Debbie scrambled backward, her hand flying to her mouth, while Preacher continued to punch the wall. And then proceeded to tear the room apart.
When he reached her, a trail of destruction behind him, his chest heaving with heavy, labored breaths, blood gushing from his shredded knuckles, Debbie thought he might tear her apart, too.
Instead, he collapsed at her feet.
Debbie dropped down beside him and threw her arms around his neck. Half expecting him to push her away, she was surprised when he pulled her into his lap instead, buried his face in her neck, and began to cry.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered frantically. “Oh God, Preacher, I’m so sorry.”
She curled her legs around his back, her arms around his quaking shoulders, and just held him as tightly as she could.
• • •
Preacher jolted awake. His head was pounding, throbbing in time to the beat of the heavy-handed knock at the door.
Sluggish and blurry-eyed, he untangled himself from Debbie and swung his legs out of bed. The movement caused the pressure and pain in his head to worsen and he spent several seconds only kneading his forehead with the heel of his palms. Everything hurt. His hands hurt. His face hurt. Breathing hurt. Thinking hurt.
Another round of knocking echoed through the motel room.
Cursing, Preacher shot to his feet, then cursed again when the pain in his head tripled.
“I’m coming!” he ground out and stalked quickly across the room. He threw open the door and found Joe, his fist hanging in mid-air. His eyes were bloodshot, puffy, and ringed in red. His usually tan skin was a sickly shade of pale.
Seeing Preacher, Joe shoved his hands into his pockets. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
“How’s your face?” Joe’s gaze dropped to Preacher’s blood-encrusted hands and his eyes narrowed. Peering around Preacher inside the destroyed motel room, Joe’s eyes widened. “Shit, man. That’s gonna cost us a fortune.”
Leaning back against the doorjamb, Preacher looked past his brother. “Yeah.”
“We gotta be back at the sheriff’s office in a few hours.”
They both glanced to where the police cruiser was parked. They’d been told the extra company was for their protection, but they knew bullshit when they saw it. The law was here to ensure the Silver Demons stayed put.
“You gotta control yourself.”
“Yeah.”
“Ain’t gonna be long before the Feds get wind.”
Preacher nodded in agreement. He wouldn’t be surprised to find out that the Federal Bureau of Investigation was already on their way. According to the law, the Silver Demons were considered a gang. But they weren’t just any gang; they were a gang with ties to a well-known east coast crime syndicate. Because of that working relationship, the Feds had been breathing down their necks for quite a while.
So far they’d been unsuccessful at proving the Silver Demons’ affiliation with the mob and their attempts to infiltrate the club. Desperate, they’d since resorted to picking off individual members. Preacher had been the third Silver Demon to be locked up for a low-level crime as part of the FBI’s continued attempts to break them down.
“How’s Max?” Preacher eventually asked. Yesterday Max had been inconsolable. He’d cried for hours, bordering on hysteria until out of nowhere he’d shut down. He’d stopped crying. He’d stopped speaking, too. He’d just sat there, his limp, unfocused gaze staring off at nothing.
“He’s sleepin’ now.” Joe ran a shaking hand through his hair. “You know he’s got another year of school left?”
“We’ll figure it out,” Preacher muttered.
Joe began to turn, then paused. “Hey, uh, do you think this was Reaper…” He trailed off, his throat noticeably bobbing.
Preacher gritted his teeth and closed his eyes, refusing to succumb to his rising emotions. He was well aware of what had transpired yesterday. Doc was gone. His parents were… gone. But for sanity’s sake, he couldn’t quite bring himself to think about the finality of it and hope to remain in any sort of control of himself. The mess he’d made in the motel room was proof enough of the edge he was teetering on.
Even now he felt precariously close to slipping into the black abyss that beckoned. And he knew that if he slipped, he wouldn’t be crawling back out anytime soon.
“No,” Preacher rasped. Clearing his throat, he straightened and forced himself to face his brother. “Reaper ain’t that stupid.”
