Dead Man Walking (The Fallen Men, #6)

by Darling, Giana

  A vibrating moment passed then Billy nodded his head minutely. “Proverbs 6:12-15. It was one of the Prophet’s favourites.”

  A shadow passed over Priest’s face, and he fisted his wounded hands so tightly that blood rushed between his knuckles to wet the floor. “I’m not surprised. It was a favourite of my tormentor too. He tried to break me beyond healing, Billy, but look at me? I defied that man and his God, yet here I stand. You can do the same, trust me. Sometimes evil men use God as an excuse to do evil themselves. No one is going to strike you down.”

  Billie shook so hard his teeth rattled, huge tears rolling down his face as he debated with his demons. Finally, he looked up at me, and whispered, “If he’s right, then my mum was killed for no reason.”

  My heart broke for him, tears pooling in my own eyes. It was impossible not to draw parallels with the boy Priest had been so long ago, abused by the church, completely lost and alone. “Seth wasn’t right in the head, Billy. I think you know that. Let us help you, okay?”

  His thin lower lip trembled as he looked back at Priest. “You won’t hurt me?”

  Priest held his huge, scarred hands open wide. “No, kid, I’m going to help you.”

  A moment later, the knife clattered to the floor, and Priest surged forward to pick Billy up, checking him efficiently for wounds before passing him off with a murmur to a waiting Kodiak.

  “Get him outta here,” he grunted, already moving to me.

  I sobbed the moment he reached me, the second his hands cupped my face and brought my forehead to his.

  “Little Shadow,” he breathed into my face, his fragrance all around me, and God, it felt like coming home after a nightmare. “Mo cuishle.”

  I was sobbing so hard, my entire body was shaking, throwing my cut open back into agony, but I couldn’t stop.

  He was there.

  The man everyone thought was a harbinger of doom who was really, always and in so many complicated ways, my saviour.

  “P-Priest,” I called again and again as if I could bind us together eternally with the sound of his chosen name.

  He kissed me hard to stem the flow of words, his lips on mine settling me enough that I stopped trembling.

  “Hold on,” he ordered as he pulled away to cut my arms out of the ropes.

  I hissed as the hemp slid across my raw skin, but Priest was back, holding me carefully against his left side so he didn’t touch my torn back.

  “Mine, mine, mine,” he chanted like a pledge and a reminder, like his ownership of me was a great gift and responsibility.

  “Yours, yours, yours,” I repeated.

  He winced as I shifted and pressed into the knife still sticking out of his side. “Priest! You need to take that out.”

  “Was worried about blood loss. It’s not nicked anythin’ dangerous, Bea, don’t worry.”

  “Still.” I moved my hand over the cold grip and shot him a questioning glance.

  He inclined his head.

  I pulled the blade from his flesh with a faint sucking sound that sent shivers down my skin. Immediately, blood seeped through his hoodie, drenching the fabric from chest to belly.

  “I’m fine,” he reassured before I could ask. “But I got work to do. You wanna stay or wait outside with Billy?”

  I blinked, my exhausted, pain-numb brain sluggish. Then I understood. Behind Priest, Wrath was tying a shouting Seth with some of the ropes flung over a rafter. He was bleeding badly from his leg, the limb dangling uselessly as they hung him up by the wrists with his arms twisted backward, the sockets popping as they dislocated.

  Bat appeared in the doorway with a sniper rifle slung over his back, took one look at the scene, and brought out his phone to text someone.

  There was no calling the cops.

  They didn’t intend to turn Seth over to the authorities because, in their minds, they were the authority. At least, the only one that mattered.

  They’d found me, saved me when the cops hadn’t, and they were owed their retribution.

  “Cleo?” I asked.

  Priest’s mouth flatlined. “She’s gonna make it, but recovery isn’t gonna go easy.”

  “I’ll be there,” I vowed.

  Something like a smile moved in his eyes. “Don’t doubt it. Now, Little Shadow, you wanna stay or go?”

