Page 35 of The Piece You Stole

“Something funny, Miss Leo?” Detective Bradley raises his eyebrow. “Maybe something you can share with us? We cops like a good joke.”

You copsarethe joke.

My gaze flicks down and then up again. “You spilled something on your tie, Detective Bradley.” I smile a little as I say it, so he knows nothing he’s said has gotten to me. “Maybe you should change it before your boss spots it. Is that enough to save me?”

He stares at me.

I firm my jaw and tilt my chin up a hair.

I’m not telling you a damn thing.You can keep me here for a thousand years, and I still won’t talk because in here with you will never be as bad as being out there with Rylan.

In the silence, the hum from the recorder crosses over from being vaguely irritating to just plain irritating. I dart a glance at the clock. Twenty minutes.

What happened to your patience, Saige?

Rylan.That’swhat happened to my patience.

CHAPTER 9

KADE

Itake in Aden’s slumped form on the apartment’s couch. He has several items balanced precariously around him that have the potential to make a pretty big mess if someone were to startle him. “I’m guessing you had about as much luck as I did?”

Aden jerks his blond head from the back of the couch, going from dead asleep to alert in under a second. The laptop sitting on his lap topples over. He fumbles to catch it, and in the process, only flings it further away from him.

Snorting my amusement, I grab the laptop and shove it toward him. Next, I save the bottle of whiskey and the half-full glass. Those, I keep for myself before I thump heavily into the seat beside him.

He blinks at me blearily, eyes red, clothes disheveled, mouth twisted in confusion as he glances first at me, and then at the darkened sky outside the window. “Shit, I fell asleep.”

“Looks like.” After downing the contents of the glass, I shove it in his direction before turning my attention to the bottle. Macallan isn’t my favorite, but it’s here, and I’m not about to say no to a drink after the forty-eight hours I just had. I raise it to my lips for a deep draw.

Still not my favorite, but it’ll do.

Aden sets the glass and the laptop on the floor beside him, his gaze moving from the whiskey in my hand, my bare chest, and then back to the rapid emptying contents of said bottle. His lips tighten a little, but he doesn’t tell me to put it down. Wouldn’t matter if he did.

“What time is it?” he finally asks.

“Late.”

His brow creases in a frown. “Where’s your shirt?”

“Well,” I drawl, “turns out folk in the big city don’t take too kindly to people walking around sniffing the streets.”

He eyes my side. “And you’re sure it wasn’t because it looked like you’d been stabbed?”

I glance down at my chest, taking in the smooth unblemished skin. The wound healed hours ago. Must have been during my jog to Aden’s apartment to sniff out the men who’d taken Saige. I followed the unfamiliar shifter scents halfway down the road before, just as Aden had predicted, I lost them in traffic.

That didn’t stop me from heading east, anyway. Just in case.

I take another long draw of whiskey as I lean back, stretching out the tired muscles in my legs. Fuck, it feels good to be off my feet. “I wore a shirt.”

Aden stares at me.

“For some of it,” I say, not quite meeting his eye.

Namely the parts when I was a wolf.

He watches me raise the bottle to my lips before he reaches over and snatches it away. I let him have it since I don’t have a problem sharing. Just as long as he doesn’t intend on keeping it.

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