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“If you think that, you’re a fucking idiot.” Gypsy stared down Preacher. Everything that happened to any of them concerned the entire club and their families.
Preacher didn’t want to fight with Gypsy. He just wanted to get to Riley and make sure she was okay. Was that so hard for his President to understand? “Maybe I am.”
Gently taking her face in his hands, Preacher leaned down, resting his forehead against hers. He knew she could feel his hands shaking. Anger was a living, breathing thing for him at that precise moment. “I’ll kill the fucker who touched you.”
“He’s in jail. Not sure how long it will take him to get bonded out,” she told him, tucking her fingers in his belt loops, wanting to hold herself still. If she was honest with herself, it was also to hang on to him a little longer, even if it made her a fool.
“We need to talk,” Preacher said, leaning back so he could look at her face. Once he made sure they were on the same page, he would find out when her attacker would be released. When the asshole stepped out of the jail, he’d be waiting on him.
“No, we don’t.” She stood there, determined not to walk away without telling him the truth. Telling him who he picked over her and what he threw away for a backstabbing bitch. “You chose Jack over me. I don’t play second fiddle to anyone. Not your little boys’ club. Not your ex-lovers. You have too much shit in your life that comes before your happiness.”
“Riley.” Preacher lowered his voice, and she had to stop and listen.
She ignored the tone and the warning. “Preacher.” She knew everyone in the room was watching them and decided fuck it. Letting go of him, she stepped back. “You want to know why Jack stopped by your place? She needed a safe place because she had no money and nowhere to go. She also didn’t tell you what she’d done.”
He tilted his head down so she could see how hard it was for him to stand there and not do anything about what had been done to her. “Tell me,” he said low.
“Good old Jack went running to Greg instead of leaving town. She stayed drunk and high for weeks. She told him about the club, about you. Where you worked, where you lived. She told him every detail of your day-to-day life. Whatever he asked, she told him. That’s who stabbed you.” Riley was angry, hurt, and damn well pissed off now. Everything on her hurt, and she hated having a room full of men see how emotionally vulnerable she was. Poking a finger in his chest, she poked Preacher hard with the tip of it until he stepped back.
“And he found you because Jack left a trail of breadcrumbs right to you. And why did he stab you? Because you made him look weak in front of Jack.” Riley stepped back and glared at Preacher. “You let me go and let her stay. You gave me up for a bitch who didn’t give two shits about you. All she cared about was your bank account.”
Riley realized the place was silent. Creepy quiet. The saying ‘you could have heard a pin drop’ definitely applied to that moment. She could tell Preacher was angry, but he should have gotten angry a month ago, when Jack stepped into his house. “You need to figure out what you want before someone else takes a shot at you.”
Turning away from Preacher, Riley headed for the door, and that’s when she heard him start shouting for someone to find Jack. “I want her found and brought back here. She’s got some things to fucking answer for. Gypsy, we need to know what she told them about the club.”
“It’s your call, Preacher.” Gypsy knew, as did everyone else in the clubhouse, that dragging Jacqueline Landry back to Lampsing to answer questions could bring some heat from Trick and Pierce. The last thing they needed was a war between them and the Road Devils over a damn woman who didn’t mean shit to them.
“I know what you’re thinking, and I’ll leave the club if it makes it easier,” he told Gypsy.
“I’ll turn my cut in as well,” Bones said, stepping up behind Preacher.
“Count me in on turning my cut in,” Wrench shouted from the bar, where he had taken up residence. “I hate looking over my damn shoulder,” he added.
“No one’s turning in shit. We’ll call Trick and Pierce to let them know the deal, and if they know where she’s at and refuse to bring her here, then I’ll make a call to Tailor.” Gypsy shut everyone down.
Glancing over, he saw Riley limping toward the door and nodded for Preacher to catch her. Gypsy could admit when he was wrong, and this time, he felt he had been wrong one hundred percent when it came to Riley.
Preacher looked toward Riley and moved quicker than he had in months. Grabbing her arm, he turned her around so she had to look at him. “Where do you think you’re going?” He was still pissed about Jack, but more than that, he was pissed at himself for allowing Riley to get hurt because of something Jack did.
Riley tried pulling her arm from Preacher, but he didn’t give it up. “I’m done, Preacher. I’m going home.”
“Without me?” If she thought that was happening, Riley was crazy.
“I can’t be second in your life,” she said.
“Did I ask you to be?” Preacher asked her.
Riley sighed. “You haven’t asked me to be anything.”
Preacher tried to ease the tension between them. “How do you like the term ‘old lady’?”
Riley scrunched her nose up. “I’m good with just being your woman.”
“We’ll work on the old lady later. Now that’s settled, I need to know one more thing.” He smirked, now hanging onto both her arms so she couldn’t run from him. She still had that look of a scared rabbit.
“What’s that?” she asked with a little too much shake in her voice.
“Did you go after Greg because he stabbed me?” Preacher knew his tone still had some bite to it, but he couldn’t believe she’d risked her life for his. It humbled him.
