Page 71 of The Piece You Stole

A smile like that is always dangerous, not just for Kade, but usually for everyone around him.

“Bomb threat.” Kade grins.

Silence.

“I’m going to assume you need sleep as badly as Aden does,” I tell him, speaking slowly.

If it were anyone else, I’d assume they were joking, but Kade… Kade is Kade.

He scratches his jaw. “If you want someone to leave a building, you need to give them a reason. A good one. We could set off a fire alarm, but those luxury apartment buildings are likely going to have a fancy suppression system.”

“Or?” I prompt.

“Or we’d need to set a fire so big we’re risking Saige getting hurt.”

“That’s not an option,” Aden speaks before I can.

“So?” When I can no longer ignore Leandro’s continued crunching, I turn and give him a long look that promises he won’t like what I do to him if he doesn’t shut up or get out. He takes his hand out of the bag and sets it aside.

“A bomb threat will motivate them to leave in a way a fire will, but without us having to set the thing up,” Kade explains, as if it makes all the sense in the world and I’m the dumb one for not seeing it.

I think some more. “People call in bomb threats all the time. What makes you so certain anyone will take this one seriously enough to empty a building?”

Kade waves at the laptop. “This guy is a money-grubbing crook. If there isn’t one or more just like him occupying that building, I wouldn’t be surprised. So, we deliver a plausible reason to the cops and have them do the motivating for us.”

This plan is reckless, if not downright crazy. More things could go wrong than right…and yet here I am considering it.

“There’s a lot of moving parts in this plan of yours, Kade.” Almost too many to keep track of. “Then there’s the not-so-small matter of how we get to Rylan and Saige in a building swarming with cops. How exactly do you propose we do that?”

Kade rises to his feet. “Oh, that part is easy.”

“When you say something will be easy, I get nervous.” Aden’s frown is plain to hear in his voice.

“This will be fun,” Kade adds.

Aden’s frown deepens. “Yeah, now I’m not just nervous, I’m terrified.”

And it looks like he has a right to be when Kade crosses over to the kitchen sink and pulls open the cupboard just beneath it. The cleaning cupboard.

I take in the chemicals, and my eyes narrow. “Kade, what the hell are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking we need to motivate Rylan to climb into his car and drive somewhere to put out a fire.” He pulls out a bottle of bleach, shakes it, and places it on the counter. “I’m thinking that piece of land he has seems like the perfect place to ambush him. We just have to get there a little before him, set Aden up on a nice little perch, hope he hasn’t drunk so much whiskey he falls out of it, and the two of us go hunting. That’s what I’m thinking.”

Leandro scoffs. “He has a pack of twenty. Whoever this girl is, she’s not worth crossing Rylan Treveiler, I promise you that.”

I clench my jaw. “Twenty? You didn’t think to mention that before?”

“I had a feeling you’d ditch me. It’s always a good idea to hold back some valuable information, just in case.” He taps his forehead with one finger and a secret smile fills his eyes. “I have plenty more where that came from.”

“And the reason I should believe you?” I bite out between gritted teeth.

“I told you I’d seen him around town before, and I wasn’t lying. A few years back, he and his party of twenty stole the private room at Cecilia’s from right under my nose. Do you know how that made me look to all my guests?” Leandro’s lips tighten. “Ruined my night.”

Before I can follow through with my intention to rip Leandro’s head off, Kade thumps another bottle on the counter. Turpentine. His eyes latch on mine, and for several seconds, neither of us speaks.

Twenty is twice more than I’d thought we’d be up against. While it doesn’t change my mind about going ahead with this, it just became dangerous enough that we all need to be fully on board with this. I can’t and won’t pull Aden and Kade into something that could cost them their lives, so they need to agree, and I need to hear them say it.

“I’m still game,” Kade says, reading the question in my eye. “If it were a hundred, I’d still be game. She’s ours.”

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