63. Sage
SIXTY-THREE
SAGE
“God. How long does it take to hang a guy?” I look out the window, impatiently watching cars go by. None of which belong to any of the guys.
They said it would be quick. Maybe not quick enough for the guy doing the dying, but for everyone else, clean and surgical and fast. But either they’re taking their sweet time, or something’s gone sideways, or maybe this is just how it feels to wait for a kill to finish.
Slow. Empty. Anticlimactic in the worst possible way.
“It takes as long as it takes.” Knox’s voice comes from the kitchen table, where he’s nursing the coffee I made him an hour ago and watching me rearrange my kitchen. “They’ll make contact when it’s done.”
With a sigh, I lean against the counter, turning away from the canned goods I’m alphabetizing. “Does it ever get easier? The waiting?”
He considers the question. Takes his time answering.
“No,” he says. “But you get better at it.”
That’s the most depressing comfort I’ve ever received, and somehow it works.
I close the pantry and grab a soda from the fridge, carrying it to the table where I take a seat next to Knox. He reaches over and opens it for me, turning the can so the mouth is facing me.
“Eli said you helped him dispose of the guy who hurt his sister.”
He quirks an eyebrow. “I did. Holden and I took care of it.”
“And that’s how The Hangmen started?”
Knox nods once. “Too much bad out there.” He scratches an eyebrow in a way that means he’s choosing every word carefully. “We needed an outlet. Odin gave us one. He’s better at seeing the monster in you and finding a use for it than anyone alive.”
I tap a finger on the rim of my can. “What did he see in you?”
Knox shrugs. “I’m a fighter. Did a lot of it when I was younger. Boxing. Some other things. Turns out, when you’re like me, it’s easy for people to pay you to hurt the right kinds of men.”
“So you didn’t join the crew because of a sister? No personal trauma or the hatred of some fucker who hurt you or your family?”
He shakes his head.
“So, you just . . . do this because you can?”
He gives me a look I can’t decode. “Do you know what a justice fantasy is?”
I shake my head.
“Doesn’t matter. The world needs people who do what’s necessary.
That’s what I do. You want to know the real reason?
I like seeing bad men get what’s coming to them.
I was in the military for a while. Private security after that.
After all the shit I’ve seen, this is the only thing that makes sense. ”
It’s blunt. Absolute. There’s a kind of relief in it, hearing someone admit that they kill because it feeds something inside them, not because they’re avenging a past hurt.
Knox’s phone buzzes on the table between us. He picks it up. Glances at the screen. Shows it to me:
Eli:
Done.
Just one word, but my heart drops out of my chest when I see it’s from Eli.
“They’re on the way?” I ask, like maybe it could mean something else.
He sets his phone back on the table. “Probably.”
I take a shaky breath and reach for my phone, sending a heart emoji in the group chat so they know I’m here too, that I know.
A few seconds later, a message comes through from Milo.
Milo:
ETA fifteen. Get the shot glasses ready, kitten. We bring stories.
I follow it up with:
Me:
I’ll be waiting by the door. Don’t make me come drag you all up here.
Knox watches the exchange from his cell. Says nothing. But when I look up, he’s watching me with this private little smile, like he’s proud. Or amused. Or just happy to see me do something as simple as text the guys I like.
I hear them on the stairs before I hear the key. Four sets of footsteps I’ve learned to tell apart. Milo’s are quick and uneven, always slightly too fast for the pace. Holden’s military, deliberate. Micah’s quiet. Eli’s steady in a way that sounds like he’s conserving energy.
Knox is already at the door when they come through it, and I just stand there, looking at them all together in my apartment, shedding jackets, smiling my way. My men.
I cross the room, Milo’s grin lighting up his face, arms already spread for a hug. He scoops me up, spins me once, and nuzzles into my hair like he’s been starved of touch for a month, not a day.
“You’re all in one piece,” I say, sighing my relief.
“We are,” Holden says, stepping in next to Milo and leaning in to press a soft kiss against my lips. “Everything went smooth. Textbook exit.”
Milo sets me down. “You would have loved it, kitten. Guy tried to bribe us and shat himself. I wasn’t in the room. I was in the car on the cameras. So I got to see without smell.”
“Um, ew.” I laugh and he gives me a quick kiss and steps away when Micah approaches.
Micah doesn’t say anything at first, just tucks my hair behind my ear and leans his forehead into mine for a beat. “Missed you, baby girl.”
He kisses me, slow, both hands cupping my face. I want to melt. I want to cry. But mostly I want to crawl inside his skin and sleep there. I have never needed to feel a person wrapped around me the way I need Micah. And I love that the feeling seems mutual.
“You okay?” I ask when he pulls back, and he nods.
“I am now.” He kisses me again, just a press of the lips this time. And when he steps away, Eli’s there.
“Hey,” I say to him, offering him a smile.
After what happened between us at the club yesterday, my ass is still a little sore.
But holy hell, the look on his face. I’d give anything to get him alone for five minutes—five minutes to remind him that whatever poison he thinks is in his blood, I want it.
Need it. Maybe even in the literal sense, based on the way my heart picks up just seeing him in my doorway.
“Hey, little savage.” There’s a warmth in his voice now. A lightness I haven’t heard in him since the day we met.
