Page 157 of The Piece You Stole

I throw a glare over my shoulder and find Kade scratching the bridge of his nose with his middle finger. As soon as I make eye contact, he nudges me aside and steps up to the door for the den, reaching up to grab the single key tucked above the white door frame.

As he inserts the key in the lock, his lips curve in a mockery of a smile. “Maybe you should explain it to me again. You know, in case I missed something during the twenty-plus times you went over and over and—”

In times of stress, people will laugh or cry. They have even been known to piss themselves.

In times of stress, Kade annoys me to the point I’m ready to choke him, and then body slam him to the ground before driving a foot into his ribs for good measure. Since now isn’t the time, I settle for a head slap and then shove him aside when he’s finished unlocking the door.

But before I enter the room where I know three wolves are inside prowling, I reach above the door and peel away Aden’s Sig Sauer that we taped to the wall just above the door. I press it into Kade’s hand. “Here. You remember how to use it?”

Kade snorts as he clicks off the safety and checks there’s a bullet in the chamber. “If Aden had told me one more fucking time to squeeze, the next thing I’d have squeezed was him.” Despite his grumble, he handles the weapon with an easy confidence that suggests Aden needn’t have bothered to give Kade a refresher at all.

He’s been practicing.

No wolves lunge out of the door, but that doesn’t mean I can’t feel them watching from the room’s dark corners. Waiting.

After swinging the door open, I step inside and reach for my wolf.

Before I can shift, Kade grips my arm and squeezes. I angle my head in his direction, meet his eye, and nod. “Stick to the plan.”

I don’t warn him of what could happen if he doesn’t. He knows. Weallknow.

He gives me a sloppy salute that has me snorting my amusement, and as I move into the den, he backs up. It’s not much of a den since we shoved all the furniture and the entertainment center to one side of the room. Actually, it’s not much of a den at all since the lack of natural light made this room so dark, we sealed the one small window it had and turned it into a home cinema with recliners, a projector when we wanted to watch something on the wall, and an entertainment center with an eighty-five-inch TV when we didn’t.

The lack of window is the reason we chose this room, less chance of me being hit at once. That and the fact it has a connecting door that leads to the dining room, a room with four double windows overlooking the backyard. Fourbrokenwindows now, since it’s how the wolves got into the house.

Pop. Pop.

A wolf whimpers in pain.

“Yeah, wrong door, motherfucker. Try door number two,” Kade mutters.

It sounded like he was shooting at the backyard door, the only other easy way into the house. His job is to watch the entryway and make sure any wolf who wants to take one step into our house chooses the right door. And that right door is through the dining room and into the den.

Whatever happens now, we each have our part to play in keeping Saige safe. I don’t question the need anymore, and I stop fighting itorlying to myself about something I should have known all along. Saige unites us, completes us, and is a piece of us. Just as we’re a piece of her.

Someone is threatening to take her from us, and we’re not going to let that happen. No matter what it takes.

The door snicks shut behind me. A key turns in the lock, leaving me alone with three wolves creeping toward me.

When my wolf started to turn feral, it was Aden’s idea to replace all the doors in the house with the heavy, reinforced ones we used for my office door in the Cerberus. If I ever turned feral in the house, Aden, Kade, and Monica would have a chance to get away from me. All they would need to do is get behind a door, any door, slam it shut, and I’d have to shift back to open it.

Pop. Pop.

A wolf howls in pain. A different wolf.

“Wrong door,” Kade calls out. “Try again.”

Our plan for Rylan’s attack was always simple. I would guard the easiest path it would take Rylan’s wolves to get to us: through the backyard gate, a window in the dining room, and into this den. All other doors on the ground floor lead to Kade in the entryway, where he has a loaded gun ready to convince them to try elsewhere.

Which is where I come in. We want the wolves to come here. To me.

Which means there’s only one way they can get to Saige.

Throughme.

And if I fail, through Kade.

We won’t fail.

---