Page 164 of Piece You Saved

“Sam!” I push myself to my feet. “I’m so sorry about—”

She’s across the room and drawing me into a hug before I know what’s happening. “Don’t apologize for that piece of shit. Jake said you blew a hole in his eye, and I’m gutted I wasn’t there to see it.”

Jake?

I peel away to gape at the viciousness in her voice. My eyes slide over her shoulder to connect with Kade, who shrugs.

“Anyway, I wanted to let you know they’re parking now,” Sam continues, turning to smile warmly at Detective Morgan. “Did I give you enough time to tell them about you covering for them being werewolves?”

The silence is deafening.

Aden clears his throat. “You knew?”

Sam snorts. “I was with you guys right from the start. Damn right I suspectedsomething. How could I not, with Dariel locking himself in his office all the time? The odd growls I would hear didn’t exactly silence my suspicions.” She pauses. “And Monica told me.”

Kade blows out a heavy sigh. “Of course she fucking did. It’s a wonder we’re not being dissected to death in Area fucking Fifty-one.”

Aden snorts with laughter. “I think that’s where they take the aliens.”

Kade gives him a withering stare until another soft knock at the front door draws his attention.

“What is going on?” I ask.

Kade snags my hand and tugs. “Come on, angel. This one’s for you.”

“What is it?” I let him pull me along.

“I think you mean,whois it?” Dariel replies.

“And the answer,” Aden responds from behind me, “is a piece of your past.”

I peer over my shoulder, frowning as Kade tows me to the front door. “What piece? I don’t have any.”

“Wrong,” Kade says, “You do.”

He swings the door open. I take one look at the older woman at the front door and wish I wasn’t standing, because I think I’m going to faint.

“Saige,” the woman breathes in a soft, lilting accent, drifting toward me as if caught by some spell. She doesn’t even seem to notice Kade. An older man in a tweed cap and a blue cotton button up gapes at me from just behind her.

He’s probably as stunned as I am, because this older woman with gray hair and lines bracketing her blue-gray eyes is an older version of my mother.

And me.

“You’re as beautiful as I thought you would be. As beautiful as Ciara,” the woman says, staring.

Ciara. When was the last time I heard Mom’s name spoken aloud? Too long. So long I thought I’d forgotten it until now.

I shake my head. “Mom was beautiful. I am—”

“Even more beautiful.” Her eyes drift to my throat and sadness fills them. “Though it looks like you had a harder life than she did.”

This is… I’m not sure I understand this. At all. Did Kade find Mom’s family?

For me? How?

All this time I thought I was alone in the world after Mom and Dad died. That I had no one left. But I wasn’t alone. How could he have done this?

“I don’t understand,” I say. “What do you mean, she had a hard life?”

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