Page 81 of Broken Daddy

“Yeah, but you’re not so helpful anymore, are you?”

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Hayes drew out his gun, waiting to see what would happen next.

“What does that mean?” Stein took a step back, looking nervous. “You can’t . . . you can’t kill me!”

“Afraid I can.” The other guy drew his gun.

Fuck.

Hayes aimed at his arm, which wasn’t easy in the poor light, and fired.

The guy let out a scream of pain before turning and shooting back at him. Hayes took cover as Donovan shot back.

“Don’t kill him!” Hayes yelled.

“He’s down,” Donovan said as the shooting stopped.

“Cover me,” Hayes commanded as he walked around the pole. He could see the guy on the ground. His gun was about a foot from his hand.

Hayes approached cautiously.

“Stay the fuck where you are,” Donovan snarled just as Hayes spotted something from the corner of his eye.

Stein.

Cowardly bastard had been trying to escape.

“Freeze or I fucking shoot you, Stein,” Hayes snarled, not taking his eyes off the guy on the ground.

He was breathing; Hayes could see his chest moving. But as he got closer, he could see the blood. He’d taken at least one bullet.

This was fucking insane.

“Have you forgotten you work for me?” Stein whined.

“Shut up,” Hayes said as he kicked the other gun away and kneeled by the guy.

He was still conscious but not really taking anything in.

“What do we do?” Donovan asked.

“Call Kent. Explain everything. Oh, and give me your belt.”

Ten minutes later,Donovan returned with Kent on video call. He paused for a second as he took in what Hayes had done.

“You used my belt to tie Stein up?”

“Yeah. If you want to donate your socks, I’ll shut him up too.”

“You can’t do this!” Stein said. “I’m going to ruin you! I’m going to destroy you!”

“Shut the fuck up,” Hayes told him. “You’re the one who messed up. You took money from this asshole to make sure that Rohan Dawson went to jail.”

“He likely would have anyway. He was found at the crime scene with blood on him and the weapon close by.”

“Yeah, only this fucker set him up,” Hayes spat. “And you knew about it.”