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As it turned out, Logan had—under much duress, and the watchful eyes of Robbie—apologized for his initial reaction. But he said he stood by his initial threat of dismemberment if they hurt Robbie, whether Robbie liked their balls or not.
Priest had also given Julien the time for their flight the following week and let him know he got a third ticket, so he needed to have a talk with Robbie sooner rather than later.
“Dieu,” Julien mumbled, as Priest rolled over to reach for his phone. “What time is it?”
“Just turned one,” Priest said, as he picked up his cell to check who was calling. The number on his screen had him sitting up in the bed and reaching for the lamp. “Shit.”
“What is it?” Julien said, as he squinted against the bright light now filling the room. Priest rubbed a hand over his face as he stared at the number on the screen. It was a 504 number—New Orleans—and there was only one person who lived there he knew. Two, actually. But one he wished was dead, so he only counted the one.
“Joel,” Julien said, sitting up. “What is it?”
Priest didn’t know, but if he was getting a call at one in the morning from there, he knew it wasn’t anything good. As a voicemail lit his phone up next, he stared at it like he was looking down the barrel of a loaded gun.
“Joel.” Julien’s voice was now background noise to the blood rushing around Priest’s head, as he pushed back the covers and got out of bed, bringing the phone up to his ear.
As he stood at the window, looking out at the buildings surrounding their condo, a man’s deep, accented voice came through the phone.
“Priest? It’s Henri.”
Ice seemed to form in Priest’s veins as he stood there with his arm frozen in place. He didn’t hear Julien get out of bed. Didn’t hear the knock on their front door. He was too busy trying to process what he was hearing.
“I know it’s late,” Henri said. “But you gave explicit instructions to call if any news regarding Jimmy came to light.”
Julien’s hand on his back made Priest startle, and when he looked at him, Julien’s eyes narrowed. “What’s going on? Who called?”
When Priest said nothing, Julien glanced at the cell still plastered to his ear, and the knocking started up again.
“Someone’s at our door,” Julien said. “Let me go check and then—”
“No,” Priest barked out, and grabbed Julien’s arm, flashes of Jimmy, and all those he associated with him, bringing all of Priest’s protective instincts to the forefront.
“Joel, what’s the matter?”
He pressed the phone back to his ear as the message looped and played again. “A rumor surfaced today that Big Jimmy’s up for parole but I didn’t want to contact you unless I knew it was fact.” Priest’s palms grew sweaty and his heart beat so hard that it felt as though it was going to punch through his chest and land at his feet. “My team is still working out details, but it seems he’s cooperating with the Feds, Priest. After all this time, he’s agreed to give them a name if they give him a free pass to walk for time served.”
This can’t be happening, Priest thought, as he willed himself to keep listening. This can’t fucking be happening. How…why would they ever let that monster free?
As the message ended, Priest shut the voicemail, not wanting to hear it a third time, but then his phone lit up again making him jolt. He looked at it, and this time what he saw made him feel as though he were going mad. It was a text in the group thread.
Robbie: I know it’s late but I can’t sleep, and I thought if you were up maybe we could NOT sleep together. He’d added a smiley face and then wrote, I’m at your front door.
Robbie—it was Robbie at their front door, not— Fuck.
“Go,” Priest said to Julien, who was still looking at him as though he’d grown three heads. “It’s Robert.”
“Who did you think it was?” Julien asked, as he walked to the door of the bedroom and Priest scrubbed his hand over his face as he moved over to the bed. He needed to sit, or he might fall the fuck down.
As he sat down on the edge of the mattress, Priest stared at his phone as though it were a bomb about to explode in his hand. Because for a moment there he’d thought it might’ve been, “My father.”
JULIEN HAD NEVER seen Priest so shaken in all the time he’d known him. But as he sat on the edge of their bed he’d gone as white as their sheets, and his hands were shaking. Julien knew all about Priest’s father. In fact, the whole country knew the details of Priest’s nightmare of a childhood—they just didn’t know the little boy who’d lived it was Priest. But from birth to age seven, that poor little boy had lived in constant fear. The kind of fear that made a grown man unable to sleep. The kind of fear that made the most controlled man come undone.
