Page 151 of Piece You Saved

A snort. “You’re a doctor—a prodigy, you said. I’ll leave you to figure it out.”

Go see her. Talk to her. Reassure her that she won’t lose Kade if she wants to be with me.

“What about Dariel and Aden?” I prompt. “What do they think of this?”

He climbs out. “They want the same thing. They just got there sooner than I did.”

I sit up in my seat, shrugging off the exhaustion and despair that’s been hovering over my head for the last couple of days, and let my hope loose. “I’ll be right—”

Kade grips the door and prepares to slam it shut. “Not now. You need to go home.”

I raise a brow. “I do, do I?”

He rakes his eyes over me. “You, doctor, look like fucking shit. Get some sleep,” he says and slams the door shut before stalking away.

Rolling the window down, I yell at him, “Wait, do you need a ride?”

He doesn’t slow as he waves off my offer. “No need. Police station isn’t far.”

I frown. “Police station?”

He sighs as he walks away. “Don’t ask. It’s a long fucking story.”

I watch him go, conscious the door didn’t lock properly, but nothing right now could wipe the shit-eating grin off my face. Not even the hundreds of dollars it’s probably going to cost me to fix that broken door.

Saige needs me to be happy, and I need her, too.

CHAPTER 40

DARIEL

“I’d have thought you’d got the message to stop calling when I turned my cell phone off,” I say with my eyes on the trees ahead and arms folded across my chest.

Aden is upstairs with Saige, napping from the lack of noise. Kade is out on an errand, one Aden has been gently prompting for the last couple of days. If I hadn’t been so focused on what I intend to do about my wolf, I’d have gone a lot further than prompting him. But I’ve let myself get distracted. A mistake. It’s become increasingly clear—more so earlier today—just how unhappy Saige is.

So now isn’t the worst time for Mateo Desidario to show his face.

It’s not the best time either, because the best time would be to never see his face again.

“It’s precisely you turning the phone off that’s caused me to waste hours of my day to come here,” Father snaps.

I don’t point out that his scent, rich leather and maple, isn’t all I smell clinging to his silk shirt. The unfamiliar female scent means he had other—more enjoyable—reasons for leaving the Desidario mansion to deal with his prodigal son. We all have our weaknesses, and his has always been barely legal—and in some cases not—young women. He hasn’t changed. He likely never will.

The contractors, busy fitting glass on the back-room windows Rylan and his packmates shattered days before, slide curious eyes to where we stand beside the back door.

I take in their attention and straighten before stalking deeper into the garden, needing privacy for this conversation. I refuse to have him in my home, so the farther away from it, the better. “Follow me.”

He doesn’t move. “My son presumes to—”

“Whatever you are to me,” I speak over him, “it is not a father. If you want to keep breathing, you’ll follow me.Now.”

Silence.

More contractors turn our way. I ignore their attention and swing away, past the spot I discovered Leandro’s body and the freshly disturbed soil where I buried him.

Clearly taking my threat at face value, the man who has failed me as a father in almost every way possible follows.

I stalk to the back of the garden. The closer I am to the black gates, the easier it’ll be to toss this sorry excuse for a father over it. Maybe then he’ll be more willing to believe that I don’t want or need him in my life, since ignoring his calls doesn’t seem to have worked.

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