Page 42 of Priest

But Blue heard something else. She heard me choosing another woman. She heard me giving a future to Sadie while leaving her tucked away inside my rules, useful in the dark and invisible in the daylight.

Damn it. What a fuck up. What the fuck is wrong with me?

Sadie’s voice cuts through the realization, soft and careful. “Priest, sugar?” She steps closer, her eyes moving over my face like she is searching for damage she can turn into an opening. “Everything okay with Deacon?”

I look at her, really look. The way she positions herself close enough for the room to read us wrong. The way her hand hovers near my arm. The way she keeps trying to fold herself into spaces I never opened for her.

“Yeah,” I say flatly. “He’s good, as long as he makes it through the night.”

Relief flickers across her face, but she barely gets a breath to hold it before I give her the rest.

“And I told you to stop calling me that.” My voice cuts colder, and the room feels it. “We ain’t on cutesy nickname level. I ain’t no one’s sugar. Least of all yours.”

The waiting room shifts. Brothers straighten. Conversations die off. The Old Ladies go quiet too, glancing between me and Sadie like they have been waiting for the line to show itself in daylight.

Sadie’s face flushes. “I didn’t mean nothin’ by it,” she says quickly, hands lifting a little, palms open, harmless as a mask. “It’s just a general endearment. Something I’d call anyone who was upset.”

From the far wall, Ghost’s voice slides out dry and low. “Never called me Sugar.”

For one beat, the whole room forgets how to breathe.

I turn my head and find him tucked near the corner, hood up under his cut, eyes down like he never said a damn thing. The corner of my mouth pulls despite the blood, the fear, and the grief grinding through my bones.

“Lucky you,” I say.

Ghost shrugs, barely there. “Blessed, apparently.”

A rough sound breaks out of someone near the chairs. Not quite a laugh, but close enough to knock some of the pressure out of the room. The crack is small, but I need it more than I want to admit. It gives me room to breathe. Room to stand up under the weight of what I know now.

I turn back to the room. “Listen up, assholes. I got an announcement.”

Sadie stiffens beside me.

The waiting room focuses on me in a way that feels too big for a hospital, too loud even in silence. I think of Blue’s chin lifting in that hallway, her body pressed to mine, her mouth lying while every inch of her told the truth. I think of the curve of her belly under her scrubs. My baby. Our baby. She can deny it all she wants, but I know what’s mine when it is standing right in front of me daring me to be man enough to claim it.

“This ain’t the best timing,” I say, my voice carrying through the room whether it should or not, “but it’s the best damn news I’ve had all day. I found Blue. She’s carrying my baby.”

The reaction hits hard and fast. Chairs scrape. Men curse in surprise. Someone whoops before Graves barks at him to shut it down, and a nurse appears in the doorway with murder in her eyes.

“This is a hospital,” she snaps. “Keep it down or leave.”

The room drops its volume, but the energy stays alive under the surface. Relief, shock, curiosity, all of it moving through my club while Sadie stands beside me gone stiff as stone.

I clear my throat. “And I want it known that Blue is the one who saved Deacon. We owe her a debt.”

Sadie steps closer, her hand sliding toward my arm again. “Um, Priest,” she says, voice low but nowhere near low enough. “How do you know for sure it’s your baby? She left you. Ghosted you. That could be someone else’s.”

My hand catches her throat before I give myself permission to move.

I don’t squeeze. I don’t crush. I put my hand there, firm enough to stop the poison coming out of her mouth and clear enough that every person in the room understands the line she just stepped over. Her eyes go wide.

“You ever say shit like that again and you’re out,” I tell her, my voice low and controlled. “You hear me?”

She nods fast, breath shallow under my palm.

“I don’t care if that’s my brother’s baby in your belly or not. You talk badly about my Old Lady again and you’re done.”

The words land in the room before I have time to call them back.