Page 47 of The Piece You Stole

“Or he’s killed them off,” I guessed. Because everyone has an enemy. And a man with the wealth Rylan Treveiler has accumulated in such a short time would have more than most.

No one says a word, but in the silence, the dangerous light filling Kade’s eyes dims a little. Enough that I know he’s listening to me now.Reallylistening.

“You’ve had dealings with him before,” Kade says, showing no interest in the breakfast he ordered for us. Only Aden is eating, but he’s doing it so reluctantly he must still be wondering what nasty thing Laurel did to it.

I nod at Leandro. Whatever circles Rylan runs in is nowhere south of the city, and nowhere near us. “He has.”

“And…?” Kade prompts.

“That’s not a conversation we can have here. But since Rylan is the type who will destroy one of his toys rather than give it up, when I tell you that we need a full proof plan, we need a full proof plan.”

Understanding flashes across his face. “So, let’s go and—”

“Turn that up!” Aden explodes from his seat, drawing every single gaze our way. He tips most of his coffee across the table as he scrambles out of the booth, seemingly deaf to Kade’s grunt when he knees him in the back on his way out. From Kade’s dark glower, it looks like I’m not the only one with a punch in the nose in my future.

At least until Kade glances after Aden, his face goes slack, and he’s up and out of the booth. My eyes hunt for the source of Aden’s mad dash and Kade’s single-minded focus, and I find it…on the wide-screen TV.

The chef leaning out of the kitchen hatch has a remote in hand. Maybe the TV show he was watching before is over. Maybe he just wanted to catch up on the news. But that doesn’t change the fact that splashed across the TV is an image of Saige.

It’s a photograph that someone must have taken from outside a bar or a restaurant. She’s wearing a pretty lace pink dress, her long dark hair curled in loose waves that hang over one soft shoulder. There are no shadows in this woman’s blue-gray eyes, at least none that I can see.

Something in my chest tightens at the sight of her happy smile.

Beautiful.

She looks fucking beautiful.

It takes me a while, a long while, to realize that there are no bites on her slender throat and that the hand she’s gripping onto must be Rylan Treveiler, since someone cut him out of the photograph.

And that’s when I notice it. The headline running across the bottom:

Local woman arrested for the grisly murder of emergency room doctor, Simon Trevor.

I follow Aden and Kade toward the widescreen TV. Halfway there, the image changes to a woman in a white silk shirt and fitted pencil skirt, standing in front of a police station with a microphone in hand. A reporter. And she’s reporting live.

Aden is still ordering the chef to turn the TV volume up, and Kade is making his own demands, but I ignore both. I stalk closer to the screen, all my attention on the building behind the woman. How and why the cops have arrested Saige for murder is irrelevant. But it helps us, and it helps her. If she’s in jail, she isn’t with Rylan Treveiler, and getting her out of jail is a million times easier than getting her away from a man like that.

There are four precincts in the city. With the trouble Kade has gotten himself into and out of over the years, I recognize most of them. But not this one. This is one building I’ve never been to before.

The woman turns to motion at the building, and that’s when I see it. The two numbers stamped on a sign just outside: 85thPrecinct.

I reach for my cell phone, bring up the internet search engine and tap in the numbers, impatience biting at me at how long it’s taking for the address to load.

But finally, I have it.

Kade is threatening to rip the chef’s spine out if he doesn’t hand the fucking remote over right fucking now when I pull some bills out of my pocket and toss it on the counter. “Let’s go.”

Aden spins around. His eyes are still red, but he’s looking a hell of a lot more alert than he was when we first walked in. “We can’t go. We need to know wh—”

“Eighty-fifth precinct. About thirty minutes away. That’s where we’re going.”

He stares at me, mouth gaping open.

I turn and head for the door. “Now.”

No one says a word, but behind me, I feel Aden, Kade, and to my frustration, Leandro follow.

CHAPTER 12

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