by Kit Rocha
“So you tell me. Frequently.” But there was no guarantee his Riders would feel the same way.
The hell of it was, Deacon wouldn’t even blame them. He’d been around so long that most of them looked at him like he was an extension of Sector One, a piece of the landscape instead of a fallible man. And he liked it that way. Not the admiration or the respect, but the sheer, automatic trust.
More than that, it was vital to the way the Riders operated. Whether they were on routine patrol or heading out to confront a problem, they needed to know that they were following the right orders, dealing out justice and mercy where each was required. The moment doubt clouded their minds was the moment one of them might hesitate, and that hesitation could prove deadly.
They would be right to doubt him. They would be right to wonder. And then their blood would be on his hands.
Oh, Gideon wasn’t going to like this. Not one bit. But Deacon forced out the words anyway. “I could take a break. Step back for a while, handle this situation on my own.”
Gideon’s brow furrowed, but his reply was gentle. “No. Whatever this brings us, we handle it together.”
“Then let Hunter lead them. He doesn’t have the most experience, but he has the best temperament for leadership.”
“Deacon...” Gideon sighed and sipped his whiskey. “Fine. If you want to step back while the Riders process this, I’ll allow it. You’ve earned some space. But you’ve earned their trust and respect, too, and I think you’re underestimating just how much.”
All the more reason why he needed to take this step first. Acting as though this revelation shouldn’t matter could injure that respect, shatter that trust.
If it mattered to them, it mattered.
“Ashwin already knows.” A log in the fireplace spit, causing the fire to flare and jump, and Deacon fixed his gaze on the dancing flames. “Not about the Kings, but about why I came here. That’s--” His throat ached, and he coughed to clear it. “That’s the part I’m worried about with the others.”
“Telling them that you came here to kill me?”
Gideon said it blithely, as if the knowledge didn’t bother him in the slightest. “You’ve had twenty years to get right with it, but I know my Riders. They’re not casual about potential threats to you.”
“That’s right, Deacon. You do know them.” Gideon sighed softly. “Maybe this is my fault, for letting the secret stand for so long. You know them, but do any of them know you?”
The truth was as simple as it was damning. “No.”
“It’s lonely, isn’t it?” Gideon refilled his drink before holding the bottle out to Deacon. “Let them know you, and not just the bad shit. Because you were sent here to kill me, but you made a different choice. One I happen to think was very wise.”
He said it like the joke it was. Like the joke it had to be, because if Gideon started taking himself too seriously, the pressure would drive him mad. He reserved all of his seriousness for the importance of his position, as if it existed outside of himself.
Deacon took the bottle. “Tomorrow morning. Do you want to be there?”
“Do you want me to be?”
“I don’t know.” It would help drive home the fact that there were no more secrets, and everything was out in the open. But it might also be hard for them to ask questions or get pissed off with Gideon standing there as backup. “I think it has to be me. Alone.”
“All right.” Gideon rose to toss another log onto the fire and stood there, his hand braced on the mantle, his back to Deacon. “I’m going to make sure the other sector leaders let me handle this. I might have to tread on Six’s toes a little, but I’ll ask Mad to smooth over any tension.”
Gideon rarely asked his cousin for favors, though Mad was always glad to oblige. “Thank you.”
“And we’ll need to consider security precautions.” He turned with a wry smile. “I don’t want to assign bodyguards to my sisters before it’s strictly necessary, but I would like you to coordinate with Johan to make sure the royal guard understands the situation and its potential threats.”
“I’ll take care of it.” Deacon rose. “I should never have asked you to keep this quiet when I first joined up.”
“Brooding over past regrets is my job, Deacon.” Gideon lifted his glass. “You just look forward.”
That dragged a laugh from his raw throat. Gideon’s sense of humor was twisted, all right, darker than most people ever would have guessed. “It’s not a contest, Rios. Even if it was, there are plenty of regrets to brood about. Enough to go around.”
