As if he sensed my turmoil, Preacher Man brought a trembling, blood-soaked hand to my cheek. “I know, son,” he wheezed. And then he said something on his dying breath that I still longed to understand. “Angels … beautiful angels with dark hair are coming for you. They are your only salvation.”
With his eyes fixed above us on the sky, he exhaled a long, painful breath. And then he was gone. The realization lit every molecule in my body on fire like flipping the switch on the electric chair. I shot off the pavement with my arms and legs twitching with rage and resentment. As I lunged for the man who had taken my father’s life, a gun’s muzzle met me in the face.
“My beef was with your pops. Bad blood from years past. You get to live. For tonight, at least.”
“You might as well end me right now, motherfucker. ’Cause if you let me walk away, I’ll rain a fucking firestorm down on you!”
A smile had curled at his lips. “I’d love to see you try. When morning comes and word spreads how I took down Preacher Man without a fight, you and your Raiders won’t have a fucking ally anywhere. Me and the Knights will run you into the ground.”
When I had lunged at him, the barrel of the gun smashed across my cheek, breaking my nose. As tears blinded my eyes from the hit and blood poured down my face, I’d been forced to watch as Sigel had spat on Preacher Man’s body.
But what Sigel couldn’t have imagined, nor any of us Raiders, was that Preacher Man had been two steps ahead of him. All of our allies stayed firmly in place based on last-minute peace offerings Preacher Man had made. The greatest of his last-hour deals included cashing in a favor owed by one of the Atlanta PD—a somewhat-crooked cop who was willing to falsify a warrant that took the drug task force straight to Sigel’s door. With his arrest history, he would be behind bars for at least five to ten, and I would be forced to sit on any revenge plans. Sure, I could’ve put out a hit for Sigel’s throat to be slit or for him to be shanked. But I wanted full-on justice, an eye for an eye, with his blood on my own two hands.
By hiding his brokered deals, Preacher Man had gone against all the charter rules that forced a vote by the officers. Like a sacrificial lamb to the slaughter, he had selflessly worked to ensure the safety of the club, even if all along it was going to cost him his life. Deep down, I knew that he had instigated Sigel’s imprisonment to keep me from any revenge that would come from his probable death. He must’ve feared I would be killed or imprisoned and wanted to protect me. He never would have fathomed my next move.
“Deacon,” a voice implored, jerking me out of the past and into the present.
“What?” I croaked. Staring down at my hands, I thought of a movie Rev had made me watch. Some bullshit Shakespeare stuff that I had slept through back in high school. Like the deranged chick, I rubbed my hands furiously together, trying not to see the blood I imagined on them—the blood of Sigel’s only son.
The son I had strung up and then proceeded to torture like something out of medieval times. The son who bore the wrath of the bottomless quicksand of grief for Preacher Man that I found myself trapped in. The son I’d left to bleed out on his apartment floor after I did a final act of degradation—I stripped him of his cut and took it with me.
Over the years, I’m sure Preacher Man and Case had rendered the same kind of revenge as I did. I’m not sure if they outdid my level of violence. Grief can bring a man who refuses to acknowledge emotion to his knees. It warps you into a shadow of your former self. It manipulates you into succumbing to the mental anguish you try so hard to escape from. It makes an emotional cripple out of even the strongest man around.
That was the intensity of my loss for Preacher Man. Salvation out of hell was rarely granted, but Preacher Man had been mine. So far I’d lived three lifetimes—the life before Preacher Man and the Raiders, my life with him, and now my life without him.
What I didn’t want to acknowledge then or now was that the grief I had brought to Sigel would have a price. He’d left me alive once, but when he was free, would he do it again? Now that he was out, I was staring down the barrel of a gun.
The deep baritone of Case’s voice once again dragged me from my thoughts. “Sigel killed Lacey,” he said.
“Did he know who she was?”
Case shook his head. Then with a grimace, he added, “But he knows who Willow is.”
My heart twisted as if a giant’s hands had clenched around it. “He’s the threat.”
What I hadn’t told the nosy-ass Miss Evans was a week ago I’d received a package. Within it were pictures of Willow on the school playground, eating lunch in the cafeteria, and skipping out to Mama Beth’s car. While there had been no note, the message was clear—someone was after my daughter. That’s when I had put Willow on lockdown within the compound. She didn’t go anywhere outside, and even when she was inside, a prospect was on her ass every moment.
Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined Sigel was behind it. But now that I knew who it was and his involvement in Lacey’s murder, the why wasn’t adding up. Not from Willow herself, but from the school psychologist, we knew what Willow had seen. She’d drawn pictures with a “Mean Man” who had hurt her mommy. She had been within Sigel’s reach of revenge, yet he’d let her go. I didn’t understand.
As if he sensed my confusion, Rev said, “He let her live because he realized you didn’t know anything about her.” When I flicked my gaze to his, Rev sighed raggedly. “He wanted to wait until you could have feelings for her. Then it could be personal.”