Opal Burns was in custody, cracked open like a nut crushed into the hard wall of police pressure. She was a rule-abiding woman who’d been led astray by the Prophet, and even though Officer Hutchinson told me she was remorseful, ashamed, and eager to talk about the teachings at this Prophet’s ‘New Church’, she had yet to reveal a name.
Things were moving but not fast enough.
Not for me, not for Bea.
I did not imagine horrible deeds being done to her. It was easy enough to get into the mind of a serial killer when, by definition, I was one myself.
He did not want her to die. She was an essential part of his plan, and her purpose could not be achieved without her alive.
So he wouldn’t kill her.
Not if he didn’t have to.
I ran those words through my head like a chant to focus on the unbridled ferocity that raged inside my cold, hard shell.
Cressida and Lila kept asking me, when I stalked through the clubhouse on my way to weaponize the men or urge Z to get a fucking move on, if I was okay.
I didn’t answer.
In truth, I’d never been okay. It wasn’t in my goddamn wheelhouse.
But this gave a new definition to not okay.
If I’d been a breathing corpse before, I was a ghost now, haunting the earth with one purpose. To rectify a wrong.
Cressida stopped me again with a hand on my arm, Prince held in her other. He was a smiley kid, already looking the spitting image of his dad.
I almost didn’t halt, and for anyone else, I wouldn’t have.
Bea was the only thing that mattered.
What happens to a man who revolves around a singular obsession only to have it ripped away from him?
I blinked blankly at Cress.
She squeezed my forearm, brown eyes wide and pretty with sincerity. “I know you’re busy, so I won’t stop you from doing what you need to do to bring Bea home. I just wanted to say, Priest, if anyone can bring her back to us, it’s you. If anyone can descend into this man’s underworld and return with our sunshine girl, it’s you.”
I blinked at her again because I didn’t understand what she was emotionally implying. Sometimes, that happened.
A small, sad smile flirted with her mouth as she took her arm away to gently bounce a babbling Prince against her chest. “What I’m saying, Priest, is that you were a hero once for me, and I know you’ll be a hero today for her.”
The shutter speed of this blink was slow, stuttering as I fought to compute her words.
Hero.
The word made me want to laugh.
Killer. Psychopath. Enforcer of The Fallen MC.
These were my monikers. I was comfortable with them. Maybe I would have even been proud of them if I was built to be proud of myself for things.
Hero was not in my lexicon.
But something about Cress’s overly pretty speech, a habit she had from reading too goddamn much, resonated in my hollow chest.
For Bea.
Yeah, for Bea I could be whatever the fuck I needed so long as it meant she was back at my side where she belonged, shooting me one of those bright smiles for no reason other than that she was happy to be with me.
I jerked my chin up at Cress, but she got me, smiling the secret smile of mothers that know better than the rest of us.
As if prompted by my thoughts, the door to the clubhouse swung open, inviting thick silence inside the walls. I turned, the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end because instinct told me who would be standing there.
Phillipa Lafayette.
She seemed small in the same doorframe used by men twice her height and build, with three times the fucking gumption. The artificial lights beaming into the lot behind her cast her all in shadow, but I had good eyes for the dark, and I saw the way she wrung her hands and bit her lip.
I saw when she tipped her chin into the air the way her daughters did when they were convinced of their own argument before they even started to fight.
“Mum, what are you doing here?” Loulou asked, standing up from one of the couches where she’d been holding a biker babe kinda vigil with the other old ladies. Her eyes were raw from shedding tears, voice weak from the grip of them in her throat, but she still held herself like biker royalty as she stared down the mother that had disappointed both her and Bea.
A growl rattled in my chest. Phillipa’s head turned my way, a little shiver rolling through her. I grinned at her, fast and feral.
She rocked back a little step, then rolled her shoulders and moved farther into the room. “I’m here to help you get my daughter back.”