Gideon shook his head, that wry smile still curving his lips. But his eyes were serious. “That’s where you’re wrong, Deacon. I get the glory of being one step from God, so I’ll be shouldering the regrets, too. Yours, mine. The whole sector’s, if that’s what it takes.”
That was too much for any man to handle--even Gideon. “There’s a line between shouldering shit and turning yourself into a martyr. Stay on the right side of it, huh? Your sisters’ll kill me if I let you cross it.”
“I wouldn’t do that to them. Or to you.” Gideon waved a hand. “Go get some rest, Deacon. And have a little faith, all right?”
Faith. Deacon pondered the word as he slipped down the hall and out the door, nodding to the guards as he passed. Everything in Sector One was built on that single concept, whether that faith was centered on God or the Rios family legacy or Gideon himself.
But faith was a tricky thing. It was simply trust that was freely given instead of being earned, trust that could withstand the kind of damage that would kill anything else. With faith, devotion didn’t just stop. True believers kept on believing, even when they shouldn’t have.
At the barracks, he bypassed his door and climbed the stairs to the training floor. It was empty, dark, everyone else already tucked away in the sanctuary of their rooms. He left the lights off and stepped up to the heavy punching bag in the corner. There wasn’t enough moonlight filtering through the windows to properly wrap his hands, so he left them bare.
This wasn’t about training, anyway. This was about penance.
The rough canvas abraded his knuckles with the first punch. He let the pain wash through him, embraced it along with the pressure and harsh heat. Instead of unleashing his self-directed rage in a flurry of blows, he hit the swinging bag carefully. Deliberately.
Once upon a time, Gideon had had faith in him. It was a faith that had spared not only his life, but his conscience. He had a darkness inside him, the capacity to do terrible things. He had done terrible things. As a Rider, he had the opportunity to use that darkness for better ends.
But Deacon didn’t have Gideon’s faith. His life had never allowed for it. From his earliest memories, all he’d ever known was the appropriate fragility of trust. When someone betrayed you, you had to be willing to cut your losses and walk away. It wasn’t just understandable, it was necessary. Anything else would get you killed--or worse.
He would never ask the other Riders for something he couldn’t give. Tomorrow, he’d speak to Hunter first. The man had a right to know what was coming before Deacon laid it on him in front of everyone else. And then...
Then they’d all do what they had to do.
Chapter Four
Ana had always loved the common room in the Riders’ barracks. She’d been ten the first time she crossed the threshold--a rare invitation into the Riders’ most sacred space, outside the confines of a party.
Still grieving the loss of her mother and struggling to adjust to life on the Rios family estate, Ana had found peace that morning. She’d sat at the table across from her father, surrounded by the golden walls and the colorful murals. They’d disassembled his large collection of guns in silence, precisely placing each component on the table before carefully cleaning them.
Then, as they’d pieced them back together, Ana’s father had laid out her choices.
She could go back to the home her mother had shared with Ana’s aunts and work in eith
er the bakery or the salon. She could take an apprenticeship in any other trade that interested her, or even enter the Temple as an initiate with a chance at marrying into a noble family.
Or she could stay here--living close to him, if never with him--and shoot for the moon.
Surrounded by the familiar scent of gun oil, the soothing rumble of her father’s voice, and the brightly colored renderings of saints, Ana had made her choice.
Fuck the moon. She was aiming for the goddamn stars.
It had taken her sixteen years, but she’d done the impossible. Every time she straddled a bench in the common room or sank onto a couch, she remembered that afternoon. It was a warm glow of encouragement deep in her gut--the memory that William Jordan had believed in his daughter so hard that he’d offered her a future that should have been unattainable.
The glow almost insulated her against the way her body instinctively tensed when Deacon took his place at the front of the room, his silent, brooding presence calling their meeting to order.
“What’s the deal, boss?” Reyes nudged Zeke over to make space and dropped to the couch. “You got a lead on that situation in Three?”
