Page 59 of The Piece You Stole

Leandro backtracks, hands up in apology. “No need to kill me. It was just a joke, brother. Just a joke.”

“Go. Home.” Dariel pulls the driver’s side door open and slides in. “You have a lot of responsibility waiting for you back there. I’d hate for you to miss a second of it.”

He slams the car door closed and starts the engine.

I glance out of the window, not the least bit surprised to find Leandro hasn’t moved. There’s something persistent about this guy that makes me think we haven’t seen the last of him. “He’s annoying.”

Leandro’s lips tighten as he stares back at me.

Guess he heard.

Turning back around, I reach for my seatbelt as Dariel pulls onto the road. “Kind of reminds me of Kade,” I say, only half-joking.

“Fuck off,” Kade snarls.

“Who are you texting?” I ask, nodding at Dariel’s cell.

“Texting?” Kade repeats faintly. “Oh, just a friend.”

“Why don’t I believe you?” I study his bent head as he composes what must be the longest text known to man.

“Because you’re hungover,” Kade says, sounding distracted. “Wouldn’t you agree, Dariel?”

“I do,” Dariel responds so quickly if I hadn’t believed they were keeping something from me, I would now. I can count on one hand the times they’ve agreed with each other in the last year. But this quickly? Not since Nica was still alive.

Dariel makes a turn too fast, and the contents of my stomach slosh about. Closing my eyes, I sit back and hope I get through the forty-minute journey ahead of us without wearing my sick at the end of it.

CHAPTER 15

SAIGE

My eyes haven’t left Nathan’s sneering smile in nearly an hour.

No matter how many times I tell myself to look away, I can’t make myself do it.

I look at him and I remember the photograph.

I look at him and remember the way he made my dad suffer before he died.

“Bar owners you said?” Jacob twists his mouth in a moue of disgust.

Jacob comes from so much money that his parents had five servants raise him, so it’s no surprise he views any profession other than managing investments as beneath him. Even that he hires out. Mostly, he loses the money he plays at investing. It’s his parents who ensure he will never know what it’s like to work a day in his life.

I thought he was spoiled and over-privileged at twenty-six when Rylan first introduced me to him. Three years hasn’t changed my opinion of him.

Nathan, reclining on one of Rylan’s white couches, takes another sip of his vodka. “Rylan thinks they’re suffering enough working a profession like that, but I say there’s always room for someone to suffer more.”

I’ll just bet you do.

They’re all the same. Rylan has surrounded himself with people just like him, those lucky enough to be born into rich shifter families where they never have to work. Spoiled, judgmental, monstrous—

“Saige,” Rylan snaps.

I jerk my gaze from Nathan and point it at my bare feet. It was only a matter of time before Rylan noticed all the attention I’m suddenly paying Nathan. How could he not?

They were all waiting when Rylan and Nathan brought me back to his apartment. All seventeen members of Rylan’s pack had spread themselves across the couches and futons, making me think I’d walked in on a photoshoot. One person was notably missing. Felix. After I drove Felix’s car off a bridge and killed him, Rylan’s pack now stands at nineteen members in total.

My gaze finds Nathan again.Though I wish it was eighteen.

---