  I looked up into his pale eyes under those dark, slashing brows and knew if I stayed, I would become a killer. But hadn’t I known that all along?

  If I’m a killer, you’re a killer.

  I wasn’t going to leave Priest to do the dirty work as if I could ever forget what he’d done, what Seth had done. Vengeance wasn’t a God-given right. It wasn’t, though Seth seemed to think it was encouraged in the Bible, but it was a factor of my life with the club, and standing there bleeding and woozy, saved by men who people assumed were villains, I knew I’d stay.

  I loved Priest. Every single dark shadow and nook in his complicated mind and fragile heart. I wanted to see the depths of his ruthlessness. I wanted to witness him decimate a man who had decimated so many lives and tried to kill ours.

  It wasn’t pretty.

  There was no romanticism in torture. The colour of the blood he spilled was red, and there was a lot of it as Priest beat him until he confessed his crimes. Bat held his phone as the recorder. He confessed to the murders, confessed to seducing those women with his charms, and then with his piety before killing them for some perceived sins. He gushed about marrying Tabitha in Saskatoon and discovering the church, about moving away from his criminal family ties to drugs and sin to become reborn in God’s vision.

  He talked about the Walsh’s, his aunt Brenda and uncle Patrick. He told me how easy it was to use their vendetta against Priest to manipulate them into helping him frame Priest for murder, how simple it was to get his cousin, Sean, to find someone to ‘teach me a lesson’ about what happens to sinful girls in that bathroom at Sugar nightclub. He spoke about how all criminals deserved to be expunged from the planet and all women brought under the heel of devout men.

  He told Priest I was meant for better things than him.

  Knives came out after that, weapons that Priest wielded like an extension of himself, cutting away and carving up bits of Seth until he wept and babbled in tongues about God and his own divine right. It was a symphony of cracking bone, slick, wet flesh parting to cold steel, and human cries decreasing in volume to whimpers and groans.

  Not once did Seth show remorse.

  Not even when death was looming, when he was one open wound hanging from the ropes muttering about God and Ruth and angels.

  Priest gave him the opportunity to apologize, to exhibit grief, but Seth only laughed in his hair with blood dripping from his mouth. Some men were monsters straight down to their core, and Seth was one of them.

  When it was done, when Priest ended things with his hands inside of knives and a quick, ruthless twist of Seth’s neck, he turned to me, splattered with blood, gloved hands slick with it, face a mask of stone carved into human form. He didn’t move to me or make a sound. He just stood there, more Death than man.

  I walked to him instantly, carefully peeling off one glove so I could hold his naked hand.

  Together, we walked out of the diseased chapel with Wrath and Bat following.

  Kodiak waited outside with Billy, who was still shaking, but no longer crying.

  We all stood facing the run-down wooden structure filled with evil masquerading as God, and when Wrath moved forward with a small canister of gasoline to drench what remained of the cross-carved doors, I knew it was right to raze it to the ground.

  Bat handed me a skull-embossed lighter without looking at me, eyes trained on the building. A moment later, Priest handed me a small knob of carved wood, a tombstone he’d carved with “The Prophet” etched into the wooden grave. I held the cold metal and the warm wood in my hands for a long moment, Priest’s strong body pressed into my shoulder with his hand on my neck.

  And then I flipped the light
open, sparked the flame with my thumb, and tossed it with the wooden tombstone against the doors.

  We stood in the light of the flames as they ate up the evidence of so many crimes until the wail of sirens and the whomp, whomp of a helicopter sounded in the lighting dawn.

  By the time the police came, all that was left were the survivors and ash.

  Priest

  Things happened quickly after that.

  Bea was rushed to the hospital for her wounds while Bat, Kodiak, Wrath, Billy, and I were escorted to the Entrance Police Department for questioning. An EMT had wrapped my skewered hands and taped gauze over my stab wound, but I wasn’t in critical enough condition to get out of questioning, and I was eager to see this shit through the bitter fucking end.

