Chapter 37
SAGE
It takes Saxon a few days to warm up to the new dynamic in the house. Saint and I respect him, so we hold off on any PDA in front of him. It’s awkward enough seeing his best friend with his sister. I don’t want to poke the bear, so to speak. Saint has his own apartment, but he’s been staying at the house more days than not. In fact, I can’t even remember the last time he wasn’t here. I like it that way.
Finn and Brooks were able to extract some of the security footage from campus that gave us a clear image of a license plate attached to the dark blue van that pulled up beside me and Dante before he was gunned down. It was eerie, almost like an out-of-body experience, watching the footage. Dante had seen the van almost at the exact moment it entered the side parking lot. There was no hesitation—he covered me in an instant. I couldn’t watch after that. Knowing Dante was taking bullets for me made the guilt unbearable.
The license plate number came back to a man with a bogus name, which led us to yet another dead end. However, I can’t stop watching a section in the video where the van window was rolled down. The side profile of a man was faintly visible. Over and over again, I watch, pause, and rewind until I’m able to pause on his profile, where he was most visible.
“Are you able to zoom in or enhance this still shot at all?” I ask Brooks, who’s sitting next to me in the meeting room of the club.
“Yeah, of course.” I slide the laptop towards him, and he begins typing away. A moment later, he slides it back to me. I study the image, and bile quickly rises in my throat.
“Are you okay?” Brooks asks me, but I’m already up and heaving into the closest garbage can. “Jesus, Sage. Here, take this.” Brooks has a handful of tissues waiting for me as he rubs my back with his other hand.
“Sax, Saint, get over here!” he yells for the guys, who had stepped out of the room for some air. We’d been discussing every detail of the fire and anything we may have overlooked during that day and the few months following. I hear the door burst open, heavy footsteps making their way towards me as I heave all the contents of my breakfast into the garbage.
“Sage, what’s wrong? What happened?” Saxon’s voice is loud, but he isn’t yelling; he sounds more concerned than anything.
“I don’t know, man. One minute, she’s looking at this photo, and the next, she’s hurling into the trash,” Brooks explains to the guys.
The slide of the laptop across the wooden table fills the room. I finally stop gagging and take the water Saint has waiting for me. I wipe my mouth and down the bottle of water, trying to get the awful taste out of my mouth.
“I don’t know what you’re seeing, Sage. What’s going on?” I step closer to Saxon; Saint follows close behind me, his presence warm.
“Look at the person in the photo.”
“I am. Do you know who the driver is?” I shake my head.
“No, not the driver. Look who’s beside him, in the passenger seat.” Saxon gets closer to the image, squinting at the shadow of a man, sitting without a care in the world in the passenger seat.
“That motherfucking piece of shit! I’ll kill him!” Saxon’s yell makes my bones shake with unease. Only one thing would come from this type of fury: death. I pity anyone in his path. Well, except my uncle. Anger, sadness, disbelief—so much swirls in my gut as I look at the image of Uncle Frankie sitting in the passenger seat of the dark blue van. The van in which a man I don’t recognize shot multiple bullets in my direction. I could have died. If Dante wasn’t there, I would have.
“So, it’s true. He is connected. In a more sinister way than he’s claiming,” Saint says to the room. Saxon is vibrating with so much pent-up anger I fear he may explode. I place my hand on his shoulder. He quickly moves from my embrace, storming to the door before I call after him.
“Saxon! We need a plan first. It hurts, I know, but if you want to take him down, we need to be smarter than him. We need to play him at his own game.” With both hands on the door, Saxon stops. Saint, Brooks, Finn, and I all watched Saxon’s back rise and fall with each deep breath he takes.
“It could have been you, Sage. I could be putting you in the ground beside Luther right now. Who’s to say you weren’t the target? What if they planned that for you and not Dante?” Saxon speaks with his back towards me. Saint’s hand rests on my waist, his fingers curling into my skin at Sax’s words. A noticeable growl resonates in his chest.
“I’m aware it may have been targeted at me, but he’s obviously working with other players. We need more information before we strike.” He knows I’m right. His anger has always been his driving force, but he knows we need to identify the driver. Maybe this will lead us to something more. Something useful.
