Page 128 of Priest

Broad through the shoulders, thick with the kind of strength that had gone mean instead of soft with age. Dark hair hung oily at the back of his neck, and a jagged scar cut from his temple across one cheek, pale against weathered skin. There was a rough symmetry to his face, the kind that might have been handsome once before cruelty settled into every line.

But it was his eyes that told me who he was.

Black in a way that had nothing to do with color. There was no human give in them, no flicker of conscience waiting behind the stare. Whatever mercy had lived there once had been carved out by choice, and what remained knew exactly how to hurt.

Joker.

I knew it before he said a word.

Sadie stood beside him with her baby clutched against her chest. His tiny face was red and scrunched as he cried into her shoulder. Her hair hung loose around her face, and her eyes flicked toward me before sliding away again. Fear lived there, but it wasn’t clean fear. There was guilt tangled through it, something twisted and trapped.

Joker noticed the moment I was fully aware. His mouth curved into something too mean to be called amusement.

“Well, look at that,” he drawled. “My son’s bitch is awake.”

My body started shaking. I hated that it did. I shook my head against the gag, trying to force words through fabric, but all that came out was a muffled sound that made his smile deepen.

Sadie’s voice came soft, almost swallowed by the baby’s cries. “You should’ve stayed gone.”

Stayed gone.

The words cut deeper than I expected. Not because they mattered coming from her, but because they carried the weight of every lie she had wrapped around us while pretending she was the one owed something.

Joker stepped closer and crouched until his face was level with mine. Stale sweat and leather clung to him. Something sharper lived beneath both.

“You’re gonna bring a pretty penny,” he said conversationally. “And you’re gonna destroy my son while you do it. That brat inside you?” His eyes dropped to my stomach. “Probably won’t survive whoever buys you, so I wouldn’t get too attached.”

The baby shifted again, hard enough to make pain flash under my ribs. I choked against the gag, tears burning as terror and rage tangled inside me until I could barely separate them.

Joker straightened abruptly and snapped his attention toward Sadie. “Can’t you keep that damn thing quiet? Pop it on your tit and feed it.”

Sadie flinched so hard the baby startled against her. She turned away, fumbling with her shirt while her shoulders trembled. The baby’s cries softened into broken hiccups as she pressed him close and kept her face angled from Joker’s.

He paced once across the narrow office, boots scraping over the worn floor. “Maybe I should try you out first,” he said, sounding almost bored by his own cruelty. “See what the fuss is about. Figure out why my son lost his mind over you.”

My stomach turned.

The crying from downstairs swelled again, raw enough to make my skin prickle.

Then another sound cut through it.

A scuff in the hallway.

Quick. Hesitant.

Joker stilled mid-step. His head turned slowly toward the door.

“What the hell?”

He yanked it open hard enough that it slammed against the wall. From where I sat, I couldn’t see fully into the hallway, but I heard a sharp intake of breath, small and startled.

His hand shot out.

A curse followed. Then the scrape of shoes against concrete as he dragged someone into the room by the hair.

Lena.

She stumbled, nearly falling, both hands clawing at his wrist as he jerked her upright. Her face was pale, her eyes wide and unfocused, like she’d walked into the wrong nightmare and only just realized the door had locked behind her.