs in his apartment…
Maybe they had been planted there. Maybe someone from Trenton’s past didn’t like that he was clean. Maybe they hunted him down…but for what?
Yeah right, Victoria. You know that’s not the case.
Deep down, I had a hunch this was all Trenton’s fault, but was that just my hope for both Sage and Grant? He had such hopes in the boy, and I hated to think they were misplaced, but that was exactly what I was thinking. Trenton had struck me as bad news right from the start. I prided myself on being a good judge of character.
One time, shortly after I acquired the restaurant, I had been on-site to work out an issue between the cook and the meat packager when I spied two men enter the place. They were rough and tough looking, and they kept looking around. They asked for a table in the corner, and my hostess granted it to them.
Now, honestly, I had no reason to take an interest in them, but I did, and I broke off my conversation to see to them personally. I asked if they needed something to drink. They brushed me off. No big deal. I always tried to see to every table when I was at the restaurant, to try to make sure everyone was having a good time, and I had learned when exactly was a good time to approach a table so they weren’t in the middle of eating and could answer me.
So I smiled and nodded and told them to feel free to flag me down if they needed anything. And I went rounds with the other tables but kept an eye on them.
And it was a good thing I did because I witnessed a drug deal. No lie.
I discretely told their waiter to purposely delay them—their food, their drinks, their bill—and called the police on them. I guess you could call me an informant, too. No way was I going to allow drug deals to happen at my restaurant.
The very next day, two more guys showed up, and they were just as rough and tough looking as the previous two guys, but for some reason, these ones didn’t send off any signals to me, and they soon became regulars. I wasn’t ageist, racist, sexist or anything like that. I would serve anyone, except for those who might pose a threat to my other customers, and, yes, that included drugs.
My gut warned me about Trenton right from the start, but Sage hadn’t listened, and I feared if I went too hard at her against him, she would cling to him all the more. Maybe I should’ve done more, said more, did something, anything to keep her away from him.
Had I given her too long of a leash that it turned into a noose? When was it up to the child to step up and take responsibility for their actions? Yes, Sage was nineteen; she technically wasn’t considered a child, but in my mind, she still needed to be protected. The world had taken so much from her and hadn’t given her nearly enough back. She was still trying to find her place in this world, and I wanted to give her a real shot at working at the restaurant, but I wasn’t sure if she was ready for it.
I was babying her. I was holding her back. In some areas—like dating—I was giving her too much leeway for fear she would just rebel and do what she wanted anyway, and in others—like work—I was not letting her stand on her own two feet for fear she wouldn’t do right by me, by my business, and by herself, too.
Maybe I wasn’t cut out to be a mom, but I had never been one before, and I knew when I took her in that it wouldn’t be easy. I was rolling with the punches as they came, but it was time to take off the kid gloves and to go for it.
Go for broke.
I would not rest until Sage was safely home.
Considering how fast I was going, it only took me about an hour to reach Douglastown, and another ten minutes to find the motel.
So far, so good.
I parked in the back of the parking lot. The motel was a dump. It looked like it hadn’t been renovated since the forties. It badly needed repairs and paint and to be fumigated. I almost stepped on a cockroach when I stepped out of my car. The shock of seeing the huge, swift bug had me sitting back down in my seat. Maybe I should find out what apartment she was in. I didn’t want to be seen snooping around and be caught and captured myself. This was a rescue mission. I couldn’t afford mistakes.
But I also wanted to find Sage as soon as possible.
I tried calling her again. No answer. I tried calling Grant. No answer there either.
So I texted Sage. I’m here. At the motel. What room are you in?
I held my breath and waited. What if she had been blindfolded and didn’t know? But she did know the city and the motel name. Please let her know the room number, too.
A minute passed. Two. Five. Forget this. I didn’t come all the way here to wait. I’d find the receptionist, ask if Sage or Trenton had come here, and—
My phone vibrated.
Room 268.
I bolted out of my car. The rooms nearby were in the 90s, so I found stairs and climbed them two at a time and up another flight to reach the 200s.
My fingers curled around the knob, and I braced for it to not turn, but it did. It opened, and Sage was there, a little dirty and thinner than I last saw her, but alive and hugging me, and it felt so amazing.
“Mom,” she whispered in my ear.
I tensed. Why was she whispering?
She trembling in my arms and crying, and I couldn’t get another word out of her. I tried to pull her out of the room, so we could make it to my car and get the hell out of here, and she was slowly walking with me, dragging her feet—was she hurt? Limping? I couldn’t tell—but we were half out the door when Trenton came.
His face, oh God, his face. It was like nothing I had ever seen before. Terrifying and nasty and vindictive and evil. All twisted up. The handsome guy who had swept Sage off her feet was gone.
