Sinful Desire (Sinful Nights, #2)(46)
Ryan crossed his arms. He didn’t want advice from his mom’s lover. Besides, he wasn’t afraid. Not of Stefano and not of men like the scumbag who’d killed his father. “I’m not scared of men who deal drugs to f*cking mothers and children,” he said, practically spitting out the words.
Luke’s gray eyes widened, and he grabbed Ryan’s arm. “She was petrified of what would happen if people knew she was connected to him,” he pleaded.
“But their plan didn’t work. Their cover-up failed,” Ryan said, reminding him that the lies his mom had told didn’t save her from jail. The truth would have tethered her more closely to the Royal Sinners, so she’d fashioned a fable. She’d said all those phone calls to Stefano were for tree trimming, and he’d said the same. That was Stefano’s day job—a laborer at a tree-trimming company, so when she was asked about the string of calls, she’d claimed she’d hired him “under the table” to clean up some overgrown branches. It was the kind of work she couldn’t have her teenage sons do since it required specialty saws and tools. That was all true and completely plausible.
And the tale seemed to work at first for both Stefano and Ryan’s mom. For a brief while, their story did the trick. Botched robbery—that was how the murder looked to authorities, and Stefano seemed clean.
Until the detectives found Stefano’s fingerprints on the gun he’d disposed of, and the man started singing about how he’d been hired for much more than tree-trimming.
Stefano served it all up, and the lie unraveled.
He told the cops he’d been contracted to kill. He said the calls to Dora weren’t to cut overgrown branches—they were to plan the murder and to make it look like a robbery gone wrong. He alleged he’d been promised ten percent of Thomas Paige’s life insurance policy if he pulled it off.
The life insurance company went next, supplying more evidence. They confirmed that Dora had called a few months before the death to make a “routine check” on the beneficiary information on behalf of her husband, then six days after the murder to try to liquidate the funds.
In her defense, Dora maintained her husband had asked her to check on the policy and that was why she’d phoned the company months before his death. For him, she’d said. He was busy working, and asked her to check up on various pieces of paperwork. As for accessing the payout, she pointed out that if she’d killed him for money wouldn’t she have called hours later for the cash? No, she’d waited a week.
A week. She hung her hope on time.
The jury didn’t buy it.
She could have admitted to the drugs then, but it was too late for her. The case was so far beyond drugs. The state had Stefano and his testimony, they had the life insurance proof, and they had circumstantial evidence—she was having an affair at the time of the murder.
They had her, beyond a reasonable doubt, the jury said.
Admitting to drug using and buying, to money owed to dealers, wouldn’t have done a damn thing to change the fate of either Stefano or Ryan’s mom.
“Don’t mention the drugs,” she’d begged Ryan before she left for Stella McLaren. “It won’t make a difference now. I will keep fighting to be free, and it will look worse for me if this gets out. I’ll try to find a way to get the guys who really did it. I have to take the fall now, but please know I will be appealing. I will do everything I can to be with my children again.”
But why was Luke still covering up?
Ryan shrugged off Luke’s grip. “The lies didn’t work. So why are you protecting Stefano?”
“I’m not protecting Jerry,” Luke said insistently, pointing to the door, waving wildly beyond. “I’m protecting my family—my wife and kids—from Stefano’s friends on the outside. His friends protected him, Ryan. That’s what a Royal Sinner does. The goddamn ink on their arms says that. Protect Our Own. He has friends who have been looking out for his interests, and I am not about to serve up any more details on him and have those friends come after my family now.” Luke rubbed a hand across his jaw, glanced away, then turned his gaze back to Ryan. His eyes were softer now. “Look, I made some mistakes when I was a younger man. I made some terrible mistakes. I left town to start fresh after Dora was gone. Moved to San Diego and met my wife there. We returned to Vegas five years ago. My job now is to protect my family, and Jerry Stefano is not a man to be messed with, so I never talked then and I don’t intend to now. He told us to never say a word, so I didn’t. He made it clear the people we loved would get hurt. That’s why your mother kept it quiet, and that’s why I did, too. I love too many people to take that chance.”
Ryan sighed heavily, a long, deep, frustrated sound filled with years of regret, years of anger, years of locking up all these awful secrets.
There wasn’t much else to say, so Ryan thanked him and headed to the front door. On the way, he spotted a framed wedding photo of Luke and his wife. The man didn’t look much younger than he did today. “How long have you been married?”
Luke glanced sheepishly at the floor. “Only a year. But we’ve been together for seventeen. Anyway, don’t tell the church I had kids out of wedlock.”
“Your secret’s safe with me,” Ryan said, wishing it was the only secret he shared with that man.
As he headed for his truck, a fresh wave of loathing rolled through him. He was in a pact with the man who’d f*cked his mother behind his father’s back.