The door opened—no knock, never a knock—and in slid Bart. The man moved like a landslide, in a black suit jacket stretched to its absolute engineering limits. The haircut was military-short, buzzed so close you could map the topography of every old scar. He took up the entire doorway and then some, and when he closed it behind him, the latch sounded like a rifle shot.
“Sit,” I said, gesturing at the guest chair. He didn’t, instead standing at parade rest, fists balled against his thighs.
“Report.” I didn’t need to add anything else. Bart was ex-army, dishonorably discharged, but with habits the chaplain corps would have killed for.
“Downtown incident. Three Royal Bastards and two hangers-on, raising hell at a bar near Fourth and Main.” He flicked his eyes to me, then away, like a Doberman waiting for the go command. “Cops were slow. Nobody is dead; a couple are concussed. Property damage, mostly. Tagging, intimidation.”
I let him run out of breath before I spoke. “And the church’s interests?”
“No direct involvement, but…” Here he hesitated, as if breaking bad news to a general who’d shoot the messenger. “Your daughter was there. Front and center with that biker scum.”
I set my bourbon down hard enough to slosh. “Define ‘there.’”
“She was in their company,” he said, each word ground out like gravel. “Talking to one of them. They left together. Surveillance has her getting into a motorcycle. No helmet.”
I steepled my fingers. The skin at my temples felt hot, but I forced my heart rate back to baseline. “Did anyone see her? Anyone that matters?”
“Unclear,” Bart said, poker-faced. “We’re reviewing security feeds. No press, but a couple of parishioners might have noticed.”
“Then damage control.” I pushed back from my chair, the casters groaning. “We keep this contained. You double surveillance on her—rotate the teams if you have to. I want a full profile of the man she left with. Everything. Blood type, mother’s maiden name, where he gets his porn.”
“Already in progress, sir.”
I hated that word—sir. It made me sound weak. “And the Royal Bastards?”
He smiled then. It was a small, reptilian upturn at the corner of his mouth, but it was the most emotion I’d ever seen him show. “We’ve got three points of pressure on them already. A supplier got squeezed, and one of their lieutenants was picked up for a parole violation. We can escalate.”
“Escalate,” I said it soft, almost a caress. “I want them desperate. I want them to make mistakes. But nothing that splashes back on the church. Understood?”
He nodded. “Crystal.”
I rose and walked to the window, hands clasped behind my back like a dictator about to address his frightened cabinet. Outside, Darla was in the parking lot, still in her Sunday best, smiling like the perfect poster child for postmodern morality. She hugged an old lady who handed her a Ziploc bag of homemade cookies, and for a second, I could almost believe thatnothing I’d just heard was true. But I knew better. The enemy was always closer than you thought.
I kept my eyes on her silhouette, feeling Bart’s presence behind me like a shadow too big to fit the room.
“You ever wonder why God lets us have daughters?” I asked, rhetorical and venomous.
Bart said nothing. Good man.
“It’s to remind us how much pain we can take before we break,” I finished. “Go. Do your job. I want updates hourly. If you have to lean on someone, lean hard.”
He left as quickly as he’d arrived, not even sparing a glance for the crucifixion art. The door thunked shut, and the silence pooled in the office like a new kind of darkness.
I watched Darla until she disappeared behind a row of Fords, and then, in the reflection of the window, I studied my own face—cold, impassive, the mask of a shepherd with a wolf’s mind underneath.
There was always more to do. The devil never slept, and neither did I.
15
Axel
Vin’s idea of an “emergency meeting” was as subtle as a pipe bomb. Six missed calls, then a text that just said “Clubhouse. Now. Bring your fuckin’ A-game.” I was two beers deep at the Rusty Chain’s sticky-ass bar before I even noticed, but the moment I did, the adrenaline kicked through my veins like a relay baton.
The Royal Bastards’ Lexington chapter didn’t do subtle. The place was already at full riot by the time I limped up the back stairs. Canon, Shivs, and Moab were hunched around the kidney-shaped table. Red was perched on a milk crate by the window, legs crossed, flame-orange hair pulled back in a brutal ponytail.
I walked in last, which would have been the height of disrespect for a full patch, but as a Prospect, I just got a few Snickers and a sarcastic “Good morning, sunshine” from Moab. My left eye was swollen half shut, and the tape job on my ribspeeked out from under my cut like a sad attempt at a sports bra. Red’s gaze hit the bruises and she shook her head, a feral smile curling up.
“Somebody tell the preacher’s little helper to stop using his face as a brake pedal,” she said.
