Page 88 of Broken Daddy

Strange. When had he started wanting to live?

“I’m sure one of these men will escort you and ensure that your story stays on script. If it doesn’t, Stein, believe me there are a lot worse things than death. Do what I say, you go to jail, serve your time, get out. Differ in any way and I will make sure that your remaining life is utter hell.”

Stein nodded frantically. “Yep. Yep.”

Lucan stepped back and looked at Hayes, then Donovan. “Who are you two exactly?”

“We were hired to guard Stein and his wife,” Hayes told him.

“Security? Interesting. Why?”

“He was getting death threats,” Hayes said.

“Well, that’s no surprise given that he has the personality of a snake. He’s got a wife, doesn’t he?” Lucan Mars asked.

“She’s innocent in all of this,” Hayes said hastily. No way did he want this coming back on Sondra.

Lucan eyed him for a long moment. “Are you involved with her?”

“No,” Hayes growled. “If Stein can’t mention that Freddy was the one paying him what’s to say the cops won’t dismiss what he says? Rohan doesn’t deserve to be in jail.”

Freddy did.

“You seem to care a lot about whether Rohan will be freed,” Lucan commented. “Why is that?”

Fuck.

Tell him the truth or not?

“I don’t know Rohan, but I do know his sister.”

“A sister. Yes, I believe she lived with him. Freddy was supposed to be keeping an eye on her.”

Really? Then he’d done a shit job of it.

Which wasn’t surprising.

Lucan turned to Stein. “Make it convincing to the cops. You don’t know who killed Marcus, but you do know that whoever it was wanted you to make sure that Rohan was convicted. And that they confessed to setting him up. It’s enough for a mistrial. Provided the police do their job.”

It wasn’t ideal, though. Hayes fucking hated that this guy held the cards. But there must be some way to link Freddy to the murder without Stein. Because he knew the other man wasn’t going to come fully clean.

And Hayes and Donovan couldn’t without confessing that they’d cleaned up a crime scene. And shot Freddy.

Fuck.

Lucan had them over a barrel and he knew it.

“Oh, and it would be a good idea for you all to leave town. Soon. Perhaps take Rohan’s sister with you. It will be safer for her and when Rohan gets out, he’ll have more . . . focus. Now, I’ll be taking care of Freddy; you take our friend, Mr. Stein, to the police. And no one will ever need to know what happened tonight.”

Donovan made a noise, sounding like he was going to protest but Hayes flicked him a look. There were four armed men in here who wouldn’t hesitate to shoot to kill.

“You’ll make sure that Freddy says nothing about tonight,” Hayes said.

Lucan eyed him for a long moment. Just then the front door of the warehouse opened and a large man stepped inside.

All of Lucan’s men turned, their guns aimed at him.

“Don’t shoot. My team won’t be happy if you shoot me. Mostly because my Little Thief will murder them if I get hurt.”