  They held us at the station for almost twenty hours, trying to untangle the mess of people involved in Seth and Tabitha Linley’s web. Officer Moore had been found trying to cross the border into America, and many of the congregation at First Light Church were being questioned by officers as well. Eric was awake and talking. Apparently, he confessed his limited involvement with the “New Church” to the cops from his hospital bed as he was confined there for the foreseeable future with a broken spine.

  It was well into the evening the next day when Mr. White walked me out of the building into the cold, bright winter morning on Christmas Eve day.

  Zeus was waiting.

  He stood leaning against the railing at the foot of the stairs in a black knit cap from Hephaestus Auto. The man didn’t say a word as I stomped down the icy steps to his side, his eyes tracking me the way I might’ve done as a hunter faced with a worthy opponent.

  I stood before him, expressionless, ready to receive whatever he felt I was owed for letting Bea get in the path of Seth fucking Linley.

  He didn’t give me hell, though.

  Instead, he took a forceful step forward, grabbed my hand in his meaty mitt, and tugged me into a back-slapping hug.

  This was normal between brothers. Hugging, shaking hands, playful pushing, and shoving. For a group of alpha men, The Fallen were not afraid to be affectionate with each other.

  I was not included in that.

  It wasn’t something I ever considered doing, touching people in love or laughter, and as a result, they rarely tried to do so with me. I was not the most approachable man at the best of times.

  But this?

  Zeus Garro, one of the only men I’d ever admired, embracing me hard to his chest like a long-lost brother returned from war?

  That moved through me like an earthquake, the tectonic plates of who I was shifting and grinding to accommodate this new sensation.

  “Fuckin’ proud to know you, brother,” Zeus grunted as he slapped me on the back again, then released me. “Fuckin’ proud.”

  I blinked at him.

  A smile cut through his beard. “Why don’t I give ya a ride to the hospital in my cage? Fuckin’ hate the snow for cuttin’ into my ridin’ time, but it gets me from point A to point B.”

  I nodded, still working through that tightness in my chest I knew Bea would call feeling.

  Bea.

  “How is she?” I demanded as I climbed into Z’s black truck.

  His eyes skittered my way, then fixed back on the road as he pulled out of the lot. “She’s…doin’ okay.”

  “Okay?” I echoed. “What the fuck does that mean?”

  Z considered me for a second as we cruised to a stop at a light. “She your old lady now?”

  “She’s mine, however you wanna state it.”

  “Yeah,” he agreed softly with a little chuckle. “That’s how it happens with the Lafayette women, I’m thinkin’. You gonna marry ’er?”

  “What is this?” I asked coldly, not hot on being interrogated about my fucking intentions.

  All I cared about was getting to my girl.

  “Bea doesn’t have a dad, figured I’d step in as her brother-in-law,” he said with a wide grin, obviously delighting in my discomfort. “So?”

  “So, I don’t believe we gotta get hitched to show we’re gonna be together till the breath leaves my fuckin’ body,” I declared churlishly.

  The fucking prick laughed at me. “And family, you want kids?”

  I glared at him.

  He shot me a glance, completely unperturbed.

  Through gritted teeth, I said, “Don’t think kids are an option for me. She wants some, then we’ll figure it out. Though not thinkin’ I’m dad material.”

  To prove my point, I unzipped the bag of weapons the cops had taken from me when I’d been questioned and started fixing them back on my person.

  “Ex-con, killer, and continued criminal sittin’ right here, and I gotta say, I got some’a the best kids ever to grace the goddamn planet,” Z boasted as we pulled into the lot for St. Katherine’s Hospital. “It’s not who you are or what you’ve been through that matters so much, Priest, as it does how you love ’em when they’re born.”

  “Thanks for the paternity lesson,” I quipped as he parked, and I made to get out of the car.

  His hand clamped on my arm, stopping me. I looked up at him in warning because I did not like to be touched like that, but the look on his face stopped me from growling.

  “She’s pregnant,” he said.

  I blinked. “Lou?”

