Page 24 of Priest

Sadie watches my face through most of it. Waiting for something. Tenderness. Awe.

I give her nothing.

Still, my head won’t stay where I put it.

If Blue were here, I’d happily hold her hand. I’d ask questions before the doctor finished speaking. I’d every measurement, every number, every quiet glance between medical staff.

I drag my gaze to the floor and force the thought down before it breaks something open.

Back in the truck, Sadie exhales like she’s been holding her breath since we left the shop.

“Thank you,” she says quietly.

I start the engine. “Last time.”

Her spine straightens.

“I mean it,” I say. “Next time, someone else drives you. Someone else sits in the waiting room. The club will make sure you and the baby are safe, but you need to stop confusing protection with something it isn’t.”

She looks out the window. “You make it sound so cold.”

“It is what it is.”

For a few blocks, she says nothing. She glances at me, then away again.

Then her voice changes, softening around the edges. “Do you ever think about how Joker finds things? How he doesn’t like losing track of what he thinks belongs to him?”

The words scrape down my spine.

“What makes you think he’s looking?”

“I don’t know that he is.” She swallows. “That’s what scares me. With Joker, you never know until he’s already there.”

I keep my eyes on the road, but my hackles are up. “He say something to you?”

“Nothing recently.” Too fast.

“Sadie.”

“I’m just scared.” Her voice cracks, and this time I’m not sure she means for it to. “Ace is gone. You really think Joker had nothing to do with that? You think he just let his son disappear from the board because that’s how life shook out?”

The truck cab goes tight around us.

She keeps going, quieter now. “If he decided Ace was useless, what does that make me? What does that make this baby?”

“Don’t.”

“I’m serious, Priest. If it wasn’t for you, I think I’d already be dead.”

I don’t answer because there’s nothing clean to say. Joker has a long memory and a mean streak deep enough to drown a man. He doesn’t like losing what he thinks belongs to him. He likes even less when someone else protects it.

Sadie turns toward the window again, her reflection pale in the glass.

“I just want things to stay calm,” she says.

“So do I.”

She nods, like that answer gives her something.