Page 131 of Priest

The office door burst inward, splintering against the wall, and I flinched so hard my breath stuttered behind the gag.

A man filled the doorway, broad-shouldered, dark hair pulled back, his features sharp and familiar in a way that made my stomach drop before my mind understood why.

Joker.

He looked like a younger version of the man who had just been in this room threatening my life, the man who had killed Lena in front of me like it was nothing.

But he didn’t have that carved-out stare. He didn’t have the cruelty. The bones beneath it were there, the shape of his face and the hard line of his jaw close enough to feel like another threat until his eyes met mine and stopped me cold.

There was gentleness in them.

Not softness. Not safety, not yet. But care. The man who had just killed Lena hadn’t carried even a shadow of that in him. This man looked at me like he knew exactly how easily I could break, and when he moved closer, he did it like he was afraid one wrong step might be enough.

He froze when he saw me bound to the chair. His gaze flicked to Lena’s body on the floor, and his jaw tightened. It was small, almost nothing, but it told me he understood exactly what had happened here.

Then his attention returned to me.

He lifted his hands slowly, palms outward. Careful. Controlled.

“It’s okay,” he said, voice low despite the gunfire below. “I’m here to help you.”

My body was shaking too hard to believe him. Every instinct screamed danger. I thrashed once against the ropes, eyes wide and frantic.

He stepped closer, slow enough that I could track every movement. “Blue. Look at me.”

The sound of my name made something inside me stall.

“I’m Ace,” he said. “Priest’s brother.”

The words didn’t land at first. They slid across my mind and fell somewhere I couldn’t reach.

Ace.

Priest’s brother.

He was supposed to be dead. Priest believed he was dead, and worse than that, Priest believed he had died exactly the kind of man their father had tried to make him.

This couldn’t be him.

“I know,” he said quietly, like he could read the denial in my face. “I know what he thinks. I’ll explain it to him if I live long enough. Right now I need to get you and that baby out.”

The baby moved under my ribs when he said that, and something in my chest cracked.

Ace came behind me and started cutting through the rope at my wrists with quick, practiced movements. He didn’t give me a full story. He didn’t waste time trying to make the impossible sound reasonable.

“My death was staged,” he said, his voice close to my ear but steady. “Fallen Angels pulled me out. I’ve been under with them since. We’ve been watching Dead Man’s Hand.”

The rope loosened, and the sudden return of feeling hit hard enough to make my stomach roll. Pain flashed through my arms, sharp and sickening, and I almost pitched sideways before Ace caught my shoulder.

“I’ve got you,” he said.

He reached around and untied the gag. The moment it fell away, air flooded my lungs in ragged, broken pulls.

I dragged in one breath, then another, staring at him through the blur of panic and pain while my mind reached back through every uneasy moment from the last few days.

The dark bike. The rider with no cut. The feeling of being watched outside the hospital.

“You,” I rasped. “You’re the one who’s been outside the hospital. Watching me.”