With much reluctance, Saint is able to calm Saxon down enough to sit down so we can go over a plan. Finn and Brooks work hard on trying to identify the driver with their facial recognition software. While Saxon, Saint, and I all agree, we will play it cool with Frankie until the plan is set. It’s inevitable—Frankie is going to pay. I’ve given him the benefit of the doubt, but when so many red flags have been raised, and my father’s life was the price of his actions, I need justice. Seven years. Seven years my father has been gone; my life was almost stolen from this earth as well. The thought of my uncle being wrapped up in all this leaves me not only devastated, but confused. Why? What was in it for him if my father died?
“Look at this. Frankie has been receiving payments every six months since the fire.” Saint speaks up from behind his laptop. We had decided to look into Frankie’s finances. Why was evil always driven by money? How could money trump your own family?
“Who’s it from?” Saxon asks.
“Unknown. I could try and follow the IP address, but the coding on these transactions is pretty tight. It may take me a while to try and decode.” Saxon lets out a huff of frustration.
“Just try. Maybe that will be our answer.”
“You got it.”
I watch as Saint and the boys work tirelessly. Each one enveloped in their work, while I turn my eyes to Saxon. He’s on his phone, the permanent scowl on his face deeper than I’ve ever seen it. Stressed is an understatement. He’s battling something deeper than betrayal. Saxon has always carried the world on his shoulders, and it’s starting to weigh heavy on his back. He redoes his usual man bun—his tick whenever his anger is rising.
“Sax, can I talk to you for a minute outside?” I ask. The guys’ eyes jump up from their computers. Saxon’s eyes find mine and he nods. Standing, I look back at Saint, giving him a small smile of reassurance. I follow Sax outside, the warm breeze hitting my skin, making me inhale a deep breath of calm.
“What is it?” he asks, turning towards me and shoving his hands in his pockets.
“Don’t be like that,” I sigh.
“Like what?” He raises his shoulders in a shrug, but I know him all too well.
“Don’t act like nothing’s bothering you. I know you, brother. I know when you’re hiding your feelings, and right now, you’re holding them back like the Hoover Dam. What’s going on in your head? Is it me and Saint?” I’m worried he’s still fuming over me and Saint but secretly hope he isn’t.
“Nah. That was shitty of you to keep from me, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized he’s the only person in this world I would trust with you.” I smile at his comment, warmth filling my chest.
“Then what’s going on?” There’s a long pause between us. I can see the indignation in his eyes. His eyes always gave him away.
“Doesn’t it hurt?” he asks, his question throwing me for a loop.
“Doesn’t what hurt?”
“The thought that Frankie may have wanted to kill you and me, as well as Dad? He almost succeeded with you. Thank God for Saint.”
“Why thank God for Saint?” I ask, an odd sensation blooming in my gut as I wait for him to answer.
“Thank God for Saint pulling you from the fire. If he hadn’t gotten there when he did, you would have died.”
You know that feeling when you get out of a hot tub and then jump into a pool, and the water suddenly feels so cold it takes your breath away? The feeling of electricity buzzing through every nerve ending as your skin is introduced to the water. Like your body can’t register quickly enough the sudden change in temperatures. It feels like you’re glitching.
“He—He did what?” I whisper. The sudden awareness of my brother’s expression tells me he has no idea I didn’t know it was Saint.
“Sage, Saint was the one that pulled you from the fire. Didn’t you know?” I feel my mouth part in shock. I shake my head at my brother.
“He never told me it was him,” I whisper again, my voice sounding so far off I don’t fully believe it’s my own. This whole time. For seven years, I’ve wondered who saved me, and the answer was always him.
“But I thought he was with you?” My eyes couldn’t focus on him anymore; I couldn’t focus on anything.
“I was. We were coming back to the house, but I stopped by the store to get you flowers for your birthday, and he beat me there. He saw the fire and ran in before the firefighters could stop him.” I’m tracing the lines of my scars across my hands without realizing. Saxon finally grabs my hands and holds them in his.
“Are you okay? I’m sorry. I’ve always thought you knew it was him. He received some pretty bad burns himself across his back.” I’d never noticed. Saint has a huge skull tattoo that covers the length of his back. A pirate hat and half sunken ship mural covers almost every inch of skin. It’s beautiful. How had I never noticed his scars?
“Come here.” Saxon pulls me to his chest, hugging me hard, as if to apologize for dropping yet another bomb on my life. “I thought you knew,” he whispers in my ear. The threat of tears sting my eyes as I squeeze them shut, not wanting the tears to fall. I squeeze my brother back, my only family I have left.