Chapter 17 #2
“Why? You got a good thing going here. Nice business. Pretty wife. Good house. Why you need to leave?” the guy drawled.
He sounded relaxed but Hayes could see the tension in his body. The way he kept looking around.
Paranoid.
“And I told you to fucking stop contacting me,” the other guy said. “Do you want to get caught?”
“Of course not! I broke the law for you.”
“Broke the law for me? Is that meant to be a joke? Since when did you care about the fucking law? You’re more crooked than I am and I grew up in a fucking gang.”
Shit. Fuck.
Who was this guy?
“I took your job. I fumbled the case so that Dawson went inside for a nice long time. But now I’m getting fucking death threats. And I’ve got bodyguards. Do you know how hard it is to get any work done with guys right up my ass all the fucking time?”
“So get rid of them.”
“And have whoever is threatening me take me out? I don’t want to fucking die! Which is why I want out.”
“And what’s that got to do with me?” the other guy said. He was leaning back against the hood of his car, watching Stein as he paced. There was something about his pose that put Hayes on edge.
Oh, he didn’t like where this was going.
“You need to pay for it. You have to help me.”
“You have money, Stein. Just leave.”
“I don’t have enough for a new identity and to set myself up. I can’t just leave as myself. Sondra will come after me for her share of everything. I have to have time to set things up and I don’t have that luxury since someone is threatening me.”
“Really, Alan, do I have to solve all your problems? Get rid of Sondra. Make it look like an accident, then leave town.”
“I can’t . . . I can’t kill her!”
The guy shrugged. “Then I guess that’s a problem. You shouldn’t have mismanaged your money. Then you’d have enough for an escape.”
“I got in deep with your father and there was no way out.”
“You got a taste for hookers and gambling, you mean. You’re shit at gambling so you’d drown your sorrows at Sin in pussy and ass. And apparently, you were no good at fucking either.”
“You . . . you . . . I’ll tell your father what you did!
That you paid me to throw Dawson’s trial.
To get him thrown in jail. He was your father’s favorite, wasn’t he?
How would he feel about what you did? How do you think Dawson would feel?
Hmm, knowing that you paid me to fucking make sure he stayed in jail for a good long while. Why didn’t you have him killed?”
“Listen, you fucking asshole,” the other guy snarled.
“You don’t think I wanted to? But who was I going to get to do that?
No one around here would touch him. Everyone fucking loves him.
So that left out-of-towners. But any asshole worth his salt would have cost a fucking fortune.
This was cheaper. And easier. Plus, it got rid of Marcus at the same time.
He was starting to suspect me. He came at me that night and I killed him.
Didn’t really plan to. Then I figured why not set up Rohan as the murderer?
It worked perfectly. All I needed was to send a text to Rohan, which I then wiped.
And I got one of my cop friends to wipe the message off Rohan’s phone.
No one suspects me. Not my father, not Rohan.
The only person who knows what I did is you .
. . and you’re starting to annoy me, Stein. ”
“So? I helped you.”
“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.”
“How bad is the shooter?”
“He’s in shock,” Hayes replied. “Losing blood. I used my belt to make a tourniquet for his arm, but it’s not the real issue. He also took one to the chest. He needs to go to the hospital.”
Kent started swearing.
Hayes eyed Stein. “Who the fuck is this guy?”
Stein glanced up at him with glassy eyes. “We’re all dead, you know. Once he finds out.”
“Who finds out?” Hayes asked.
“His father. That’s Freddy Mars. His father is Lucan Mars, the most powerful guy in the county. Head of the Black Scorpions.”
Hayes pulled up one of Freddy’s sleeves. There it was. A black scorpion tattoo. Fuck.
“Rohan Dawson is a member of the Scorpions,” Donovan said slowly. “Freddy paid you to make sure that one of his fellow gang members went to jail?”
“I shouldn’t have done it, but I was in deep shit. I needed the cash. I had to do something!”
“So you conspired to put an innocent man in jail? Nice,” Donovan spat out.
“He’s hardly an innocent. He’s a gang member. No doubt he’s done bad things, he just hasn’t been caught.”
“Doesn’t excuse what you did,” Donovan said. “What do we do? Chief?”
Kent sighed. “We have two choices. Number one, you call the cops. You tell them everything. And hope like hell we get someone competent and on the up-and-up.”
Stein snorted. “Good luck. Most of the cops in this town are as crooked as I am.”
“Or, I try and find a doctor and a cleaner we can pay off,” Kent said. “Zander might know someone.”
Hayes thought about it for a moment. “Talk to Zander. If he’s got no one, we’ll have no choice but to go to the police.”
“Right. Just keep him alive.”
“Who? Mars or Stein?” Donovan asked.
Stein started protesting. Hayes sighed, rubbing his head. “Where the fuck are those socks, Donovan?”