Page 119 of Deacon

Cage smiled back, small but genuine, before he and Jade slipped out together.

The apartment felt different once the door closed. We had both seen Jade soften when he joked about grounding her. This was becoming more than a few visits and careful conversations. She was making room for him one ordinary moment at a time.

Jackson stared at the closed door for a beat before looking at me. “She’s a good kid.”

My throat tightened around years of pride and all the work he had never seen. “Yeah.”

His voice dropped, wonder softening it. “We did that.”

The words went straight through me. He had missed almost all of the doing, yet Jade was still ours. His pride didn’t erase what I had carried alone. It sounded like wonder, and I couldn’t answer without giving away too much.

Jackson let the silence stand without pushing. Then he picked up his cut from the back of the chair and looked once toward the window. “I’ll head out. Give you some peace.”

I almost laughed. “Since when do you do that?”

He glanced back at me with one hand on the door. “Since I know you well enough to know that if I push when you’re not ready, you’ll shut every door I’ve managed to crack open.”

That landed harder than I wanted it to. For all my accusations about persistence, he had been paying attention.

He opened the door, then paused and looked over his shoulder. “I’m not goin’ anywhere, Lila.”

The words carried none of his usual swagger. Just certainty. Then he left me with the donut box on the coffee table, the rinsed mug in the drainer, and a quiet changed by his absence.

Dad’s anger still bruised. Matty’s disappointment still pulled at me. Jade was outside with a boy she liked, carrying whatever worry she still refused to share. Jackson Hayes, who had once shattered my life by leaving, had just promised he was staying.

I didn’t know whether that made anything easier. I only knew I was starting to believe him.

32

Deacon

Church usually settled me. Priest at the head of the table, Graves with security notes, Rook looking like he’d rather handle an actual threat than sit through numbers, Ledger buried in paperwork, Ink taking notes, Ghost behind his laptop, Nomad quiet and watchful. The familiar rhythm had always fit deep in my bones, but today my mind kept slipping away from it.

Mostly to Jade. That still hit me strange sometimes, how fast she had become the center of things. One day I hadn’t known she existed; the next, my whole life had cracked open around a sixteen-year-old with dark hair, green eyes, and enough attitude to keep me humble. I’d watched Priest with Jax, Nomad with Asher, Graves with those twins crawling all over him like he wasn’t terrifying to half the county. I knew men loved their kids. Feeling it myself was something else entirely.

Then there was Lila. Always right behind Jade in my head, sharp-eyed enough to know when I was holding back and still guarded enough around me that one wrong word could tear open everything I was trying to rebuild. Jade had started letting me in. Lila was another matter, and I couldn’t blame her.

Graves finished his security report, Rook covered clubhouse concerns, Nomad gave the route update, and Ledger walked us through numbers from The Bar, Red Mercy, Retribution Auto, and Last Rites. Ink filled in where logistics met intel. I heard all of it. I just had to keep dragging myself back to the table.

Then Priest leaned back, and the room changed. Business was business. Joker was personal. “Talk to me,” Priest said.

Ghost tipped his screen down, and the set of his mouth told me he already hated the answer. “Nothing useful.”

Priest’s jaw tightened. Weeks of waiting had worn through everybody’s patience, but Joker belonged to him in a way the rest of us understood. “Nothing?”

“Nothing that holds.” Ghost stayed flat, irritation cutting through anyway. “No fresh movement I can tie to Joker. Nothing solid on Sadie either. No chatter that isn’t smoke. No trail that stays live long enough to matter. It’s too clean.”

That got everybody’s full attention. Ghost continued before anyone interrupted him. “That tells me he planned for this. Long before he needed it. Safe names. Safe places. Men who owe him. Dead channels until he needs them. Joker’s not the kind to wait until the walls are closin’ in before he figures out an exit.”\nPriest’s attention shifted to Ink. “What about Jackknife?”

Ink stopped turning his pen between his fingers. We’d kept the Dead Man’s Hand prospect alive because a breathing source was worth more than another body, and so far the kid had given us just enough to prove he knew things. Old routes. Names. Places Ghost could verify. Nothing that brought us any closer to Joker.

“Still talking,” Ink said. “Still stopping right before anything useful becomes current.”

Ghost nodded from behind his laptop. “What he’s given us checks out.”

“That’s what bothers me.” Ink’s eyes narrowed slightly, his focus going somewhere beyond the table. “Joker sent a prospect straight into our hands knowing there was a damn good chance we’d kill him. Kid showed up already knowing how to make himself useful enough to stay breathing.” His pen went still against the page. “I can’t figure out why Joker picked him.”

Priest watched him. “You think there’s more to the kid.”