Page 61 of Manhattan Tormentor

“No, I’m fine here, Daddy.” She responds.

“Raene.”

“Oh, fine,” standing, she looks at me with the same glare mom wears often, the kind that tells me this isn’t over. But it is. I have no intention of discussing sex and who I have it with, with my sister. “I have a murder to plan. Where does the dickhead live?”

“Watch your language, Bunny.”

“Wait for it, Mom. You’ll hear everything he’s done to Sage, and you’ll dig his grave with me.”

Pushing my chair back, I grab her arm and march her out of the kitchen, only stopping when I have Raene in the foyer. Rounding on her with my height, my voice low and serious. “You stay out of this, I mean it. It’s nothing to do with you.”

“Nothing. To. Do. With. Me.”

Oh, here we go.

“On what fucking planet are you on, Sage? I’m trying to protect you because I love you. That lanky piece of piss has tormented you for months and you didn’t even tell me, I had to hear it at school. And you let him climb into your bed? I’m rethinking your intelligence if you’re this hard up for attention. How long has this been going on for? Since you made out? Before that?”

“That’s part of the nothing to do with you.” Before she can go on like I know she is going to, I step in, cup the back of her head and kiss her forehead. “I’m the big brother here, Raene, I don’t need you to protect me.”

“But…”

“I mean it, this isn’t your business. Some things aren’t for sisters to know.”

“You’re my best friend too. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“You need more friends if I’m the only choice,” I smile and she scoffs. She’s popular is our Raene, but she’s right, we’ve been best friends since before we could talk.

“Listen, Sage.”

“No,” I stop her. “You do not get involved.At all.”

She hates being told what to do. She has a need to fix things.

“What you gonna do to stop me?”

I laugh a little before I stroll back toward the kitchen. But I turn and mouth a certain guy’s name that makes her face turn pink with fury. “I bet Theo would love to know.”

“You little asswipe!”

“Love you too, sis.”

She rants and raves all the way up the stairs about how I can live in a stable and do stuff to sheep. Has she forgotten we’re in Manhattan, where the hell would I find a stable, anyway?

“Now that you’ve upset your sister, sit and spill it,” mom points her finger and I sigh. There’s never any exit strategy when a Fierro wants to know something. Bunch of nosy shits.

“I don’t know what you want, Mom. I apologized; it won’t happen again.”

“Is Bunny right, this boy has been terrorizing you?”

“You know how dramatic she is.”

“Sage.”

“Nothing is ever as it seems. For this I will ask you to respect my privacy, okay? Finn is my business; I don’t want it to become a whole Fierro show.”

I see the hurt cross mom’s face and I instantly regret my words, but what can I tell them, that Raene is right? That the guy I let in my bed has tormented me for months because he hates the way he feels for me?

They won’t understand.

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