  He barked a sharp laugh. “No, brother. Bea. She’s pregnant. They discovered it when they were checkin’ her out. Seems she’s ’bout five weeks along. The doctor told Bea, and she seemed fuckin’ panicked, didn’t know how you’d take it. My woman, bein’ my woman, who was there when this shit went down, she called me to suss out the situation ’fore I sent you in there. Bea’s been through a fuck ton. She doesn’t need more shit heaped on her plate, you get me?”

  I blinked and blinked, eyes focused over Z’s shoulder into the frosted parking lot.

  Bea was pregnant.

  With my baby.

  Me.

  The death dealer, the walking dead man had created life with one of the most incredible women and beautiful hearts on this earth.

  Me.

  A baby.

  “Priest?” Z called, shaking my arm before releasing it. “You good, brother?”

  “Yeah,” I said, voice too hoarse.

  I didn’t stop to clear it or to explain myself to my prez.

  I was out of the car in an instant, stalking across the tarmac and then jogging through the reception to the elevator. I didn’t have to ask where Bea’s room was since the waiting room was filled with Fallen family.

  I opened my mouth to demand King tell me where she was when I was hit with a ton of bricks. I stared down at Louise Garro as she clung to me with sharp, strong hands and wept into my dried blood splattered cut.

  “Thank you,” she cried loudly, drawing the notice of the nurses at their station and some of the visitors walking down the hall.

  I stood there like a wooden plank as she hugged me tight, looking up at King, Cress, Nova, Lion, and Harleigh Rose with wide eyes. The girls giggled at me.

  “I’m sorry,” Loulou said, pulling back just enough to drop her head back to look up at me, her arms still around my waist. She had pretty eyes, a shade or two darker than Bea’s and nowhere near as large and fucking beguiling. But they were pretty enough and now filled with crystalline tears. “I’m sorry for being such a mess. It’s just, you know”––she flapped a hand in the air, then linked it back around me as if we often stood in a close embrace––“your sister gets abducted by a religious nut, you tend to lose your cool, you know?”

  I didn’t respond because I didn’t want to be rude to Bea’s sister, but fuck, I just wanted to get to my girl.

  “Anyways…” She sniffed delicately and then leveled a tremulous smile my way that almost had the wattage of one of Bea’s. “Thank you. I know I’ve been a bit of a dick, but Bea’s my sister and my best friend. We’ve been through a lot together, and as her older sister, I don’t want to see her go through anything else. I j
udged you unfairly, and I’m sorry for that. When shit hit the fan, it wasn’t your fault, and you didn’t hesitate to save her.”

  She sucked in a huge breath, and I worried she was winding up for more, but she only exhaled and patted me on the chest before stepping back to smile at me again. “Of all people, I should know that heroes come in all shapes and sizes. I’m just glad I’m not the only Lafayette with a guardian monster.”

  “Okay,” I said, fucking relieved she was done but aware this was a big moment for her, if not for me. “Where’s Bea?”

  She blinked at me, then burst out laughing, holding her belly as she did so. “I can see why my sister loves you. You definitely know your priorities. She’s in Room 207. Did Z, ah, talk to you?”

  I ignored her, moving down the hall toward Room 207. The next person I talked to about this baby was going to be my woman, not another bloody member of her family.

  Just as I reached the door, Pastor Lafayette came through it, looking weathered by the events of the last few days. He didn’t seem startled to see me. If anything, his expression questioned why it had taken me so long to get there.

  “Priest,” he said tiredly, then laughed. “That can’t be your real name, is it?”

  “It has been for twelve years. The boy before Priest died a long time ago, and with it the name I was born with,” I confessed reluctantly.

  The pastor wasn’t a bad man. From everything I’d witnessed over the years, he was the only good Christian leader I’d ever met, but more than that, he was Bea’s beloved grandpa, and he deserved some of my respect just for that.

  He smiled wanly. “Fair enough, my boy, fair enough. She’s exhausted, but she’s waiting for you.”

  When I didn’t immediately blow past him, he frowned, considering me. “Is there something I can help you with?”