Page 28 of The Piece You Stole

“How I choose to live my life is nothing to do with you,” I speak with my back to him, but the warning is there,veiled, but it’s there. Stay the fuck out of my business.

“Until it reflects badly on the rest of us. What, did you lose control of your wolf and kill another girl? We all heard about…”

I tune out the rest of his words as the memory of Monica’s bloodied body fills my mind. My vision flickers, and I’m staring out at the world through wolf's eyes.

“Once, you were the most dominant thing in this house.” Turning, I stare him down. “That isn’t true any longer. You would do well to remember that,Alpha.”

A cinnamon and bitter orange scent drifts closer. Claudine.

I take in the slender hand with pale peach-manicured fingernails she stretches toward me. The beast inside me is baying for blood.Herblood. Not that Claudine would know it from my casual tone, silky with my threat. “Put your hand on me, and you won’t be getting it back.”

She snatches her hand away and backs up, bumping hard against the table. Red wine splashes on the crisp white tablecloth, staining it like rich blood. Reminding me of Monica. I tear my gaze from the spill and focus on Claudine.

Her wolf peers out at me through her large, mink-brown eyes. Watching me but not challenging me. No one in the room is dominant enough to challenge me.

She’s an alpha. Dominant. My mate…but she’s not mine. At least not the sort of mate I want. “What did he give you to come here?”

Claudine studies me for a beat. There’s still an attraction between us. Once, it was deeper, impossible to ignore. So impossible to ignore I nearly threw myself off a bridge to escape the memory of her. Now it’s manageable.

But attraction isn’t and never has been enough for a woman as needy and greedy as Claudine. We all grew up together. Went for pack runs together.

You’re an idiot for thinking she would change, even for you.

She lifts one shoulder in a casual shrug. “A few small things.”

My gaze returns to my father sitting back in his chair, his eyes locked on me. “Things like a house overlooking a golf course and a new car? Those sorts of things?”

Father continues to observe me through expressionless dark eyes.

I’m standing tall, looking down at him, and he knows it. But he doesn’t rise and take back the dominant position. “Stay out of my life.” I turn.

A chair leg scrapes across the hardwood floors and I know he’s rising. My wolf goes on the alert in response to a potential threat at my back. “I’d have thought you had no problem sharing a woman.”

“I have no problem sharing a woman.” My voice is calm, unconcerned as I peer over my shoulder. “What I have a problem with is my mate fucking my father because it’s easier for her to earn a few small things on her back than to go begging her parents for them.”

A shocked female gasp echoes.

Leandro snorts. “No need for the outrage, Mother, Dariel is right and you know it.”

The two blank-faced servants lingering at the side of the room slip out almost as silently as they entered it. Desidario business is family business, and they know better than to stick around for it.

Father studies me coolly. “I see. So, you intend to waste your life away in that bar of yours?” he asks, disapproval twisting his lips into an ugly shape.

Whatever is wrong with my wolf, the fix is not under this roof, so any response would be a waste of time. Mine and his.

“You could be Alpha here, Dariel. You could live in a million-dollar home, managing investments. But no. You want to fritter away a future people would kill for to work in a bar that means nothing to anyone. At least Rylan—”

An electric charge runs through me, locking me to the ground.

Rylan.

That name.

I turn. “Who?”

His brow furrows in confusion.

I grind my teeth at his inability to understand the simplest of questions. “You said Rylan. Rylanwho?Whois this person you are so eager to compare me to?”

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