38
Deacon
Ledger’s empty chair was the first thing I noticed when Church started.
Nobody mentioned it. His paperwork still sat in front of the seat, squared into a neat stack like he might walk in late and complain somebody had touched it.
That almost made it worse. Priest saw it too.
His gaze caught there once while coffee mugs hit wood and Ghost opened his laptop, then he looked around the table and knocked his knuckles against the scarred surface. “Let’s get through business first.”
The Bar, Red Mercy, Retribution Auto, Last Rites.
The usual numbers moved around the table, but nobody settled into them.
When the discussion finally reached Last Rites, I dragged the last sheet closer.
“The Bar’s good,” I said. “Steady traffic. Red Mercy’s pullin’ strong weekends and private bookings.
Retribution Auto’s stacked up but handlin’ it. Last Rites is doin’ well too.”
Priest tipped his chin, so I kept going. “Garrett’s work stands on its own,” I said. “But it ain’t just the ink bringin’ people in. Women flirt with him, men flirt with him, and somehow that keeps turnin’ into bookings. Doesn’t hurt that the bastard knows exactly how to work it.”
Ink made a low sound beside me. Barely more than breath, but every man at the table heard it.
Priest turned his head. “You got somethin’ to say against the new hire?”
Ink answered with a grunt. Priest waited him out until Ink finally exhaled through his nose. “I ain’t got anything to say.”
I leaned back, unable to resist. “Garrett’s taken a liking to Evan. Taken him out a couple times. Ink doesn’t seem to trust him with him.”
That got the room’s attention.
Priest studied Ink. “That so?”
Ink looked irritated with the entire subject, which probably meant it mattered too much. “I just got a feeling, that’s all. I just don’t trust him because of it.”
Priest’s expression lost the teasing edge. “We always trust your feelings. We’ll have Ghost keep an eye on things. That make you feel better?”
Ink grunted and nodded once.
Priest looked to Ghost. “You good with that?”
Ghost barely blinked. “Yeah. I got that handled.”
Priest nodded once. “Good.”
The word settled, and Priest’s attention went back to Ledger’s chair. Whatever little ease had slipped into the room disappeared with it.
“Now,” he said, then let the silence sharpen before he continued. “Ledger isn’t here. Someone wanna tell me what’s goin’ on and where he’s at?”
Ghost leaned back and rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. For once, he looked like he would rather be anywhere but behind a screen with the answer. “Man, you asked him to go read those journals Lena left for him to read. Shit hit him hard.”
Nobody interrupted.
Ghost stared at the table for a moment, jaw tight, then started where Ledger had started. “First thing,” he said, “there was a note on the safe. Said the combo was the birthdate of the person he loved most in his life.”
Something moved across Priest’s face and disappeared.
Ghost kept going. “He put Lena’s birthday in. Didn’t open. Put Cage’s in. Didn’t open. Then he just sat back and looked at me like what the fuck.” A humorless breath left him. “Grabbed his hair and yelled. Full-on lost his shit for a minute.”
The thought of him trying Lena’s birthday and then Cage’s tightened my chest. “I would too.”
“Yeah,” Ghost said. “I let him cool off and then asked if there was anybody she might’ve thought he loved more. Anyone he’d had an affair with, maybe. He got real pissed at me.”
Nomad’s response came low. “Course he did,”
Ghost nodded. “Told me he wasn’t that kind of man. Said he never would’ve cheated. Said he married her, had Cage with her, made his bed and laid in it.” He looked down again before adding, “So I asked him what the hell that meant.”
The room had gone completely still.
Ghost’s voice dropped. “He sighed and said it wasn’t supposed to be a real marriage.
Not at first, it was just on paper to protect her, give her insurance and benefits, get her out of that club, give her a chance to go to school.
Said he got drunk one night, somehow slept with Lena, then a few months later found out she was pregnant with Cage.
That was it. He was havin’ a baby, so he was gonna stand by her. Be a real husband. Be a father.”
