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“I want Lucien cleared for good”

“I knohat you want,” I said through gritted teeth

“Lucky for you I’ve got a guy that’ll wipe the record of this phone call You s you have It would really be a shame for someone to learn about what you’ve done”

I’d known he h on the bargain, so I’d done soh school, and your fa disappear?”

“How the fuck do you know about that?” Devil sounded more rattled than I’d ever heard him

“I have my ways Did you really think I wouldn’t check up on you?”

“There’s no proof I was involved, and I was never charged”

He was right about that, but he was also scared “It would be a shame if the case was reopened, wouldn’t it?”

“Are you trying to get me to come for you?”

“Don’t fuck with me And don’t et a phone record wiped”

“I thought you were Mr Play-By-The-Rules”

“So to informants, and sometimes those conversations need to be off the record for everyone’s safety

“You knohat a lot of those informants do in their spare time?” Devil asked “They work for me”

“I don’t ask them for personal details I just work my cases”

“If you value your health, you won’t ask any more questions about me or my family”

“Don’t commit any more crimes”

Devil snorted “How about I just don’t get caught?”

When I ended the call, I was shaking with a coer I’d compromised myself Devil and his family could easily ruin me Sure, I had some dirt on theame I couldn’t win The best I could hope for was that Devil would keep his word and leave ht I should have left this case the fuck alone, but now I couldn’t I still didn’t knoho theoverfor Murphy’s handlers to figure out what I’d done The best chance I had of getting out froetting what I needed to bring them down

After being grilled by multiple people over the course of the next few days, I was finally able to talk to otten in the Milano case