And even worse, he had a gun.
He waved it aloft, and Sage, still crying, began to whimper, released me, and slumped her way back inside the room.
I rushed toward Trenton, but he easily threw me back so hard that I stumbled and fell onto my ass. He kicked the door shut behind him and pointed the gun at me. What the fuck was going on? Had he lost his mind?
I jumped to my feet. “Let us go, Trenton,” I demanded.
He laughed and waved the gun around. “I don’t think you understand how this works.” Trenton leveled the gun at my forehead. “As long as I hold this, you do what I say.”
“I don’t take orders from a wannabe gangster,” I spat. Maybe it was stupid to argue with him, to call him names, but I was livid. He had a gun. He had threatened my daughter. He was threatening me. I would not cower. I had come here to fight for my daughter, and fight I would.
He brought his arm down, trying to hit me with the gun, but I ducked and jerked to the side. I tried to sweep my leg out so he would fall, but he grabbed me.
I kicked and screamed and punched and slapped, but it didn’t matter. He easily overpowered me, throwing me onto a chair and punching me in the temple so hard my vision darkened. Before I could react, he was tying me to the chair. I fought him as best I could, but it made no difference, and soon I was bound hand and foot.
The entire time, Sage was crying, her words hardly comprehensibly. “Trenton, Trenton, please. Stop this. Don’t! Don’t hurt her!”
He ignored her, tying another knot. I’d never get free.
“Just let us go. Please. Trenton…”
My heart broke, listening to her panic. “I’m fine,” I told her.
Trenton backhanded me. “Shut up.”
I spat blood at him. “You shut up.”
The next slap was so hard my vision spotted again. “You listen here.” He held up the gun. “I’m the one in charge. You do what I say, and right now, I say that you should shut up.” He turned toward Sage. “And that includes you.”
“But, Trenton—”
“But nothing,” he snapped.
“Why are you doing this?” I mumbled. My cheek hurt. My mouth was filling with blood, and my eye was swelling. He had no problem hitting a lady, and he sure did hit hard.
“You think I’m gonna tell you everything?” He snorted, sounding like a pig. “I’m gonna solve all my problems.” Trenton kneeled down in front of me. “Actually, you’re gonna solve all my problems.”
I shifted to try to get away from him, and my cell dug into my thigh through my pocket. Grant. Did he get my texts? Was he on his way? Maybe I should try to get Trenton to keep on talking and force him to stay here until Grant arrived.
Then again, he was waving that gun around.
“How can I solve your problems?” I asked. My heart was pounding so loudly my chest ached almost as much as my face did.
“I’ve seen you.” He sneered. “You’re nothing but a whore. Like mother, like daughter.”
My jaw dropped. “Don’t you dare—”
“Your daughter goes missing, and what do you do? Fuck Grant multiple times.”
My cheeks grew bright red, and I couldn’t look at Sage. What must she think of me?
“You thought so lowly of your own daughter for being with me, for being with a loser in a motorcycle club, and what do you do? You fuck the leader.” Trenton stood, threw back his head, and roared with laughter. “Not so innocent, are you? Why are you still such a stuck-up bitch? Wasn’t Grant good enough for you?” He leaned in real close, and I tried to squirm away from him, but the ties were too tight. “He doesn’t care about you, you know. He goes through women like he goes through beers. One after the other. Pounds them down and calls for another round. Likes variety, he does.”
“Leave her alone!” Sage’s voice was so shrill I could hardly recognize it.
I looked at her and tried to discretely shake my head to warn her, but she wasn’t paying me any attention.
“I’ve heard you two fight.” Trenton laughed some more and walked over to Sage, touching her shoulder and running his hand down her arm. She jerked away from him, but he seized onto her wrist. “You told her a couple of times she needed to get laid. Doesn’t it bother you that she waited until you went missing to do it? She gave you shit for being with me, and now look at her.”
“She’s tied to a chair because of you!”
“After having fucked the leader of Devil’s Horns!”
“You’re…” Sage took a shaky breath and burst into tears all over again.
I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. “Yes, I fucked Grant, and he’s gonna come and—”
“Oh. Oh, ho, ho.” Trenton released Sage and walked back over to me. “Grant’s gonna save the day, all right, but it’s not gonna be to save you.” He grabbed my phone out of my pocket. “Looks like someone didn’t realize the drive here is one huge dead zone. Not all of your texts went through. Grant doesn’t know you’re here.”
My blood ran cold.
Trenton brought his face close toward mine. “I—”
I leaned forward and bit him.
He dropped my phone, brought up his hand, and lowered the gun. It hit the side of my head, and my world plunged into darkness.