None of us had known. We knew Lena as his wife, Cage’s mother, then the woman who betrayed us. We hadn’t known Ledger had built the marriage around duty before it ever became anything else.
Ghost rubbed both hands over his face. “Anyway. It hit me then. I asked if there’d been anyone before her. Anyone he loved that she might’ve known about.” He paused, eyes lifting. “He flinched like I slapped him. Then his head snapped to the safe.”
I could see Ledger realizing his dead wife knew exactly which name he had buried deepest.
“He went back over,” Ghost said. “Hit the buttons. Safe opened.”
Rook shifted, slow and controlled.
Ghost shook his head once. “He cursed like a motherfucker. I don’t know whose birthday it was, but he was pissed she used it. Or pissed she knew it. Not sure which.”
Priest broke the silence. “What was in it?”
“A few journals.” Ghost’s voice had flattened, the way it did when he was trying to keep feeling out of something that had too much of it.
“He grabbed the most recent one first. Entries talked about meetin’ with someone from Dead Man’s Hand.
Guy approached her at the grocery store.
She started feedin’ him info, but not enough to fully burn us right away. Runs. Dates. Routes. Bits and pieces.”
My jaw tightened. Across the table, Graves went very still.
Ghost looked toward his laptop without really seeing it.
“She wrote that she just wanted them out of the club. Wanted a normal life. Wanted the suburban house with the white picket fence, Ledger with some office job, Cage goin’ to college, all that shit.
” His mouth pulled tight. “She thought if she helped bring down the club, then there’d be no club for Ledger to choose.
Thought that would force him into the life she wanted. ”
Nomad swore under his breath.
Anger came easier than pity for a second. “That bitch never realized she was riskin’ his life same as the rest of ours,” I said.
Ghost nodded. “Exactly. The more he read, the more furious he got. He was about to tear the whole damn journal apart. I had to snatch it out of his hands.”
Priest leaned back carefully. “And the other journal?”
Ghost’s face changed, just a tightening around his eyes, but every man at the table saw it. “That one was older,” he said. “From early in their marriage. That one’s why he ain’t here.”
The room tightened around that sentence. I cleared my throat. “Well, kid, don’t keep us waitin’. What the fuck was in it?”
Ghost dragged his hands over his face again. “So I told you he said he got drunk and somehow slept with Lena without rememberin’, and then she wound up pregnant with Cage?”
Priest’s answer was quiet. “Yeah,”
Ghost looked straight at him. “Her journal told a different story.”
Nobody moved.
“He came home slightly drunk after drinkin’ with the guys from his unit, but not blackout drunk” Ghost said. “She offered him another beer. Beer was laced.”
My stomach turned. Ghost kept going. “She drugged him. Then slept with him. Next mornin’ she told him they got passionate because he was drunk, made it sound like she thought his feelings finally showed up, that he acted like he felt things for her.
In the journal she wrote that he apologized to her.
Said he didn’t mean to take advantage of her or hurt her feelings. ”
My hands curled against the edge of the table. Ledger had woken up believing he had crossed a line. He had apologized to the woman who had drugged him because she had convinced him he was the one who needed forgiveness.
Ghost’s mouth flattened. “Then she wrote that she knew she was ovulating and did it on purpose. Wanted to get pregnant so he’d stay. Said she always loved him. Wanted him to be with her.”
Graves’s voice came low and furious. “Jesus Christ,”
“Yeah,” Ghost said. “That’s about what Ledger said too. Then he fucking lost it.”
Ghost’s voice held no judgment now, only helplessness. “Before I could do anything, he started throwin’ shit all over the house. Lamps. Books. Chairs. Whatever he could get his hands on.” Ghost shook his head. “I tried to stop him. He yelled at me to get out.”
Rook looked over. “You left?”
Ghost gave him a look. “I went outside and waited him out.”
Of course he had. “About an hour later he came out,” Ghost said.
“Told me he was headin’ back to the apartment because Cage would be home from school soon, but he needed time to process.
” His gaze dropped to the table. “Said he closed the rest of the journals back in the safe but checked the dates first. The others are even older. From before they were married. Back when they were still at the old club before and just after he left for the Army.”
