MASON AND SAGE

Chapter 17 ~ Sage

He did not just say that.

No, maybe I misunderstood.

Mason did not just say he was going to write to Eva every week while she was in jail. Even after everything he'd been saying to me, even after everything she'd done to both of us, this bitch still had some sort of hold on him that he thought writing to her would be OK with me? I wanted whatever he was smoking.

Trying to yank my hands out of his, he held tight.

"Wait, Sage," he said calmly, "it's not what you think. Please listen to me. Please! It's not what you think. Not at all."

I stopped struggling, considering his words, as he went on.

"Give me a small bit of trust, and I'll explain why," he said, still in that same calm, even tone.

Give him a small bit of trust? I thought for a minute. Could I? Could I do that? If I stopped and listened to him, I would be giving him, as he said, a bit of trust. One small bit that could be added to others going forward until he had earned back all of the small bits. And if I was willing to give him the trust he wanted, would he be stupid enough to betray that trust he was so desperate to rebuild?

"OK, I'm listening." Somehow, my voice sounded calm even though I was a mess inside. 

Trust. Trust. Trust.

He smiled at me in gratitude. "Eva's boss, Robert, and I were both not happy with her sentence. Six years doesn't seem like enough for what she did. She could have destroyed Robert's career with what she pulled. And we know what she did to you, to me, to us. Hell, even to Nate. She wasn't going to tell him the baby was his."

"Ohhh-kay," I said, still not sure where this was going.

"You know how you can get time off for good behavior? Well, apparently the opposite is true. Inmates can get time added to their sentences for bad behavior. And if they have enough strikes against them on the inside, that can change their category or classification and have them put in a more restrictive facility."

I'd perked up when he said time added. This had possibilities. Wonderful possibilities.

"If there's one thing I know after spending all those years with that bitch, it's how to trigger her. The thought of me being with another woman always bothered her, but apparently me being with you really triggers her, as we discovered when she pulled the shit she did. Plus, she's going to be on edge anyway from being locked up, so it shouldn't take much to...set her off, so to speak."

Hmmmm...I liked this. I liked it a lot. The possibilities were endless. And so, so delicious.

"So Robert is going to let me know whoever Eva's cellmate is. We'll send the letters to this person. The prison authorities would catch on after a while that Eva triggers after getting a letter from me. This way, with a go-between, there's not as obvious a link. We'll make sure the cell mate gets some perks so she has incentive to give the letters to Eva. And she'll be big enough and strong enough to prevent Eva from hurting her."

Was it wrong to be so delighted at this devious payback plan of Mason's?

Oh, hell to the no! This bitch was so wrong on so many levels that she deserved every bit of time she was going to have added to her sentence.

I looked up at Mason, and was glad I'd handed over that tiny bit of trust.

"Do you think...do you think I could write to her, too, Mason?"

He grinned at me. "I think she'd be even happier to hear from you, kitten. It does get so lonely in prison. You're such a caring person, Sage. It's one of the things I love best about you, the way you're always willing to reach out and help a person in need."