“Smart girl,” I murmured over the rim of my mug.
“She was,” Priest replied softly.
I wasn’t sure how long we sat there, sipping from our mugs of magical nightmare cure. In the past, I had avoided Priest and the tension between us that always simmered below the surface. Surprisingly, I felt at ease in his presence for the first time. Maybe it was the schnapps, which was a super fun word to say. Or perhaps it was because I was finally settling my nerves after all those stress hormones flooded my system after my dream of the wet room. Whatever the reason, I felt more relaxed than I had in a while. Priest seemed like he might be feeling that way too. Ellis was right; chocolate was magic.
All too soon, my mug was drained. Priest wordlessly rose and began to tidy up.
“I can do that!” I said, taking the mugs from his hands and walking over to the sink. “You made it. I don’t mind cleaning up if you want to get some rest.”
“Nah,” Priest replied, brushing me off. “You should go back to bed. Once I’m up, I’m up.” The warm, easy atmosphere of the kitchen cooled slightly as Priest pulled away from me in front of my eyes. He let mepeek behind the curtain tonight, but his walls were firmly back in place now.
I sighed, wondering if I had said or done something wrong. “Okay.” I pushed my chair back in to the table and turned to leave but paused in the doorway to look back at Priest. His shoulders looked tense and drawn up as he washed our dishes.
“Thank you, Priest.” I watched as Priest flinched at the sound of my voice.
“You don’t have anything to thank me for,” he replied in a husky voice.
“Ellis was right, though. The chocolate helped chase away some of the darkness.” Priest nodded his head and shot me a look over his shoulder as he continued to scrub. “She was lucky to have a brother like you.”
Priest slapped the tap, turning the water off. “Lucky,” he growled, “right.”
I went back to my room and managed to get a solid four hours of sleep. I didn’t see Priest again for three days.
Chapter 21
Priest
I closed the medicine cabinet in my bathroom and watched in the mirror as I dabbed ointment on the crow skull brand on my chest. In the weeks since my punishment it had healed nicely, but I found my hand creeping up to rub over the spot unconsciously, usually when I was deep in thought or lost to memories. There were dark circles under my eyes from another night of tossing and turning. I had Mindy come up to my room last night for a littlestress relief,but even meaningless sex couldn’t ease the tension in my shoulders and help me to relax. Ever since the night I forced Indigo into the confessional, I’d felt off-kilter, and I couldn’t seem to figure out how to get my shit together. I scowled at my own reflection, wondering what the hell normal even looked like anymore. I hadn’t been myself since Ellis died.
I pulled on a faded pair of jeans and a fitted black T-shirt and laced up my boots before heading downstairs. I tried to time my trip down so I had just enough time to grab something to eat before church, to avoidrunning into people. Today, Duke, Bard, and I were going over the final prep for our meeting with the Alvarez Cartel. We didn’t run guns for them often, but when we did, it was vital that everything go off without a hitch. Not only did we not want to risk a shipment but we also needed the money made off the sale of the weapons to help fund the club and our work against the trafficking rings.
I stomped down the stairs, lifting my chin at Prospect behind the bar and headed back to the kitchen. It was late in the morning, almost ten o’clock, and I hoped that everyone had cleared out by now so I could grab a cup of coffee, but my hopes were dashed the moment my feet crossed the threshold into the kitchen. My mother sat at the old kitchen table, nursing her cup of coffee and staring vacantly out the window. She didn’t say anything as I walked over to the counter and poured my own cup. Since Ellis’s death, my mom had withdrawn into herself; unable to cope with the idea of living a life without her child in it. Sipping the dark, bitter brew in my mug, I wondered, not for the first time, if she’d have been half as upset if it had been me that died that night instead of my sister.
I knew my parents loved me, but I thought my mother resigned herself to the fact that as a member of Los Cuervos, there was a pronounced likelihood that I wouldn’t live to be an old man. Ellis was different. She wasn’t meant for club life. She wanted to go to college and open up her own spa and resort one day with Lennon. If I got shot and died on the Alvarez run, my parents would grieve but the loss wouldn’t be a complete shock. Ellis’s death rocked the very foundations of their souls. It was an unexpected and tragic loss. As I watched my mother withdraw into herself and disassociate from life without her baby, I wished I could do something to bring her back to life. “You’re looking beautiful today, Ma.” Nothing. Her eyes were unfocused as she stared out the window. She didn’t register that I was even in the room, let alone speaking to her.
I sighed and walked forward to gently press a kiss to her brow, finally drawing Mom’s attention. “Oh, Lochlan.” Reaching forward with her free hand, my mother patted my cheek and murmured, “You look tired, hun.” She turned away from me, her focus going back to the window.
I sighed. “Love you, Ma.” Taking my coffee with me, I left the kitchen and made a mental note to talk to my dad about how withdrawn she’d become. It’d been two years, and while I knew her grief for Ellis would never leave her, she couldn’t go on like she was. I headed down to church, knocking on the closed door before I entered. Duke and Bard were already seated and ready to get down to business.
“About damn time,” Duke grumbled. I made a show of looking at my phone to check the time. I held it up to show Duke that it was 10 a.m., so I was right on time. My dad had been a surly asshole since the night he branded me, and I knew he had every right to be. I fucked up, and I paid the price. It’d been a few weeks, and I thought it was time we tried to move on, so instead of ignoring his gruff attitude, I decided to be a smart-ass. Couldn’t hurt, right?
“Come on old man, you know I’d never keep a lady waiting.” I winked at him as I sat down, and Bard smothered a laugh. Duke narrowed his eyes at me but didn’t rise to the bait.
“Shut the fuck up, Priest. Bard, you’re up. Give us the rundown for the drop.”
Bard clicked something on the laptop in front of him, casting his display onto the wall-mounted screen on the far side of the room. A map showing the rendezvous point with the cartel was displayed, and Bard launched into the plan.
“Okay, for this drop, we’ll be meeting the contact near a small town on the Arizona/Mexico border called Nogales. Our guy with US Customs and Border Protection has made sure the area between these mile markers”—he gestured to an area on the map—“will be clear for two hours as we make the exchange. It’s a smaller haul this time, so it shouldn’t take long.” Duke nodded along, and I took a sip of my cooling coffee.
“How many men will they have?”
Bard didn’t even need to check his stack of notes. He’d gone over this plan so many times.“Five. We’ll be bringing five as well. Two in the truck and three on bikes, one on point and two following the truck. Once we receive the shipment, we’ll transport it to our chapter in Cedar City, Utah, minus the pieces we keep for ourselves. They’ll be dispersed from there for sale.” We varied our pickup and drop-off points with everyshipment to avoid a raid, and Bard seemed to have all his ducks in a row as he went into the smaller details of the plan with Duke. We’d be keeping a few pieces from the run for our own armory, but the rest would be sold to help fund our fight against trafficking.
Duke nodded along, seeming to approve of Bard’s preparations. “How long is the drive from here to Nogales?” Bard rifled through his notes before replying, “About fourteen hours, but we can probably make it in thirteen if the weather is good and there isn’t too much traffic. From Nogales to Cedar City, it’s another nine hours or so. We’ll stop over at the clubhouse there for a brief rest, and then make the eight-hour drive home.”
Duke rapped his knuckles on the table. “So the whole trip should take less than forty-eight hours. Who were you planning to take?”
“I’ll take point. Sticks, Thor, and Tank already agreed to go. I was thinking of taking Pyro—”