Priest’s expression went still.
Ghost took a slow breath. “He said he wasn’t ready to read those. Wasn’t ready to find out what else she was capable of. But he would. He just needed to get himself ready first.”
The silence after that had weight. Ledger had already lost Lena once. Now her own handwriting was taking apart the woman he thought he had known, reaching backward into the beginning of their marriage and the night Cage was conceived.
Nomad finally spoke, voice rough. “Fuck. No wonder he needs some time. He was basically assaulted by his wife.” He shook his head. “What a mind fuck. To think we thought we knew her.”
Rook’s answer was barely above a mutter. “Didn’t know shit,”
Priest looked around the table. There was no speech in him, no attempt to make what happened smaller by turning it into club language. “Priority right now is Ledger. Keepin’ his head straight is everybody’s job. Got it?”
Every man nodded. That was all it took. Ledger didn’t need pity. He needed brothers who would show up without making him explain himself.
Priest looked to Ghost. “You got that journal now?”
Ghost nodded. “Yeah.”
Priest’s attention sharpened back toward the threat buried inside Lena’s pages. “Good. Go over it with a fine-tooth comb. Every name she put in it. Every place she met them. Every mention of DMH.”
Ghost gave one short nod. “Already on it.”
Priest rubbed his jaw, tired settling deeper into his face. “Alright. Church is out then. Everybody knows what they need to do.”
Chairs scraped against the floor, but nobody said much as we filed out.
I made it into the hallway before Lila came back into my head, along with the way she kept calling Jude’s appearances coincidence even while admitting they creeped her out.
I couldn’t stand off to the side because Matty and I had too much history to get past our pride.
I pulled out my phone and stared at Matty’s name. Once, I could call him without thinking. Seventeen years had turned that friend into a man who wanted to put his fist through my face. I hit call anyway.
He answered on the fourth ring. “Yeah?”
Hearing his voice dragged every unfinished thing between us to the surface. I swallowed it because Lila mattered more. “It’s time we finally talk,” I said.
Matty went silent long enough for my pulse to climb.
I leaned against the wall. “We need to talk, Matty. Somethin’s wrong where your sister’s concerned, and I don’t trust it.
You love her. I love her. That means whatever’s between us gets put aside until we figure out what the hell is goin’ on and make sure she’s safe. ”
Nothing came back for several seconds. I could feel the years between us in that silence, all the way back to Rose’s kitchen and the night I disappeared without giving him anything to understand. I pulled the phone away long enough to make sure the call was still live.
Matty’s voice finally came back, quieter. “Where do you want to meet?”
Relief hit hard enough that I had to push away from the wall. He hadn’t forgiven me. I wasn’t asking him to. He had heard Lila’s name and chosen her. “Harbor & Bean in Bay of Saints. The one near the new ER build.”
There was another pause before he answered. “When and what time, I’m working a case and I’m not available most of this week, probably not until end of next week?”
I hated waiting that long with Jude still showing up around Lila, but Matty was offering me a door and I wasn’t stupid enough to slam it. “That’s fine, how’s next Friday? Three-thirty.”
Matty exhaled softly into the phone. “Alright.”
For one second, the simple agreement sounded almost like the old Matty. Then his voice hardened. “I’ll come because it’s her. Not because you and I have shit to say to each other.”
The reminder landed exactly where he meant it to. My hand tightened around the phone. “Fine.”
Matty repeated the time like that was the only promise either of us could safely make. “Next Friday, three-thirty.”
The call ended, leaving his voice and seventeen years of unfinished anger hanging in the quiet hallway. I stared at the dark screen before lowering my hand.
He was still angry. So was I. We had once been brothers, and I had left without trusting him with the truth. He had spent seventeen years believing the worst of me. Now Lila being afraid was enough to make us reach across the wreckage.
Next Friday felt too far away with Jude still circling her, but Matty was coming for his sister. Not for me. I didn’t need him to. For now, loving the same woman was enough to get us to the same table.