Page 6 of Dangerous Promises

The only thing I really need is to feel Sage Fucking DeMarco take her last breath beneath my hands.

Chapter

Three

Sage

My leg aches as I hobble into the kitchen and sit myself atop the counter. I wince as I pull my jeans up to expose my most recent battle wound. The bandage looks far from clean, with blood around the edges that has gone dark and brown. Though it's not oozing, so I must have done a decent job of patching it up.

I tell myself it's just like pulling off a band-aid, which it literally is, so I do it fast. The patch comes away with a whoosh but not without a whimper from me. Tiny spots of blood pop up around the spot where Alexei cut me. Overall, it seems the mismatched stitches have done their job. The skin is pulling together. Lopsided. But pulling together nonetheless.

In reality, this is just a flesh wound. Something superficial. Far less than the wounds that I got from my captor when I was nine. Far less than the wounds Alexei's brother gave me not that long ago.

I slap on a fresh bandage and pull my jeans back down.

The sound of tires crunching over rock catches my attention at the same time that I slip off the bench. Outside the window a van travels unhurriedly up the driveway, pushing gravel into a dust cloud. Freddie and Anton come out the main doors and from the looks on their faces this is a visit they're expecting.

I decide this is my business too, and hastily rush out there to see what's going on.

"Uncle Anton?" I question, pushing open the front doors and shielding my eyes from the blinding sun as I come to stand at his side.

Anton turns expectantly and deflates when he sees me, making minimal effort to stop me from being there. "Sage. You should be inside for this."

"What?" I frown. "Why?"

Curiosity kills me as the van doors open. It's the passenger that's the first to take a step out and make herself known.

Ugh.

Angie.

"You? Really?" I sneer.

Angie steps out looking goddess-like as per usual. Her stiletto heels should slip in the gravel; I would certainly slip if it were me, but her steps are confident and sure. Her red hair doesn't even ruffle in the breeze as she presents herself, smile framed by her blood-red lipstick.

"Sage,goinside," Uncle Anton pleads with me, hissing through his teeth.

"I've killed people for nicer talk," Angie says, warning me with a look. The smell of her acidic, yet still feminine and powerful, perfume assaults my nose as she faces us.

"Angie," Anton nods.

"Anton," she says, reaching out her hand for him to kiss. Which, even though he purses his lips in annoyance, he does. Freddie is far more flirty when he reaches out for his turn,pressing his lips to her hand and lingering for far too long. Gross.

"What is she doing here?" I ask.

Not that Angie hasn't done a lot for me. But now I can't see her without being reminded of everything I did wrong. She's a big, red, fiery reminder of every mistake I've ever made. It would be immature of me to blame her for it. But I do.

"The girl asks a good question," Angie admits. Angie does her signature smirk as she looks between me and my uncle. "She doesn't know?"

That has my hackles raising. There is nothing that Angie should know that I shouldn't. I thought my uncle was well past the point of keeping things from me. Not when the consequences of doing so were so disastrous the last few times he'd tried it.

Anton's jaw is tight, and he eyes Angie like he really wishes it wasn't beneath him to slap her.

"Well, she's about to know," Angie says, straightening her necklace with a pointed nail. "Things have gotten considerably worse since we last spoke."

"Worse how?" Anton asks, not sparing me a glance.

"More sniffing around. More word getting out. More danger for…," Angie looks me up and down, "the item I'm safekeeping for you."