I blush a little—which is ridiculous after all this man has done to me. And he bends and kisses my forehead, then glances at my mouth, and for a second I think he’s going to kiss me properly. Instead, he says, “Pour yourself a drink, Sage. It’s a good night for it.”
I nod, my pulse still racing from his nearness, and head to the kitchen cabinet where we keep our sparse liquor selection.
As expected, it’s mostly almost-empty bottles of vodka and gin.
But we do have an entire bottle of tequila we impulse bought but never opened because Amy was scared of the grub in it.
“Everyone okay with tequila?” I ask, pulling it down along with a few mismatched souvenir shot glasses.
Milo perks up immediately, rubbing his hands together.
“Perfect. I’ll handle the lemons.” He raids the fridge, emerging with a couple from the crisper drawer, and sets to work slicing them.
“Where’s the salt shaker gone?” He’s spent so much time in my kitchen these last weeks, he’s memorized exactly where everything is.
“Oh. I may have done some nervous rearranging,” I say as I grab it from beside the microwave and slide it over.
With everything prepared, we line it all up on the kitchen table—bottle, glasses, lemon wedges, salt—like some post-kill ritual.
The guys gather around, the energy in the room buzzing, electric from whatever high they’re riding. Eli pours the shots, the amber liquid glinting under the kitchen light.
“To clean kills and coming home,” Holden says, raising his glass.
We clink, the sound sharp and satisfying. Then we lick the salt and throw them back. The tequila burns going down, sharp and familiar, chasing away the last remnants of my earlier worry. I suck on a lemon wedge, the sour bite cutting through the fire, and set the glass down with a gasp.
“Okay,” I say, leaning forward. “Tell me everything so I don’t feel left out.”
They do. In bits and pieces, overlapping like they can’t decide who gets to tell me which detail—the rag over Hudson’s mouth in the shower, his body going limp, the noose slipping around his neck while he was out.
How they balanced him on the stool, waited for him to wake up.
The panic in his eyes when he realized what was happening.
The way he begged, offered money, pissed himself in terror.
“He cried like a baby,” Holden says, shaking his head with a dark chuckle. “After everything he’s done.”
Eli nods, his expression still wired but satisfied. “We gave him the names. Made sure he knew why. Then . . . stool gone. Done.”
I listen, absorbing it all—the dark thrill in their voices, the way they mock Hudson’s fear without a hint of pity.
It’s deliciously uncomfortable, hearing the details, picturing the man dangling, choking, but there’s a twisted justice to it that settles something in me.
These men—my men—did this. For the victims. For the world to be a little less broken.
I really want to be there next time.
“Shots again?” Milo suggests, already refilling glasses. We down another round, the burn easier this time, the warmth sinking into my limbs.
Holden sets his glass down with a grin, eyes locking on mine. “You know what would make this even better? Body shots.”
I raise an eyebrow, heat already pooling low in my belly. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.” He stands, coming around the table, and before I can protest—not that I would—he scoops me up and lays me back on the kitchen table like I’m the main course.
The wood is cool against my skin through my shirt, and I laugh, breathless, as the others watch with varying degrees of amusement and hunger.
“Holden—”
“Shh.” He winks, grabbing the tequila bottle and a lemon wedge.
“Trust me.” He holds the lemon wedge over my mouth and I take it in my teeth.
Then he pushes my shirt up just enough to expose my stomach, sprinkles salt across my skin, and pours a shot into my navel.
The liquid is cold, tickling, and I squirm as he leans down, licking the salt slowly, deliberately, his tongue hot against me.
Then he sucks the tequila from my belly button, the suction making me gasp, before biting into the lemon I hold between my teeth.
Then he kisses me, slow, deep, his eyes never leaving mine.
He straightens, licking his lips. “You taste so good, wildcat.”
Warmth floods to my core, and when he pulls back, Milo is there, eyes dark with want.
“My go.” He repeats the ritual—lemon in my teeth, salt on my hip this time, tequila poured, his mouth lingering as he licks and sucks, ending with the lemon and a kiss that’s all heat and mischief, his hands sliding up my sides.
One by one, they take turns—Micah gentle, his kiss tender and lingering; Eli intense, his mouth bruising against mine; Knox careful, his huge hands steadying me as he claims his kiss, deep and unhurried. Each one undoes me a little more, the room growing hotter, the air thick with tension.
The haze of salt and citrus, of hands and lips, makes everything feel slippery and unreal.
I can’t stop laughing, and then moaning, and then laughing again as the shots keep coming and the touches overlap, and it’s suddenly hard to tell whose mouth is where, whose heat is making my skin prickle and my pulse tripwire.
At one point I twist up and bite the lemon right out of Milo’s hand, then I grab his face and kiss him until we’re both breathless, our mouths bruised and burning. He tastes like summer gone wrong, sweet and stinging.
Holden slides his hands under me, lifting me up, and for a crazy second I think—hope—he’s going to just fuck me on the table right now, with everyone watching. But then there are more mouths, more hands, and he lets me go gently, setting me back down while Micah and Knox peel off my shirt.
“You okay with this, wildcat?” Holden asks when the shirt is over my head, my chest exposed. “You want us tonight?”
I nod, breathless, my body on fire. “Yes. I want all of you.”