Page 118 of Syndicate of Sin Bundle

“Sage?” I called.

As if she hadn’t heard me walk into the penthouse, she snapped her head in my direction and wiped tears from her cheeks. I furrowed my brow.

Why is she sitting in my house alone, crying? Where the hell is Laila?

“S-sorry,” Sage said, sliding off the windowsill and hurrying past me. “I probably should’ve left a while ago when Laila left.” She glanced at the unopened food in the garbage. “I’ll get out of your hair.”

Before she could make it another foot, I snapped my hand around her upper arm and stopped her. “Where did Laila go? She just left you here?”

Sage stared at the ground and shrugged her shoulders, tensing. I snatched her chin and forced her to look up at me. She stared for a few moments before more tears filled her eyes. She shook her head and suddenly wrapped her arms around me.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I don’t even know why I’m crying.”

Slowly, I settled my arms around her shoulders. Laila had been the only woman to hug me like this in years, and I … wasn’t sure how to react to her. Do I hold her back? Do I ask her what is wrong? She wasn’t my wife.

“Where is Laila?” I asked again.

She pulled away from me and wiped the tears from her cheeks again, shoulders heaving. “I’m sorry for crying. I-I brought her dinner, just like you had asked, but she left with Bethany before we could eat.”

I stiffened and balled my fists. “Bethany?”

Of course, Bethany had come over to snatch Laila away. I hated that fucking bitch. I had told Laila too many times to stop hanging out with her, and I could’ve fucking stopped it myself, too, by offing her, but Laila would hate me.

Bethany had been Laila’s first friend when she joined the family.

“Why are you crying? Did Bethany hurt you?” I asked because if she had … then I wouldn’t care what I did to her. Laila would understand.

“No,” Sage said. “I’m sorry. I’m just tired and hungry.”

“Don’t lie to me,” I demanded.

She snapped her head up and shook it. “I-I’m not.”

“You are.”

After a couple of moments, she pursed her matte-colored lips and gazed out the windows again. “I don’t mean to overstep. I know that I’m … that I’m only your toy to play with, but Bethany doesn’t seem like a good friend to Laila.”

“She’s not.”

“It makes me sad,” Sage whispered. “Laila is so sweet.”

Once I let out a low sigh, I drew my tongue across my teeth. Despite everything that Laila had been through in her life, she was one of the sweetest women I knew. That was one of the reasons I had married her. But this family was slowly corrupting her.

Sage’s stomach rumbled, and she quickly clutched it. “I should go back home.”

“What happened to the food?” I asked. “Why is it in the trash?”

Sage opened and closed her mouth without answering. Laila did the same thing when she didn’t want to tell me the truth or when she didn’t want to disappoint me.

“Don’t lie to me,” I ordered.

“I don’t want to get anyone in trouble,” she murmured.

“If you don’t want to get in trouble, you’ll tell me.”

She eyed the trash. “Bethany dumped my food into the garbage.”

“She what?” I said between clenched teeth.

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