Reaper West was a lunatic, but Preacher was positive he wasn’t so insane as to exact a hit that would undoubtedly have the police looking his way. In fact, Preacher didn’t think it was a rival club hit at all. It certainly didn’t feel like one. The police, while questioning him, had revealed several particularly gruesome details that led him to believe this had been the mob’s doing.
At the moment a mob hit was the only scenario that made any sense. The mob liked to deliver a message in the goriest way possible, and the mob certainly didn’t have any qualms about taking out innocent family members.
His mother’s face crept into his thoughts and Preacher nearly choked. Clenching his fists, he forced her away. He couldn’t do this here. Right now he had to keep his shit together.
“You think the Rossis did this, don’t you?” Joe pressed his fingertips over his eyes and scrubbed. His already bloodshot eyes grew even redder.
“I don’t know,” Preacher admitted. “But I’m gonna find out. Did Dad mention somethin’? Was he havin’ trouble with anyone?”
“Not that I know of…you know how dad is with those guys. Everyone fuckin’ loves him.”
Yeah, everyone had loved The Judge. Respected him and looked up to him, too. Everyone except Preacher. More things to add to the list of stomach-turning things he couldn’t think about right now.
Preacher?”
“What?”
“You’re comin’ home, right? Because I can’t—I can’t—” Joe took a breath and tried again. “I can’t do this by myself.”
Though Joe’s voice was deep and gruff, that of a grown man, his shaky timbre reminded Preacher of when they were kids. Scared of thunderstorms, Joe would climb into bed with him when it rained and whisper timidly, “Make it stop.” And he would cover Joe’s ears with his hands, blocking out the noise until Joe was calm enough to fall asleep.
Nostrils flaring, eyes burning, Preacher nodded jerkily. “I’m comin’ home.”
Watching Joe walk away, Preacher wished it was that simple now. That he could just cover Joe’s ears and make it all just fucking stop.
Closing the door behind him, Preacher locked it and then spent several moments just staring at it, noticing every crack, every scuff and scratch. He ran a finger over a particularly long fissure in the paint, feeling the weight of everything that had just been laid at his feet.
His new reality.
The one in which Max would continue to cry for a mother he’d never see again. Where Joe no longer had a father to push him to do better, to be better. The reality where an entire club had just had their footing ripped out from under them, all their tethers sent scattering in the wind.
All they had now was… him.
Preacher knew what he needed to do—what his father would expect of him. He needed to pick up the burden at his feet and place it squarely on his shoulders. Only how? How did he—someone who couldn’t get his own shit together—take on the responsibility of everyone?
“Preacher?”
Turning, Preacher’s eyes roamed the destroyed room before coming to rest on Debbie. Sitting up in bed, she was wearing only a tank top and her underwear. She stared back at him, her brow furrowed with concern.
Again he glanced around at his destruction. Then down at his swollen hands, covered in dried blood. Blood, just like the blood smeared on the trailer door. Had it been his father’s blood or his mother’s?
His stomach heaved, and Preacher scrubbed a hand down his face—a failed attempt to scrub the image from his mind
.
“I’m gonna go clean up.” Refusing to look at Debbie, he headed to the bathroom.
Turning on the shower, Preacher quickly divested himself of his shirt and jeans and stepped inside. Bowing his head, he watched the water circling the drain turn pink from his blood. Blood, like the smear of blood on the trailer door. He squeezed his eyes shut, only to see it all again.
June on her hands and knees. Joe, red in the face, and shouting. The blood smeared on the door. Max running across the campsite. One after the other, as if someone was rapidly changing the channel in his mind, he flicked through the collection of unnerving images.
He opened his eyes, and the images evaporated.
Jesus Christ. He couldn’t do this.
Cursing, Preacher grabbed hold of the shower curtain and tore it open. Debbie stood in the center of the bathroom, still wearing the same concerned look on her face. “I was… worried about you,” she stammered.
He didn’t respond. He didn’t know what to say. To anyone. And neither did he know what to do—for anyone.
