Page 113 of The Piece You Stole

She never spoke about the nightmares that were probably a large reason she spent so little time sleeping in her room. From Kade’s decision yesterday morning, it looks like he’d decided to do something about it.

I rake a hand through my hair. “But you didn’t need to do it like that.”

He lifts his gaze from his laptop and gives me a long look. “And how should I have done it then, Aden? Stroked the hair back from her face, and said, oh, you poor sweet thing?”

“Kade.”

Shaking his head, he returns his attention to his laptop monitor. “She was going to break. Better someone pushed, and we were there to catch her than it happened when she’s alone.”

“She cried for two hours, Kade,” I remind him.

“I know,” he snarls. “I was there.”

Biting back my response, I sigh instead. “I know you did it because you care. This isn’t me snarling at you about it. Just…”

“You care too,” Kade says, “but you have your way of doing things, and I have mine.”

His way is like ripping a bandage off too fast. I’d like to think mine would be a little less painful. And Dariel? When it comes to Saige, I don’t know. But I’d like to think he cares too. He wouldn’t have stayed so long in the kitchen if he didn’t, and he wouldn’t have taken the time to reassure her that she wasn’t to blame for Rylan turning on her. He’d have just grabbed his coffee and walked out.

I nod toward his laptop. “What else have you found out?”

“That a bucket of cleaning products can set a fire so big it can burn through five acres in two hours. Had me singing in the shower. Cops have been stonewalled by an expensive attorney speaking for Mr. Treveiler, so it’s more proof he’s alive. Other than half his pack being ash and bones, there’s been no sign of activity at any of his properties, so he’s still laying low.” He darts a glance at the open door, and that’s when I know it's going to be bad. Even though Saige is still sleeping, he lowers his voice. “And that Nathan didn’t just kill her dad, he tortured him. Turns out the police were trying to pin it on her, at least according to the reporter who received a tip-off from someone in the station. There was at least another suspicious death that the cops were trying to pin on her.”

I raise my eyebrow. “Who?”

“A guy called Felix Bristowe. The cops were talking him up as one of Rylan’s business associates, so he had to be pack. Explains why we were missing two shifters at the ambush. This one I could see Saige doing.” Lifting his head from his laptop, he gives me a long look. Something dark and wicked stares back at me. “He drove into a river and drowned. She was in the car but somehow survived it. I doubt he’d have been the sort of person looking to kill himself.”

I see where he’s going with this. “But Saige is.” And then I remember how I found her in the grocery store. A hospital gown and bare feet. Leaking desperation and terror. She must have run from the hospital after Rylan sent one of his pack after her.

“Was.” He corrects me. “Was. Not now.”

“And the doctor?”

“Was definitely killed by a wolf, and if he was trying to help her get away, I can see one of the pack wanting to put a stop to that.”

“She said someone had been killed trying to help her,” I say, as I recall her words back in the Cerberus, right before she’d run away. Now I know it was to protect us. Which means our decision to stay silent about Saige’s rescue was a good one. If she knew how many of Rylan’s men we’d killed to free her, she’d run again, thinking she’d be keeping us safe. “Do you remember?”

Kade nods. “I remember. Must have been this Doctor Simon Trevor.”

No wonder she seemed so sure that it wasn’t safe for her to stay. It probably happened right in front of her.

When I think of everything she’s been through, one bad event leading to yet another bad event, all going back to an alpha who refuses to let her go, I wish for the millionth time I had put a bullet in his brain when I’d had the chance. “Kade, they have to die. Every last one of them has to die.”

“They will.” He straightens in his seat and closes the laptop screen. “She needs one of us.”

Kade’s words don’t register. At least, not at first.

She needs one of us.

And then I feel the impact of those words hardening my cock, because there’s only one way he could mean. “No, she needs to heal.”

“She needs to forget.”

I stare at his bland expression for a second, and then I close his bedroom door and walk over to him. I speak in a whisper. “We know what he did to her, Kade. What she needs is time to heal and not—”

“That’s why it has to be you.” His eyes are so blank, I can’t help but wonder what it is he doesn’t want me to see: arousal, jealousy, or something else. “I can’t…” Dark hunger stirs in his gaze. “I can’t be what she needs right now. Butyoucan.”

Arousal and jealousy then, maybe even frustration because it’s not in Kade’s nature to be gentle, but it is in mine.

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