“Not exactly.” Deacon looked out at them, his gaze touching on each of them in turn. “The mercenary group responsible for the execution is called the Suicide Kings. You know that. What you don’t know yet is that I have history with them.”
A shiver zipped up Ana’s spine.
At first, she didn’t know why. Most of the other Riders watched Deacon, unconcerned and relaxed, assuming that whatever history Deacon shared with the mercenary group would be easily explained. But her impossible hyperawareness when it came to their leader had kicked in, and something was wrong.
He was too stiff. She’d seen him grumpy and surly and serious and deadly, but for the first time he seemed...
Wary.
On the bench across from her, Ashwin had gone very, very still. Whatever was coming, he knew. So did Hunter, who was standing against the wall, his gaze cast down, his arms tight across his chest.
Deacon’s next words were going to shatter the placid peace of her beloved common room. Maybe that was why she wet her lips--as if being the one to force the issue would give her some control over the sudden sinking feeling in her gut. “What kind of history?”
A muscle in his jaw jumped. “I worked with them before I joined the Riders.”
Silence.
Her brain started turning over the implications, and Ana shut it down. Survival reflex, maybe--the tension building in the room felt like a brewing fight. Her shoulders tightened, and her heart rate accelerated.
Gabe was the one who broke the silence this time, leaning forward with cold words and eyes that begged for Deacon to refute them. “Are we talking about the Suicide Kings? The ones that wiped out the entire Montgomery family so the Colbys could take Sector Seven from them?”
But Deacon didn’t refute them, not even close. “I was there. I was part of it.”
Gabe’s fingers curled into tight fists, and Ana felt his heart break. But she didn’t understand why until he stood, his entire body trembling. “My aunt was married to the Montgomery heir.”
Deacon didn’t flinch. “I’m sorry.”
“Did you kill her? Do you even remember?”
Zeke rose to touch Gabe’s arm. “Hey, at least let him finish before you yell at him.”
Deacon waved him away. “Gabe has a right to know. Yes, I remember. And no, I didn’t kill her.” He paused. “But I would have, if she’d been in that study with her husband.”
I would have.
The words hit Ana hard, shattering her protective shell. Not the words themselves, but hearing them in that calm, composed voice. She’d heard him say a hundred things the exact same way.
Don’t drop your shoulder.
Watch your blind spot.
Check with your father’s contacts.
I would have killed your aunt.
The bench clattering jerked Ana’s attention around. Zeke had shoved Gabe back into his seat, his fingers biting into the other man’s shoulder. “Okay, so you’ve done some fucked-up shit. So has Ashwin, and we still like him most of the time. So what--?”
“Zeke,” Ashwin cut him off quietly. “Deacon isn’t done.”
Ashwin was hard to read, but Ana had spent a lot of time with him over the past couple months. He knew something else. Something worse. And for the first time in her life she wanted to cover her ears like a child to block out what came next.
But she didn’t.
Deacon’s expression didn’t change, but his eyes darkened. His voice remained steady, but even that was darker somehow. Tense and tight, almost to the point of breaking. “When I initially came here, to Sector One, it was a job for the Kings. My orders were to get close to Gideon Rios, gain his confidence, and then eliminate him.”
Shock swept through the room. Even Zeke was stunned into momentary silence, and Ana choked on an inappropriate flutter of laughter at the absurd thought that finally they’d found something that could shut him up.
Watching a god tumble off his pedestal could do that.
Bishop muttered a curse. Ivan stared at Deacon with eyes gone glacially cold. Reyes, on the other hand, reverted to his favorite form of communication--sarcasm. “Well, you didn’t murder him, obviously.”
“Obviously.”
Reyes jerked his fingers through his hair, leaving it standing on end. “When did you tell him the truth?”
“Gideon has always known.” Deacon straightened his shoulders, then nodded once. “You all have a lot to discuss, and more to think about. For the time being, Hunter’s in charge. Anything you’d normally bring to me, you take to him.”
