Page 12 of Cash’s Trouble

“With what story?”

Doran’s cheek presses against the stained felt. “For everybody else? That she ran off. That she’d been seeing somebody and didn’t want her daddy knowing. Whatever kept people from looking too hard.”

“And Miller?”

“Wade was gonna tell him the truth. Stop digging, or he doesn’t get his daughter back.”

My grip tightens. “And when I stopped you?”

“He said it was better. Kingdom Come had her, so he could call it an abduction and make Sheriff Miller look like the compromised one. We say you attacked us while we were trying to help her, Wade gets a judge to sign the warrant, then he walks into your compound with half the department behind him.”

“Then what?”

Silence stretches. I tighten my grip until Doran swears.

“He separates her from you. Gets her out of the compound before she starts talking in front of anyone who matters. Miller can’t investigate shit if he’s been suspended for being dirty.”

“Will you tell the sheriff what you just told me?”

His laugh sounds wet against the table. “And admit I tried to grab his daughter? Corbin would bury me before I saw a courtroom.”

“You’re already fucking buried. You just haven’t noticed.”

I release him and step back. Doran stays bent over the table, cradling his shoulder.

“One more thing. Back in the day, how did King pay Corbin?”

Doran freezes. Tank shifts from the door. It’s barely a movement, but Doran sees it.

“King didn’t pay Wade direct,” he says. “Used me. Cash, favors, whatever the hell Wade wanted. I was the middleman. Wade liked keeping his own hands clean.”

“King kept insurance, though?”

Doran gives a short, ugly laugh. “Course he did. Made me sign for every fucking thing. Took pictures sometimes, too. Said if Wade ever forgot who owned his ass, he’d remind him.”

“So whatever arrangement King and Wade had was under your name?”

“Who else’s? Wade sure as shit wasn’t putting his on anything.”

That is useful enough to keep him alive.

I bend until we’re eye level. “You put your hands on Lilly-Rose once. If you come near her again, Kane’s instruction about leaving you breathing won’t matter to me.”

Doran believes me. I can see it in the way his swollen face loses what little color it had left.

Tank and I ride back beneath a sky turning dark over the river. Rain begins as we reach the compound, fat drops striking my arms and darkening the gravel. Lilly-Rose stands under the garage overhang with Kane and Judge. Her gaze finds my split knuckle first, then the smear of Doran’s blood near my cuff.

She waits until Tank gives Kane the short version and the three of them head inside before coming closer. “Did he talk?”

“Eventually.”

“Did you hit him?”

“I didn’t ask politely if that’s what you mean.”

She studies my face, not shocked, but not eager to pretend violence becomes noble because it was done for her. “My father spent my whole life telling me this club hurts people.”

“Under King, the sheriff wasn’t wrong.” I take off my wet cut and hang it over the back of a chair inside the garage. “We collected debts, broke men who didn’t pay and helped the old man keep control. Kane changed who we’re willing to aim at. He didn’t make us harmless.”