Page 57 of The Piece You Stole

“She must have some kind of magical pussy to attract…”

I stop listening as rage floods my body. Whatever problem these cops have with Saige, it’s not professional. It’s so personal that the thought of them being anywhere near her is enough to make me reach for a gun and put a bullet between their eyes.

And then I remember Kade because if I’m hearing this, so is he.

Shit.

Kade only ever smiles like that just before he does something that usually leaves someone dead or close to it.

I step toward him. “Kade, we need to go.”

It doesn’t matter that these cops might lead us to Rylan. If we don’t leave this police station in the next five minutes, those two detectives, swiftly followed by Kade, will be lying in a pool of blood on the police station floor.

Kade peels himself off the wall, his eyes fixed on the cops and that same dangerous smile creasing his lips. “You might want to wait outside for this, Aden,” he says. “Things are about to get a little messy.”

I grip his arm. He shakes it off.

I try again, but he dodges, moving faster than he should in a place filled with humans who might notice his faster-than-human speed. “Kade—”

“Gentlemen, were you here to speak to someone?” a gravelly male voice comes from directly behind me.

Spinning around brings up another threat of vomiting, but once I’ve swallowed the threat back down again, I take in the heavy-set, gray-haired detective in his fifties, sharp dark brown eyes pinned on Kade. Some internal alarm must be blaring in his head because he has his hand hovering over his unclipped gun holster.

He has good instincts.

“We were just leaving.” Dariel doesn’t wait for the cop to say anything. Or most likely, find a reason to shoot. He grips my arm with one hand, Kade with the other, and propels us toward the open police station doors. Kade is still wearing that same dangerous smile, which explains why Dariel is moving so fast.

“So, this girl with the magical pussy,” Leandro drawls, following behind us. “I’m a little curious. And also interested.”

Dariel doesn’t slow. “If you don’t stop talking, Leandro, I will lock you in a room with Kade and not open it again, no matter how much you scream.”

Whatever family reunion Dariel went home for doesn’t sound like it was one he wanted to go to at all.

Family is and always has been a double-edged sword—for all of us—and it looks like Dariel’s past is catching up to him. Mine is dead and buried. Kade’s is too. From what Dariel has hinted at over the years, I’d believed his was as well.

Leandro whistles loudly as he follows close behind.

One glance at Dariel’s profile reveals the tension lining his jaw.

If Leandro isn’t careful, Dariel might soon be an only child. Unless there are more siblings we don’t know about.

We push our way through the few remaining reporters who are packing away their equipment as they mill about outside the stations. It doesn’t take us long to reach Dariel’s car, which he parked a few feet down the road. This early in the morning, it’s so quiet that the only noise down this street is the reporters we left behind us.

Dariel stops and drops my arm before swinging to face Kade. He steps into his face, so close that I dart a nervous glance at the reporters behind us. None of them are looking this way, but once the fists start flying, there’s no way one or two of them won’t grab their cameras and start shooting away.

“If you want to go back in there, then go.” Dariel’s voice is whisper-quiet. “But if you get yourself shot in the head by a cop, we don’t have someone who can find out what we need to get her back.”

I blink.

Dariel’s sudden desire to save Saige is bewildering. A relief, but bewildering. While I’m not about to turn down his help, I’d like to know where this change came from. Was it the brother or was it something else that triggered this change?

“You have a plan,” Kade says, his silver stare searching Dariel’s face.

“I have a plan. But it’s going to involve all of us if it’s going to work. This was the easiest and best way to get her back, but we’re going to need all our skills.” Dariel glances at me. “First, we need privacy, and we need a safe place. I’m going to assume the guy you near destroyed the bar fighting is a part of this, which means they will know about the Cerberus, so we can’t go back there.”

“They haven’t come after us,” Kade says. He doesn’t ask where this safe place is because we all know where it is: home. A place that hasn’t been home to anyone but Dariel since Kade and I moved out after Monica died three years ago. Staying in that house wasn’t an option after what had happened there. Not for me, and not for Kade.

Since Dariel spends more time locked behind the doors of his office at the Cerberus than anywhere else, I guess it hasn’t felt like home for him either.

---