Then he was gone.
Ivan opened his mouth and snapped it shut again when Ashwin flowed to his feet. “I should leave, too.”
“Stay.” Hunter shoved off the wall and walked up to the spot Deacon had vacated. “He wants us to talk this out, so we’re gonna talk it out. Everything on the table.”
Ashwin’s gaze sought Gabe’s angry one. “For every atrocity he may have committed, I can claim a hundred. If he’s not fit to sit with you, neither am I.”
“Eh, we’ve all dabbled in a little crime,” Zeke said. “But we knew you were a crazy, murderous psycho with potential mind-reading powers. You don’t exactly keep that under your hat.”
“This isn’t a fucking joke,” Ivan snapped.
Zeke held up his middle finger. “This is how I process shit, asshole. We can’t all stare at the wall like--”
Hunter cut in. “Enough. The question isn’t whether we’re cool with Deacon’s life choices. He’s a Rider, and he’ll always be a Rider. This is about leadership. Whether you still want to follow him into a fight.”
“And what do you think about that?” Reyes demanded.
“Me?” Hunter took a deep breath. “I think, whatever went down, Gideon had his reasons. For making Deacon one of his Riders and for putting him in charge. I don’t see a reason to second-guess that.”
Their voices washed over Ana in a low hum as she withdrew into her self-protective shell. But the tension was still there, as if unfocusing her eyes had brought the flow of energy in the room into sharp definition.
Gabe was hurting. So was Ivan, though he’d never admit it. And Ashwin--she’d watched him relax into their family with a tentativeness that bruised her heart some days. Deacon’s confession was a grenade tossed into the man’s slowly growing sense of acceptance.
And the bastard hadn’t even had the guts to stay and help pick up the pieces.
Fuck, he hadn’t told them anything. Now that her brain had stuttered back to life, the questions tumbled over one another like angry bees trapped in a jar.
Who had hired him? When had he come to Sector One? How long did it take for Gideon to find out, and how had he? Had Deacon actually attempted the assassination? Why had Gideon forgiven him?
Had Ana’s father known?
How the hell could the man confess and then walk away, as if he didn’t owe them the whole fucking story before he tossed them aside like garbage?
“Ana?”
She blinked and forced her attention back to the Riders seated around the table. “What?”
Hunter tilted his head. “What do you think?”
I think I’ve spent the last three months chasing the approval of a murdering hypocrite. Wouldn’t that be a revealing answer? Small comfort that she wasn’t the only one in the room who had put Deacon up on that pedestal.
She was the girl. She didn’t get to be emotional.
“I think...” She curled her hands into fists, but the answer came on a wave of memory. “I think my dad knew Deacon from the beginning. They were never friends or anything, but my father respected him. He followed him. He never questioned. So maybe we don’t know the whole story yet.”
“Maybe the whole story’s worse,” Reyes muttered.
Hunter shot him an exasperated look, then cracked his neck. “You’ve been quiet, Lucio.”
“Hmm?” Lucio was stroking his beard, his movements almost meditative. “Oh, I had already figured it out. Except for him being hired to kill Gideon. That was the last piece of the puzzle.”
Hunter blinked at him. “What does that mean?”
“No one ever chronicled Deacon’s rise to the top of the Riders’ ranks, because that’s where he started. He had to learn his skills somewhere, but he didn’t do it here. He wasn’t a soldier or a guard, so he had to be a fighter.” Lucio’s brows drew together. “He reacted badly when we found the Suicide Kings’ calling card at the scene of the fire. I don’t think Bren and Six noticed, but I did. So I assumed he’d either worked with them, or run up against them in some other way. The hit on Gideon, though, that’s...new information.”
Zeke let his head fall forward onto the table with a groan. “You could have told someone.”
“To what end? Besides.” Lucio grinned, an expression as darkly amused as it was chilling. “I don’t think you want me freely discussing the shit I’ve figured out about all of you.”