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I chuckle. “I can’t remember a time I was wrong.”
“I’m ignoring you right now,” Sage says as she tries to wipe the mascara off her cheeks with her thumb and a little saliva. She’s trying not to smudge the rest of her makeup, but it’s obviously difficult.
“You look beautiful,” I say, which is a genuine compliment. She’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met, but I’m not sure if she believes me yet. I hope I can prove it to her, eventually.
She continues ignoring me, as she said she would, until her makeup smudges are less noticeable. She flips the mirror backupwith a groan of annoyance, shaking her head. “Good enough, I guess.”
“Well, it isn’t a fashion show. We might be killing someone else today,” I say.
She rolls her tongue under her lips, narrowing her eyes at me. “Just how many people have you killed so far? I think you get off on it, honestly.”
I shrug. “I’ve lost count.”
“When was your first?”
I’m hit with a wave of memories at her question, many unwanted, but still fresh, like they happened yesterday. I don’t want to remember it, but there are even worse memories that haven’t cropped up in conversation, so this isn’t the worst thing she could be asking about.
I take a sharp breath through my nose before answering her. “It was a long time ago, but it feels like yesterday. You don’t forget your first kill.”
She nods slowly, clasping her hands together as she senses the gravity of what I’m telling her.
“Do you hate me for killing your father… I mean, for killing Thompson?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “How could I hate my husband?”
I laugh through my nose. “Good answer, but I want you to be real with me. Do you hate me?”
She pauses for a moment, her eyes unfocused for a moment before she can answer. “I don’t know,” she finally says. “Does it matter? We’re stuck together.”
“Right,” I reply, a bit disappointed. I liked her first answer a lot better. “Well, I hated the man who killed my father, so maybe it’s not the same feeling. But you might be able to understand, anyway.”
“At least we have something in common,” she says with a smile, but it fades as she realizes she may have misspoken. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make light of your loss.”
I wave a dismissive hand as I pull a cigar from my jacket pocket. “Don’t worry about. I’m not sad anymore. I barely even remember my family. It feels like a whole different lifetime, like it wasn’t my family at all. My mother, my sister, and my father all died at the same time, more or less.”
“That’s awful,” she says, holding a hand to her heart. “I’m really sorry.”
I smile at her as I light my cigar. “You’re sweet, you know that?”
She shakes her head. “Hardly.”
“I think so.”
She shrugs, waiting for me to get my cigar going before speaking again. I can tell she has more questions, probably more than I’m willing to answer. “Why did it happen? Mafia business?”
I shrug. “Bad people with even worse intentions. The leader of the group, a thug by the name of Vlad, decided my father’s little bar was a threat to their chain of shady clubs throughout the city. The told him to pack up and move out, and when he didn’t, they came and… Well, did some terrible things.”
“They killed him,” she says softly.
I grit my teeth. “More than that, but I didn’t feel like talking about it,” I reply, puffing smoke into the car until it becomes hot and sour.
“You don’t have to, but I feel like I should know about my husband,” Sage says, putting her hand on my leg. “You can ask me anything, too, by the way.”
“You’re not ready for the truth. I can promise you that,” I say as the car comes to a stop in front of my casino. “Time to go. We can talk more tonight. I doubt you’re going to be able to sleep after this.”
14
Sage
