Page 138 of Priest

Old memories moved behind my ribs. Joker’s voice. My mother’s blood. Cain’s hand on my shoulder teaching me how to breathe through rage instead of drown in it.

Ace watched my face and kept going.

“I wanted you out before he buried you so deep you couldn’t crawl back clean. I knew he’d never just let you walk away, so I figured it had to be ugly. Bad enough that you’d hate me. Hate her. Hate everything with that patch enough to run.”

My stare hardened. “So you fucked Sadie.”

He didn’t flinch.

“Yeah,” he said. “On purpose at first.”

The words hit the same old bruise, poison stirred fresh.

He saw it. He didn’t back away from it.

“I knew Sadie wasn’t good for you. She liked power. Liked being wanted by men who had it. I figured if you caught us, you’d be done.” His voice roughened. “I was right.”

I laughed once, empty and sharp. “Funny way to have my back.”

“I know.”

The hard edge left his voice then, and what replaced it was worse because it sounded honest.

“The messed-up part is I fell for her anyway.”

That surprised me more than anything else he’d said.

His eyes slid past me, not avoiding. Remembering.

“Or I fell for who I thought she could be. Doesn’t matter now. She was hungry from the start, and I was too close to see it right. Joker figured out I was talking to the feds, then he got his hooks into her. Started sleeping with her. Started using her. Made sure I knew it too.”

A cold weight settled low in my gut.

“You were working with the feds.”

He nodded once. “Feeding what I could. Routes. Names. Meetings. Enough to matter. Never enough to move fast.”

His jaw shifted.

“When I caught wind Joker planned to kill me, the feds moved first. Staged the death, buried Ace Adams, then handed me to Fallen Angels because Archangel already had contracts tied to trafficking and arms movement. That club was the cleanest place to hide me while still keeping me useful.”

He said it flat, like he’d repeated the facts enough times to wear the pain down to bone.

“I’m Castor Cross now,” he added. “At least on paper. Ace is dead.”

I looked at him for a long second, taking that in. Not because I believed it all at once, but because parts of it slid into place too neatly to ignore. The fake death. Fallen Angels’ precision. Archangel in that warehouse looking at him like he was both asset and problem.

There were too many questions for the time we had. Too much anger still alive in me to pretend any of this fixed what he’d broken. But Blue was alive in the delivery room with our baby coming, and this man, whatever name he wore now, had cut her loose while the building came apart around them.

Before I could decide what to say next, the sharp click of heels cut through the hallway.

A woman strode toward us with the kind of posture that announced irritation before her mouth ever opened. She looked like clean lines and restraint, dressed in smart slacks and a dark blazer, her hair twisted into a low bun severe enough to scare rookies straight. Her face was pretty in a practical way, the kind that probably softened when she wasn’t actively plotting someone’s murder.

She was very clearly plotting his.

Her gaze locked on my brother.

“You are not supposed to be here,” she growled. “Why do you keep insisting on making my life difficult?”