Page 68 of The Piece You Stole

A scream, sharp and high, bursts from my lips.

Rylan drags the needle through my skin before he stabs me with it again. I’m still screaming, but if Rylan wants me to stop, he’s going to have to sew my mouth shut.

The third time he stabs me, my eyes flutter shut, and I sink into oblivion with a grateful sigh.

Slap.

Fire eats at my cheek.

My eyes fly open.

Rylan peers down at me through his cool blue stare, waiting until I’m fully conscious again before he continues his torture.

Every time unconsciousness saves me from the searing pain in my arm, a hard slap returns me right back to it.

Stab. Slap. Stab. Slap. Stab.

Slap.

Slap.

Slap.

And then nothing. The world goes black and stays black.

Finally.

CHAPTER 17

DARIEL

“So, when are you going to tell me about the friends I’m getting a feeling aren’t friends at all?” Aden’s hazel gaze swings from me to Kade and back again.

Kade doesn’t even look up as his fingers fly across his laptop. He’s still in the same hunched position he’s been in for the last four hours. If it’s uncomfortable, he’s showing no sign of it. “Nothing to tell.”

Aden focuses his attention on me. “Dariel?”

I dart a glance to the kitchen clock just beside the doorway and take in Aden’s still red and bleary eyes. “Go back to bed. Four hours wasn’t enough.”

“I’m good.” Dressed in the same gray sweats and rumpled t-shirt he was wearing before, he crosses over to the large, round kitchen table, hesitating beside it for so long that he must be thinking how the last time we all sat around that table Monica was still alive.

She always liked to—

Not the time, Dariel. Not the time.

Finally, he drops into the pale, wooden chair beside Kade. “Are these people the same as the ones we got the money to buy the Cerberus?” he asks, his voice still husky from sleep.

“No,” I tell him.

They’re worse.

A lot worse. But we need their information which will come faster and is more reliable than anything that came out of Leandro’s mouth.

Fortunately for me and Kade, Aden is still battling what has to be a pretty rough hangover from the way he’s carefully avoiding looking directly to his left, where the morning light streams in through the window.

From the frown creasing his brow and the stubbornness filling his eyes, he’s getting ready to argue when a piercing alarm shrieks overhead.

Aden shoves himself to his feet as I push off the counter and stalk toward the kitchen door. “Stay there, Aden.”

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