Page 55 of Broken Daddy

And she needed to see him. It felt like everything in her life was a mess right now.

Their father was missing again. Off on a bender, but who knew when he’d come home. She hadn’t seen Vega again, but there were times when she swore that she felt eyes on her.

Maybe she was just imagining it.

It was always at night, when she was returning home from a shift. So, of course she was jumpy. She never knew what she was going home to. And the idea of bumping into Vega . . . yeah, it was always on her mind.

Maybe you should tell Hayes about him.

What the heck? Where had that thought come from? Why would she tell Hayes?

Hayes was a customer. Nothing more.

Sure, sometimes she thought about how good looking he was. And how amazing it might feel to have him touch her, hug her, kiss her.

But she thought that about other people . . . she just couldn’t think of who. However, she was certain she’d been attracted to other men at some time. Maybe a customer in the café or bar.

Maybe.

That had nothing to do with telling him about Vega. Why would he want to know?

Sure, he seemed weirdly focused on her safety. But that didn’t mean he wanted to know every time there was a threat to her.

Heck, in that case, she’d have to tell him about her father.

And she tried to avoid ever talking about that asshole.

Nope. Vega was her issue. And at the moment he wasn’t actually a threat. He’d probably just tried to freak her out last week when he said that he’d been seeing her around.

She still didn’t know why he’d helped her father home. The next morning, her father had no memory of it. That was nothing unusual, unfortunately.

Devi went through the process of being allowed to enter the prison and waited at the small table. She saw the moment he entered with a guard but didn’t get up until he was close.

Devi kept her movements slow. She’d learned that from the first time she’d visited when she’d flung herself at him and got into trouble with the correctional officer.

It had been a disaster that had ended with her in tears. Thankfully, a different correctional officer had taken pity on her and helped her out, talking to her about the best practice for visiting an inmate.

So the next visit had gone much easier. Even if Rohan had plainly told her not to visit again.

That wasn’t happening.

She hugged him tight. He seemed to have gotten bigger. Muscular. At least he seemed to be eating. She’d been worried when he went to prison that he might starve.

She didn’t know why, but she’d figured they didn’t serve up nice food in prison. Devi was mostly worried about him being picked on, though. Everyone knew how dangerous a prison could be.

So she was glad that he was getting bigger so he could protect himself.

“Devi,” he murmured. “I thought I told you not to visit again.”

“You always say that,” she said as she reluctantly pulled back when the guard cleared his throat.

She didn’t want to stop hugging him.

But she smiled at the guard in thanks. Clearing his throat was a nice way to warn them. She was aware that there were some not-so-nice ways that he could have split them apart.

“And you always ignore me.” He shot her a stern look.

Devi shrugged. “I’ve never listened to you before, why would I start now?”