Page 235 of Broken Daddy

Fuck.

He couldn’t hold it back from her anymore. It had felt wrong in the first place even if he’d been doing it for the right reasons.

“Why do you look like that?” she asked. “Do you . . . do you have some idea of who it is? How could you know?”

He sighed. “Yeah, I know who it was that killed Marcus and paid off Stein.”

“How? Why? Why haven’t you told the police? Does Gwen know?”

“Gwen knows. She’s doing what she can to find evidence against this person.”

“But why haven’t you told the police? Who is it?”

“It was Freddy Mars.” He told her everything that happened the night that Stein met with Mars.

“Lucan demanded you leave Freddy with him? And told Stein not to mention his name to the police?” she whispered.

“Yes. And at the time, we didn’t have a lot of choice.”

“Yes, I get that. But what about now? Can’t you tell them now? Can’t Gwen tell them?”

“We’d have to confess to what happened that night. Which includes Donovan and me breaking the law. And even if we did all of that, there’s no evidence against Freddy. Stein already confessed that he doesn’t know who paid him. He’s not going to change that statement.”

“Shit. You’re right. It would be for nothing and the two of you might get arrested. But we have to do something.” She got up and started pacing. “That motherfucking rat bastard. I’ve never liked Freddy. Rohan always said he was a great guy. When he went to jail he told me that Freddy would look after me. I didn’t have the heart to tell Rohan that I never once heard from him. I can’t believe this! They’re supposed to be best friends! How could he stab Rohan in the back? I ought to teach him a lesson.”

“You won’t be going near him,” Hayes told her firmly. “That’s part of the reason why I didn’t tell you.”

“What?” She turned to him. “Does Rohan know?”

“Absolutely not. Could you imagine how Rohan might react if we were to tell him that his best friend killed his other best friend and framed him to take the fall? Then bribed his lawyer to make a hash job of his defense.”

She grew pale. “He’d kill him.”

“Which is why he cannot know until we have Freddy nailed down with evidence. Understand?”

“Yes. I get that. Although he won’t be happy with me for not telling him.”

“Another reason why I didn’t tell you. I didn’t want you to have to lie to your brother and I didn’t want to worry that you would go after Freddy. This has to be handled carefully. And if anyone can do it, it’s Gwen and Reuben. So we have to let them do their job. Believe me, I want to find that fuckwit and pull his asshole out through his mouth. But I can’t. We need to do this without tipping off Lucan Mars.”

“He defended his own son, knowing what he did. Asshole. I don’t know why that surprises me.” She turned and pointed at him. “No more secrets, though. I understand why you didn’t tell me when we were in Angel. But you should have told me when we arrived here.”

“You had a lot going on, baby. And it’s my job to take care of you.” He held his hands up as she scowled. “But no more secrets. Now, come back here. I want to hold you.”

She sighed and returned to sitting on his lap.

“I don’t like how everything went down but at least the threat to me is gone, right? I can go back for the exhibition without a contingent of bodyguards.”

“Hmm.”

“Hayes!”

“Right. Maybe with just a couple of us.”

“All right, Daddy. I’ll let you bring one other bodyguard. But that’s it.”

“So bossy,” he told her.

“I learned from the best.”