Page 60 of Her Righteous Protector

He knew that she’d told him the truth in Elias’ office this afternoon, she trusted him. But he’d lied. Right now none of Kane’s findings could be given to the authorities with a proper chain of evidence, and what’s more, even if they served up their crimes on a silver platter, nobody would stand as a witness.

Kane had been working on this with others; he and Kane knew that everything they had was the truth. They knew that Bob and Peggy Lancaster were filth, but it couldn’t be proven in a court of law. Tonight he was going to have to make a decision.

He gave Hannah the softest of kisses, then slipped out of bed. He didn’t want to be heard, so he took his phone and went down to her basement office, and shut the door.

Max swore that Kane picked up his call before it even rang.

“What in the hell took you so long to call?” Kane demanded to know. “I cannot fucking believe that Judge Reynolds is considering letting that fucking case go to fucking trial!”

“That was three ‘fuckings’ in one sentence. I’m not sure I want you around my kid,” Max said evenly.

“I’ve created a secure server. It already has credible evidence on the money laundering that these two pieces of fuzzy toe mold perpetrated that can be corroborated by three different credible sources.”

“Fuzzy toe mold?”

“Cullen said it once,” Kane admitted. “It’s sure as fuck is not my line. Did you hear me about the server and the evidence?”

“I fucking hate this,” Max bit out. “By making you fabricate a bullshit crime so we can have credible evidence, your ass is swinging in the wind.”

“The shit of it is, we’re replicating the same damn thing they did before, Max, you gotta remember that,” Kane rushed to reassure him.

“I get that. It still doesn’t make it any less illegal.”

“Jesus, Max, did you ask me to do a damn thing?” Kane demanded. “No. Hell, I had a copy of the brief that was filed before it was filed! I started creating this damned evidence before this brief was filed. There wasn’t a chance in fucking, fucking, fucking hell I was going to let these two cocksuckers get anywhere near your son.”

“And just for the fucking record. Dex, Gideon, and Clint are working on this with me, because I want this completed in forty-eight hours. I could take the time to get this done on my own before this thing goes to trial, no problem, but I don’t trust the police to do the investigation on all this shit if I wait that long, even with it handed to them on a golden fucking platter. So I tapped all four SEAL teams. Every fucking one of those three men jumped at the chance. They fucking jumped. Do you hear me?”

Kane was not practically yelling into the phone. He was yelling into the phone. In the eight years they’d worked together, Max had never heard him this angry.

He had to ask.

“Is everything okay with you?”

“Yes. Everything is fine with me. The team is great. But, Max, this is your son we’re talking about. This would be like someone coming after Zed’s daughter. The whole team goes batshit crazy when one of our women is targeted, but our women, they’re fighters. But our children? Fuck no!”

Kane was absolutely right. It was how Max had felt since the first time he’d seen Zephyr. Hell, he agreed one hundred percent about little Lulu Zaragoza. He’d go balls to the wall to protect that little girl. He’d do anything for her, same as Zephyr.

“I’m going to send you how to access the server. I know you’ll have to print everything out for the old guy.”

“True,” Max nodded. “So, are we having him give the stuff to the cops, the judge, or someone else?”

Kane hissed. “That’s a sticking point. I finally had the time to investigate him. If this was thirty years ago, he’d be your man, he knew everyone. Now all of his friends are retired or dead. But, I ran into somebody in the hall earlier today who was talking about you and their personal problems. So, I made a call. I’ve got the perfect person.”

“Who?”

“Lark. She knows fucking everybody. She can get all of this out in a heartbeat, and she knows how to get it out on the down-low.”

Max felt the boulder that had been sitting on his chest finally roll off.

“I don’t know how to thank you,” Max breathed out.

“Fuck that shit, no thanks are necessary.”

Max grinned. “You know, I’m pretty sure you said ‘fuck’ over twenty times. You’re going to have to clean that up once I move Zephyr out there with me.”

“Fuck, I’ll have to get with Cullen.” Kane gave a long-suffering sigh.

Max laughed even louder. He felt fucking great!