In a city of sheep ruled by wolves, she became the python that pulled them apart.
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Sage Black is a girl of little opportunities, forced to see the seamy side of life growing up in New York. Witnessing what lengths billionaires will go through t...
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I am sucking in air like a person that's almost drowned, scrambling to pull off my scarf and sunglasses with shaking hands and a pounding heart. Theo hands me a water bottle that I gulp down greedily, the plastic trembling before my eyes. It's not so much my stamina lacking as the fear of almost getting caught after that mind-rattling revelation.
A minute passes until my heartbeat slows down. The adrenaline leaves my body and my thoughts start to arrive coherently, taking in everything.
"This is not your car," I say, remembering the red exterior, noting the black leather seats, and smelling the rich, cinnamon-like cologne in the car, so different from Theo's scent.
"It's Tave's," he answers without taking his eyes off the road. We seem to be driving in random circles, trying to lose the men I was being chased by. "I couldn't risk being recognized."
A beat passes. "Why'd you come?"
He raises his eyebrows. "Couldn't exactly sit down and solve derivatives knowing what you were about to do. I'm glad I came on time."
He glances at me, and I dread the possibility of him saying 'I was right, I saved you once again.' But he doesn't have to say it; a silence passes between us wherein we both acknowledge that he was right.
"What happened back there?" he asks.
I tell him about the creepy factory; the Italian man and his wry sense of humor; the exchange between David and Mr. Giordano; how many people I assumed stood in the building; my falling through the hole and having to run for my life. When I'm done, I play the recording on my phone and watch his face as he listens.
"Do you recognize the Giordano guy?" I ask when the recording ends.
"No, I've never heard of him," he replies. "But we were right. About Johnny Miles and Jack Lui."
"We were right," I say slowly, only now letting it dawn on me, the massiveness of the situation, the weight of the issue all cramped in a four by four phone with a cracked screen held between my two hands. "Of course, yes of course we were right and—and I have it all here. Oh, my God. David Roman killed them, he killed Johnny and Jack and if he had caught me today I would've been killed, murdered, gone. We have to take this to the police, we have to before someone else gets hurt, before he suspects I have anything to do with it. I'll show them the recording and—"
"Sage." His voice cuts me clean, and I realize we've stopped driving. We're parked at the side of a road. He looks at me with wide eyes filled with an unreadable emotion, along with the excitement at the revelation, the leftover adrenaline from my run, the racing of my heart at something finally gone right—I am thrumming in my seat like an overheated machine.
"Yes."
He raises his hands, as if to reach out to something, then drops it. Opens his mouth to say something then shuts it. "I'm sorry," he finally says, "about earlier." He takes a deep breath. "Sometimes I don't know how to act around you. Your mind is like fucking quantum mechanics, unpredictable and impulsive and sometimes I don't know what to think. And I sure as hell know just how much you don't need me to protect you, trust me. I do it anyway because . . . I don't know."
