The look on his face was worse than a knife to the heart. She had to get him to understand. “They’re going to give you a deal. You’re going to get everything you wanted. You won’t have to run anymore. Tell him, Steven.”
She turned to the man, but his expression made her shiver. How had she ever thought he was an honest lawyer?
The ADA tilted his head to look down his nose at the pair of them. “I don’t make deals with scum like Damien Rogers, sweetheart. I have bigger balls than that.”
Her mouth fell open in shock and the ADA laughed. The sound made her ill.
“I’ve made all the deals I’ll ever need. You really shouldn’t have turned me down all those years ago. By now, you’d be married to the man about to take your father’s place.”
Mia shook her head. “You’ll never win the election. Not once people find out what you’ve done.”
“Don’t tell me you’re that stupid.”
Mia turned to Damien. He stared at her like she was the last one in on the joke. “What is he talking about?”
“He’s in bed with Marcelo. He’s as dirty as your father ever was.”
No. Mia shook her head. “That can’t be true.”
“I’d like to think I’m better than your father, actually. He never could stomach the grittier details.”
This can’t be happening. This whole town can’t be corrupt. “What about all those cases you helped with? What about all the wrongful convictions your office overturned?”
“You really think those people were innocent?” He snorted. “Half of them were pawns in Marcelo’s racket. Our office only assisted if we could use it to make a deal with the cartel. I scratch your back and you scratch mine.”
Mia staggered backward. Everything she believed in and worked for was a lie. All the people she helped, all the convictions she helped overturn, and for what?
Damien had been right all along.
She clutched at her belly. She sold out the only man who’d ever seen the real her. She sent her baby’s father to his doom. Mia looked up at the ADA with tears in her eyes. “Why do all of this? What’s in it for you?”
“I thought it was obvious. Marcelo’s guaranteed me enough votes to be District Attorney.”
“You’re willing to deal with the devil for a job?”
Steven stepped forward and his dark eyes sparkled with hate and something worse. Greed. “Not just any job. The District Attorney of the biggest county in the state. Think about the power I’ll wield. The respect.”
Oh my God. Mia had read him all wrong. She thought he was different than her father…That he had morals. She should have known. Anyone who worked with George Davenport had to be dirty. The man didn’t have a good bone in his body.
She turned to Damien and opened her mouth to say something, anything, when the pair of men in blue dragged him away from her.
“No!” His hand slipped out of hers and she rushed forward.
Steven grabbed her wrist and yanked her back. “I thought at first that we’d spare you. Let you go outside and wait until it was all over. But now…Now I’m going to enjoy watching your face.”
The cop on Damien’s right pulled out his billy club. It slammed into the back of Damien’s knees and he fell to the ground.
“No! Stop it!” Mia screamed, but the cop ignored her.
The next strike hit him square in the jaw. Blood splattered onto the concrete.
The cop to his left let go and Damien sagged to all fours. When the boot hit his stomach, he didn’t even flinch.
“Steel-toed boots can be a real bitch.”
The ADA’s words set something off inside her. Mia yanked on her wrist and Steven’s grip slipped.
It couldn’t go this way. She wasn’t watching her baby’s father die like a dog at the hands of a dirty son of a bitch.
As the ADA reached out to grab her other hand, she struck. Her foot slammed into his crotch with every ounce of her strength behind it and he staggered backward. She rushed forward and kicked him again. He fell to his knees.
“Damien!” Mia screamed as she spun toward him. “Get up and fight, damn it! I’m pregnant!”
22
DAMIEN
Mia’s words hit him harder than any boot to the gut.
“I’m pregnant, Damien. Please, get up!” She raced toward him and all the rage he’d kept at bay exploded.
She’s pregnant with my child.
It’s all he could see. All he could think. He had to protect her and that baby if it was the last thing he did. Letting a pair of dirty cops beat him into submission wouldn’t make that happen.
Something inside him clicked. The world slowed down. The ringing in his head from the billy club blow turned into a hum. He could do this. He could shut it all down.