Page 96 of Piece You Saved

I need them. Not only to fight by my side, but to hug, kiss, and ease the emptiness in my heart. To love me the way I think I love them.

I don’t want to lose all that, and I might if they knew how broken I am.

“What did he say?” I ask, wanting to delay all the things they need to know for as long as possible.

Dariel meets my eyes. “That he took something that belonged to me. If I want it back, I will give him back something that belongs to him.”

I smile. It’s an empty thing devoid of warmth because none of this is funny. “Something?”

I’m not even sure why I ask when Rylan has treated me as his possession almost from the beginning.

Dariel’s expression never changes. “He wants us to exchange these…things.” His lips twist then, and a flare of rage flickers in his emerald eyes. “On the bridge tomorrow at 7.p.m.”

“Can I assume that hunting him is out of the question?” Harley asks, sitting back in his seat.

An hour has passed since Dariel’s mate tried to kill me, and Kade killed her instead. Since then, Harley and Kade worked together to clean the entryway and bury Claudine in the garden. It wasn’t a peaceful hour. Kade complained every minute of it. To my relief, he did it without trying to kill Harley once. Aden and I helped too, but Harley and Kade must be used to burying bodies because it felt like we were in the way.

Dariel meets Harley’s gaze for several seconds, as if he’s weighing up how much to involve him. “Everywhere he was before, he isn’t any longer. Breaking into his penthouse apartments isn’t an option when the police are looking to speak to him. I also know he hasn’t visited any of his other properties in some time.”

I sit up in my chair. “What do you mean he hasn’t visited his properties in some time?”

Dariel gives me a long look. “I stopped at the Cerberus to send Greg and the others away.”

“But that isn’t all you did,” I guess. My eyes find Kade, to discover he’s peering innocently back at me. “You told me there was no hunting to be done.”

“He was out. Made sense for him to drive around a little bit.” Kade shrugs.

I glare harder. “And nearly get himself killed hunting Rylan alone in the process?”

A smile kicks up one corner of Kade’s lips. “I thought you didn’t care.”

“And I told you, I was just being polite,” I bite out.

“The last property I visited was interesting,” Dariel says as I glare at Kade.

When his expression doesn’t change, I look away. “Interesting how?”

“It was a townhouse, and the housekeeper who maintains it said he’d never even met the owner,” Dariel says. “I’d thought he had set a trap. I’d expected one, but no one was there. Which means he’s planning something else.”

Aden frowns. “Then why buy the property if he was never going to set one foot in it?”

Dariel shrugs. “The reason isn’t important. What is, is that he isn’t anywhere we would look for him. Presumably, he’s worked out that we know more about him than he would like, so he’s lying low elsewhere. Maybe in one of his packmates’ homes.”

Harley nods. “Any way we can track the packmates? Maybe—”

“They’re mostly dead. The few he has left won’t be sticking their heads out for anything,” Dariel responds.

My heart rate kicks up, and I grip the edge of the table because Idid notjust hear what I thought I did. “What do you mean, they’re mostly dead?”

No one says a word.

I rake my eyes over the table, avoiding Harley’s turquoise stare. He’s watching me. Again. He keeps on watching me. “He has a pack of twenty. You’re not telling me that—”

“We killed them,” Kade happily admits.

I stare at him, seeing him, but not seeing him. I don’t know if I get paler or if my expression changes in another way, but his smile slowly slides off his face.

“Angel?”

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