“You’re bleeding again.” Debbie hurried forward and he let her take his hand. Fresh blood welled at his knuckles and dripped onto the bathroom floor. Onto her hands. Onto her bare feet. Blood—there was fucking blood everywhere.
“Some of these are really deep. You need to wrap them.”
Preacher only stared back at Debbie, wondering what the hell she was still doing here with him and this god-awful mess, and yet thankful that she was. He couldn’t bear to be around the others, couldn’t face another second of witnessing the devastation in their faces… but neither did he want to be alone.
“It’s fine,” he muttered, taking his hand back and turning away. Although his wounds throbbed angrily, the pain was insignificant compared to the storm raining down chaos and destruction inside of him.
Had they died quickly? The thought of his mother suffering was too much for him, and he slapped his forehead against the shower wall. Then again, harder. And again, harder still, wishing that his skull were an eggshell and easy to shatter. Easy to discard.
Preacher stilled when he felt a brush of soft skin against his leg. A hand touched his back, and tentative fingers trailed up his spine.
“Preacher,” Debbie whispered. “Preacher, look at me.”
He couldn’t look at her. He couldn’t even breathe. If he breathed, he was going to lose it.
“I don’t know what to do. But I want to help. Just tell me what to do. Tell me what you need.”
When he didn’t respond, she continued. “I lost my dad when I was little. He was killed in a car accident and I—”
White noise exploded in Preacher’s mind and he turned, grabbed hold of Debbie and pulled her beneath the water. Unable to speak for fear that he’d lose his feeble grasp on control, he only shook his head tightly.
Wide-eyed, she lifted her shaking hands to his face and laid them gently on his cheeks.
“I’m so sorry,” she breathed. “So sorry.”
She stroked his cheeks, his forehead, and tucked his wet hair back behind his ears. Then she rose up on her tiptoes, draped her arms around his neck, and pressed a kiss to his cheek, his jaw, his lips, his nose. Preacher let out a shuddering, ragged breath, and found himself leaning into her.
She was naked, he realized once they were pressed against one another.
Preacher’s hands slid up her back, and she continued to kiss him. Soft, gentle kisses, as if she were afraid he might break.
The next kiss Debbie placed on his lips, Preacher returned. He kissed her painstakingly slow with long, deep, lingering strokes of his tongue. One hand cupping her jaw, the other slid down the side of her body. And as his mental machinations slid swiftly into a different gear, his body hardened.
Pushing Debbie up against the wall, Preacher lifted her leg and wrapped it around his hip. Lifting her, he used his body to hold hers to the wall and positioned himself between her thighs.
Debbie’s eyes found his. Her pupils dilated. Her breaths sped up. Her breasts heaved with the rapid rise and fall of her chest. And Preacher resented her—he envied the single-minded need shining in her eyes.
He wanted that.
He wanted to not think about all that would be coming next.
He wanted to not see the smear of blood on the trailer door.
He wanted not to hear his brother screaming for their mother.
He wanted not to feel the shock, and the fear, and the pain.
Jesus Christ, he wanted just a moment even, just one single fucking moment, to be free of all of it.
Preacher slammed his hips forward and Debbie cried out. He pulled back, the tight, slick feel of her clenching around him tearing a groan from his throat. He thrust again, harder, and Debbie’s answering cry echoed throughout the room.
He thrust again; she cried out again—a harsh, frantic sound, as hungry as the nails scouring his back.
Thrust, cry. Thrust, cry. Thrust, cry.
Hard and fast, Preacher fucked himself into oblivion. Skin-slapping strokes and a primal chorus of guttural groans, desperate cries, and breathless pants were the soundtrack to his manufactured bliss.
His mind was nearly blank, focused only on the body he was pressed against—soft in all the right places, firm in all the right places, and how he felt sheathed inside her—a warm, wet sanctuary where he could hide from everything that was coming.
Because he knew.
He knew what sort of hell lay in wait for him outside of her body. Outside of this room.
