Get free, albeit in a bad way (5)
I believe the answer is:
steal
'get' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'free albeit in a bad way' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'a' is within the answer.
'way' could be 'st' and 'st' is found within the answer.
The remaining letters 'el' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't understand.
This may be the basis of clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for steal that I've seen before include "Lift - pocket" , "Pilfer" , "a snip!" , "Take illegally" , "Walk off with" .)