Home > Undeserving (Undeniable #5)(25)

Undeserving (Undeniable #5)(25)
Author: Madeline Sheehan

Joe flicked his cigarette away, earning him a nasty look from a passer-by—a young man wearing skinny jeans with thin red suspenders and a matching red bow tie.

Jesus Christ. Deuce really, really hated New York City.

“Did anyone ever tell you how it went down?” Joe asked.

“Heard some shit through the grapevine, nothin’ solid.”

“It was some real sick shit.” Joe tapped another cigarette out of his pack and lit it up. “They were mutilated. Sliced and diced. Blood everywhere. My old man… a few of his fingers had been cut off. And my mom… she… she…”

Joe’s mouth snapped shut and his lips pressed together, and Deuce turned away and got busy enjoying his cigarette.

Growing up, Deuce didn’t have the sort of close-knit family Joe had, but he’d improvised well enough. Once upon a time he’d had a little brother he’d loved fiercely, and other men he’d looked up to and depended upon. He knew what it felt like to give a fuck about someone and then to lose them one day unexpectedly.

Loss didn’t care how much time had passed. It didn’t care that you were getting on in years, half staring down the barrel of a gun yourself. Loss like that stuck with you, all the way to the bitter fucking end.

Eventually Joe let out a long, hard sigh and scrubbed a grease-stained hand over his face. “Preacher always thought it was the Italians. That was their thing back then—cuttin’ off the fingers from any poor son of a bitch who took somethin’ that didn’t belong to ‘em.

“But for me… man, that shit didn’t ever add up. Back then the Demons were good business for the syndicate. We did all their grunt work, got our hands dirty so they didn’t have to. Didn’t make sense for them to cut ties. And The Judge? He woulda never bit the hand that fed him. He didn’t work that way.”

A sad smile twisting his lips, Joe nodded to himself. “My old man was loyal to a fuckin’ fault.”

Letting out another hard sigh, Joe looked at Deuce. “Truth of the matter was, none of us knew who the fuck did it… or why.”

“But you found out, didn’t you?”

“Preacher did.”

“And?”

Joe smiled cruelly, his one eye gleaming with renewed retribution. “You know my brother.”

Snorting, Deuce shook his head. He sure as shit did. Preacher was a shoot-first, ask-questions-later kind of guy.

And Deuce had two bullet wounds to prove it.

Part Two

“When I do good, I feel good.

When I do bad, I feel bad.”

- Abraham Lincoln

“When I do good, I feel good.

When I do bad, I feel fucking great.”

- Damon “Preacher” Fox

Chapter 15

The sun had already begun its descent only four hours into their travels, and by the time Preacher crested the small hill that signaled their arrival in Four Points, it was little more than a half moon, glowing gold as it disappeared behind the high peaks of the Appalachian Mountains.

Today the normally quaint and quiet lake town was anything but. Cars, trucks, and motorcycles lined both sides of Main Street, a narrow two-lane road brimming with bikers and their families. Four Points didn’t have much to offer, only a small market, a laundromat, a movie theater, and a handful of mom-and-pop shops, but what it lacked in consumerism, it made up for with one hell of a beautiful view.

Traffic thickened, forcing Preacher to a full stop in the middle of the road. Further back someone laid on their horn, and the response from the crowd was instantaneous. From one end of the street to the other, men and women stopped what they were doing and started shouting and jeering.

“Nice ride, man!” A slim man clad head to toe in leather paused in front of Preacher, his eyes gleaming with envy.

He wasn’t the only one who’d stopped to stare. She was a rare beauty, his ’69 chopper, with her deep blue tank, matching raked frame, extended fork tubes, and drag bars on dogbone risers. And glistening in the setting sun like she was, Preacher would fault a man for not looking.

Behind him Debbie released his middle and straightened. Stretching her suntanned limbs, she gave Preacher a primo view of the nicely toned legs that had been hindering him for the past several hours. Initially she’d worn jeans for the ride, but after it had rained briefly, she’d changed into shorts.

She’d chosen a small thicket of trees on the side of the highway to change behind that had done very little to hide her. Preacher had caught fortuitous glimpses of skin every time she’d moved and a flash of one very firm ass cheek. And when she’d switched her top, Preacher had gotten another eyeful—a frustrating peek at her left breast. He’d outright stared, the recollection of her fully naked and offering him sex once again mocking him.

Sixteen, he chanted silently, fumbling for his cigarettes. Sixteen, sixteen, six-fucking-teen. Where the hell were his goddamn cigarettes?

Finding out her age should have been the equivalent of a cold shower. Instead, it’d had the opposite effect on him, and he’d spent nearly every moment since trying not to think about her… like that. Which had caused him to think about her twice as much.

Neither did it help when the person he was actively trying not to think about was pressed up against him, her arms wrapped around his waist, her breasts crushed against his back, her bare legs cradling his hips. All of it making it twice as hard to hear reason and sensibility over the roar of blood rushing straight to his dick.

Still searching for his cigarettes and looking anywhere except at Debbie’s sixteen-year-old legs, Preacher eyed the crowded street and paused on a woman strutting down the sidewalk. She was his type to a tee—blonde, tan, with hourglass curves and legs for days. Noticing Preacher, the blonde shot him a knowing smirk and put a little extra swing in her hips. Appreciating the show, he continued tracking her movements. There’d be more just like her at the rally, and he was planning on taking one to bed as soon as possible.

Because that’s all this bullshit with Debbie was—an urge to fuck. He was finally feeling a little bit like his old self again, and after months without a woman, he needed to blow off some steam.

Traffic began to move again, and Preacher revved his engine, pulling forward. Debbie’s arms slid back in place, her hands coming to rest inside his open vest and settling low on his hips.

He blew out a breath of smoke through gritted teeth, then flicked away what remained of his cigarette. Sixteen, you horny asshole, she’s only six-fucking-teen.

As they continued down Main Street, the smells of the rally preceded the view of the park—a thick blend of exhaust and campfire smoke, along with cooking meat and freshly cut grass.

Preacher turned right at the third light, and then made an immediate left onto Lakeside Drive. He knew these streets like the back of his hand; he’d been coming to Four Points for years—until he’d been locked up. This would be his first summer back after two years away.

The realization that he was about to come face to face with The Judge caused his neck muscles to tighten. He’d been so preoccupied thinking about Debbie all damn day, thoughts of his father had slipped his mind. His old man was going to have quite a lot to say to him, and none of it was going to be good.

As Preacher turned slowly into the state park’s gravel entrance, the ache in his neck flared hot, accompanied by shooting pains above his eyes. Fighting the urge to rub his forehead, he continued on, slowly weaving his way through the overcrowded picnic area.

He felt Debbie twisting in her seat behind him and wondered at the expression on her face. Did the crowd unnerve her? The rally had twice as many people as the Wayne County Fair. Or was she gleefully plotting how many wallets she could grab before dinner had ended? Preacher’s smirked at the thought, and the pain in his head began to ease.

His mother was going to love Debbie. Ginny Fox wasn’t happy unless she was sticking her nose in someone else’s business and rearranging their entire life. She was a one-woman reform mission in their neighborhood. Feeding the homeless, counseling the addicts, volunteering at Father Evan’s home for boys. Preacher had once caught her trying to be a go-between for feuding hookers.

The moment Ginny sensed the street on Debbie, she’d come barreling in like a bat out of hell on a mission to save the girl, and Debbie wouldn’t stand a chance against her.

   
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