Page 169 of Broken Daddy

“I just . . . I don’t want to deal with it.” She closed her eyes. What was she doing? She couldn’t just run away from her responsibilities.

That wasn’t the way that life worked.

“I’ll take care of it,” Hayes said.

No, no. That wasn’t fair. She would argue with him about that. But later.

“I need to tell my brother,” she said to the detective. “It’s not fair if he hears about it from someone else.”

“I’ll message Gwen,” Hayes told her.

The detective nodded. “Here is my card if you need anything. Do you know when you’re getting out of the hospital?”

“Hopefully tomorrow,” she told him.

His face tightened and he nodded. “Be careful, Devi. The men who took your father, they are violent and vicious. You need to make sure that you keep yourself safe.”

“Don’t worry, Detective,” Hayes said. “That’s my job now.”

What if these guys came after her? What if they hurt anyone who was near her?

Oh God.

However, she said nothing in front of the detective. Once he was gone, though, she turned to look at Hayes.

She was scared and feeling kind of numb.

The future was terrifying. And it had never really been that certain or safe in the first place.

“Hayes?” she asked. “What do you mean that it’s your job to keep me safe? How long are you staying?”

“Not long,” he said as he typed something on his phone. “I’ll be going home as soon as you’re out of hospital.”

“Oh, right.”

So he’d keep her safe until then.

“I think we’ll drive rather than fly. It will take around ten hours without stops. But there’s less chance of you getting bumped by people. And I hate flying.”

“You do?” Her mind was spinning. What did he mean bywe?

“Yeah, I don’t like not having full control.”

His phone rang before she could question him further and he answered it.

“Derick’s body was found, did you know that?” he asked whoever had called. “Have you got any leads on them? Do you need anything? Yeah. Okay. Good.” He ended the call.

“Who was that?” she whispered as he sent another message.

“Hmm? That was Zander. I wanted to make sure he’d heard about Derick. He and his team are still searching for Fury and those assholes. They think they dumped the body and fled town.”

A strange noise left her. Something that sounded like pain.

Hayes froze and then set his phone down before turning her carefully in his arms. He cupped her chin, staring down at her with searching eyes.

“I’m sorry, baby. That wasn’t thoughtful of me. Are you all right?”

“I think so.” She still felt odd. But then she’d felt odd since she’d woken up in the hospital.