Page 30 of The Piece You Stole

I’m stepping out into the night when a thought hits me.

Leandro might know more about Rylan.

I turn. My eyes lock on Leandro across the foyer. “You know Rylan.”

Leandro raises his glass to his lips. “He’s been in a restaurant a time or two when I’ve been in the city.”

“What else do you know?” I demand.

Leandro’s smile is coy. “What else did you need me to know, little brother?”

Everything.

I can stay longer and waste hours dragging the information from Leandro, or… “Get up. You’re coming with me.”

He snorts. “I’m eating duck and drinking wine.Youare returning to the city.”

“You’re coming with me, and you’re telling me everything you know about Rylan Treveiler on the way.”

He’s the older brother, and I’m giving him an order. Adirectorder. I’ve never done that before. From his narrowed eyes and the hand tightening around the thin stem of his wineglass, he doesn’t like it. Not one bit. “Or?”

“I will walk into that dining room, close the door behind me, and you’ll find out the sort of damage my wolf can do in an enclosed space.”

Silence reins for a full minute before a wide grin splits his face. “Well, brother, a road trip.” He shoves himself to his feet, empties his glass, and snatches up the wine bottle. “Why didn’t you say so? I love a road trip. Let’s go.”

CHAPTER 8

SAIGE

Fast and slow.

That’s how time moves.

It fast forwards past the parts I wish would take forever, like the cops driving me to the police station and parking up at the back.Just in case reporters learned they’d solved the mystery of the nice doctor killed in such a grisly way,Detective Ferdinand said as he pulled me from the back.

They’d had plenty of time to introduce themselves on the way.

Time slows to a crawl when he shoves me against a white brick wall in the booking room, pats every inch of me down, and peels back the bandages on my neck before making jokes about what could have caused the bites on my neck—a wild animal, a heavy night of rough sex, or a combination of the two—before he orders me to spread my legs.

The snap of a rubber glove warns me what’s coming next.

When I remind him that a female cop should be the one to search me, it isn’t Detective Ferdinand, with the tiny mole eyes, but the other, Detective Bradley, with the greasy tie and curly blond hair who leans into my back and whispers, “Well, unluckily for you, no female cops are working this shift tonight so that just leaves us. But don’t you worry your pretty little head, we know how to be gentle.”

That part, the pressure, the invasion, and the pain takes an eternity.

Squeezing my eyes tight, I lean into the wall as I close my mind and my thoughts to the nightmare my life has become. Just when I think it can’t get any worse, somehow, it does.

What’s worse isn’t the fingers probing inside me for drugs or whatever else it is they think I have, but the conversation. The meaningless talk about millions spent on the wrong wide receiver, of a disappointing football season that won’t even get them to a playoff.

It just goes on and on and on.

After Detective Bradley has tossed the rubber glove into a metal bin beside a desk, he disappears around it. “You’re up, Ferdinand,” he calls out as if I’m a ball in a game and it’s his turn to take his turn with me.

Then the other detective, Detective Ferdinand, steps toward me with a look in his small mole-like eyes that make me inch away from him. I needn’t have bothered. I’m not going anywhere in a room with only one door that has a coded keypad beside it. He’s as rough as he was when he slammed me face down on the front of Rylan’s car.

“Sit.” He grips my shoulder and shoves me onto a metal stool, far harder than he needed to.

He could have just told me to sit down, and I’d have done it, but this isn’t about me following orders. He wants me to know that he’s in charge. Of this situation and of me.

---