Page 107 of Piece You Saved

Saige smiles faintly and peers over her shoulder. Aden meets her eye with a softness that wasn’t there before. I heard them upstairs. How could I not? He loves her, and she loves him. She loves Kade as well. But me? Who knows?

Saige asks Aden, “Won’t your neighbors wonder at the shooting if you’re teaching me to shoot? Or are we doing that somewhere else?”

As she’s talking, I glance at Kade to see what he makes of her refusal to answer Detective Morgan’s question. Kade is studying Saige with a deep line between his brows. Likely feeling my attention, he darts a glance at me, finds me watching, and gives me a subtle headshake.

We can’t give her back to him,his eyes tell me.

I nod.I know.

He cocks his head as if asking,So what’s the plan?

Good question.

Conscious someone else is observing me, I turn to Harley.

His brows are raised, as if wanting to know where he fits into this plan.

My wolf wanted to tear Leandro apart for scaring Saige. At the hospital, I swore to rip Harley’s throat out for eyeing her with barely concealed interest.

Why haven’t I done that yet? And why did I tell Kade not to kill Harley, then stand by and watch him tear into Claudine?

“Dariel?” My name on Saige’s lips captures my full attention. Instantly. I wish I’d pretended not to hear so she would say it again.

Next time.

“What is it?” I ask, absorbing the fact she isn’t looking at me like she hates me. She’s not looking at me like she likes me either, but I can work with this look. Hatred is a lot harder to come back from. If it’s even possible.

“Aden is going to teach me to shoot in the garden. He said your neighbors won’t mind.” It sounds like she’s asking for approval. She isn’t. She’s telling me what’s going to happen.

I nod, hiding my smile. “We’re one of the few occupied homes on this street. The rest are crumbling down or repossessed homes no one wants to spend the money to fix up. Rylan wants to meet tomorrow night, so I doubt a couple of days oflimitedshooting practice will draw too much attention. That means not from morning to night.”

She nods, smiling faintly. “Okay.”

It’s not much, but I’ll take it. “The bridge. What’s the significance of it?” I ask, wanting to draw this conversation out longer. Maybe even create another opportunity to have her smile at me again.

Her faint smile fades, and she sits back in her seat, glancing at Detective Morgan before she quietly admits, “It’s the bridge I drove Felix’s car off.” She pauses. “To kill him. On purpose.”

Silence.

Detective Morgan puts his hands on the table as if getting ready to stand. “You shouldn’t be telling me this.”

Saige’s eyes narrow as she angles her body to face him head-on. “If you saw Felix’s collection of whips and the things he used to like to do to me with them, you’d have shot him in the head without hesitation.”

Detective Morgan pushes himself to his feet. “I can’t—”

“If you ask her nicely, she’ll show you the scars on her back,” Kade says in a lazy drawl. “And then maybe, if you have trouble understanding why a man—strike that, an animal—like that needs to be six feet under, you can imagine those same scars on your sister. See if the idea upsets you as much then.”

The cop stares at Kade as anger flares in his eyes. “You can’t go around dishing out vigilante justice like that.”

Kade offers up a salute as lazy as his drawl. “Right you are. It’s why we’re sticking with animals who don’t deserve to breathe.” Kade turns to Saige. “Why this bridge, angel?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugs. “I guess it kind of makes sense he’d want to go back to where this all started.”

I glance over at Detective Morgan. He’s staring down at the table. After a couple of seconds, he returns to his seat, though he doesn’t lift his gaze again. His hands, I can’t help but notice, are gripping the edge of the table. Tight.

“Where what started?” Aden frowns.

“Where I decided I would die.” In the silence that follows, Saige tugs the sleeve of her long-sleeved t-shirt down over her left wrist and continues. “Rylan only let me think I’d escaped. He had Nathan follow me.” Her gaze settles on Harley. “He said he came to the hospital and stood over me while I was in my week-long coma.”

---