The kind that there was no coming back from.
Chapter 25
Present Day
Having grown quiet, Preacher took several shallow breaths and turned away. Leaning back in my chair, I wrapped my arms around myself and just attempted to process everything he’d just confessed.
I could count on two hands the times that my father had been noticeably emotional about anything over the course of my lifetime. Half of those moments had been about me, while the other half had occurred on the rare occasion that my mother was brought up.
I’m not entirely sure why I was so surprised to find out the true extent of his feelings for Debbie. I supposed knowing something as opposed to hearing a firsthand account of that same thing were two very different beasts.
I’d known he’d loved her, of course, even as brief as their relationship had been. He’d loved her enough that her disappearance had crushed him. However, I’d never realized the true depth of his emotions.
Having had Debbie by his side during the tragic loss of his parents, the extent of what he felt for her now made more sense. I knew well enough how tragedy tends to bring about heightened emotions, and usually only one of two possible outcomes: you either grow closer or farther apart. Debbie, it seemed, had quickly become Preacher’s crutch, every bit as much as Preacher had become hers.
I would have thought these revelations might have had a soothing effect on me, but I found myself experiencing the opposite. My irritation was mounting, coupled with the anger of being lied to for so long, and about my own family no less. “Daddy,” I snapped before I could squelch my rising temper. “What happened next?”
Preacher faced me and smiled sadly. “Baby girl, I’d be willin’ to put good money on that being the day we made you.”
“Not that,” I said, making a face. “I meant what happened after that.”
Behind me, Deuce snorted loudly, and I turned to find him smirking. Frowning, I asked, “What’s so funny?”
Deuce shrugged. “That probably happened a few more times.”
With an exasperated sigh, I turned back to my father. “I want to know what happened with the police. Did they have any leads? Was anyone taken into custody?”
I’d only managed to find one article about it online—the Four Points Massacre, it had been called. The article had been sparse on details, and instead fraught with warnings and accusations about the dangers of “motorcycle gangs”.
A faraway
look in his eyes, Preacher stared at something over my shoulder. “Wasn’t long after gettin’ back to the city that your mother started gettin’ sick. Couldn’t hold nothin’ down.”
“Daddy, the cops. What did the cops say?”
“It was your Aunt Sylvia who thought she might be pregnant.”
Frustrated, I glanced back at Deuce and rolled my eyes. Now that I knew the truth about my grandparents, it was obvious to me what Preacher was doing. The same thing he’d done my entire life—refuse to discuss his parents. He’d never dealt with losing them, that much was obvious to me now.
“So you brought Debbie home with you?” I asked, resigned to just letting him talk. There would be no forcing Preacher Fox to do anything he didn’t want to do. And I could always ask my uncles for specifics later.
Preacher’s eyes flicked to mine. “Of course I did!” he huffed indignantly. “You think I’d leave her behind?”
“I don’t know what to think!” I shot back. “Everything I thought I knew was wrong! I don’t know what’s true and what’s a lie anymore!”
“There were good reasons I lied to ya, Eva.”
“Like what?” I practically shouted, jumping to my feet. Gripping the bedrail, I glared down at him. So many feelings were coursing through me, too many, and every single one of them was unpleasant.
I jabbed myself in the chest. “Tell me why I couldn’t know the truth about my mother!”
Preacher let out a hard sigh, and his chest let out a painful-sounding rattle in response. “I will, I will… but I gotta tell you the rest of the story first.”
My eyes bulged, and my grip on the bedrail tightened. I was about to let loose a string of curses when a familiar hand appeared on my shoulder.
“Fuckin’ breathe,” Deuce whispered.
I shook my head furiously. “But he—”
Deuce grabbed my wrist, pulled me out of my chair, and dragged me across the room and into the bathroom. Glaring at me, he kicked the door closed behind us and folded his arms across his chest. Regardless of his age, my husband still painted a formidable picture—his height, his breadth, and the way his eyes could turn bitterly cold in an instant, sucking all the warmth from the room.