Undeserving (Undeniable #5)(4)

Blowing out a breath, willing my emotions to stay in check, I forced myself to take a seat at the edge of Preacher's bed. Our eyes locked. "Okay, Daddy. Let's hear it."

Closing his eyes, he let out a hoarse sigh. "I'd gotten locked up at twenty-two, did two years for possession. I'd only been out a couple of months when I met her … " He chuckled softly. "When she tried to steal my wallet," he added.

"Pretty little thing," he continued. "Long brown hair and damn big eyes." His eyes opened and focused on me. "Lookin' just like your eyes, Eva, 'cept hers were brown. Fact, you got a lot of her in you, only you got some of your grandma, too."

As he continued describing her, I found my own eyes closing as I tried to picture her. Trying to picture …  my God …  my mother.





Part One




"I've never particularly liked the idea of looking back;

I'd rather look forward."

- Jane Asher

"At the end, we should all go back to the beginning,

if only to remind ourselves that we once lived."

- Damon "Preacher" Fox

 



Chapter 1


Back to the beginning

It was his last day.

Two long years he'd spent reading more books than he could count, pacing in his six by eight cell, wearing the same gray shirt-and-pants uniform, day in and day out.

Two years of eating shit food, having his every move monitored, forced to defend his right to simply exist.

Two years of his life …  fucking wasted.

He'd never thought it would happen. Being behind bars has a way of making an hour feel more like a month, but it had finally come to pass.

He'd come through those gates a twenty-two-year-old cocky son of a bitch, the heir to a highly profitable criminal organization, the Silver Demons Motorcycle Club, thinking his lawyer would have him out in six months, maybe less.

And he'd thought he would rule this place-that his fellow inmates would hear the name Damon "Preacher" Fox and drop to their knees in respect. He'd come through those gates thinking nobody and nothing could touch him, that he was above them all, a force to be reckoned with. He'd come through those gates thinking he was a god.

He'd come through those gates a fool.

And now he didn't want to leave.

Correction. He did want to leave; who the hell wanted to stay in prison? What he didn't want to do was go back to the life he'd come from.

Prison changes people. It's inevitable. It will change anyone who passes through, whether it be a year-long stint or a life sentence. Once you leave, if you leave, you won't exit those gates the same person who'd been escorted through them.

Prison had been a painful wake-up call for Preacher. It had taken the man he'd been, beaten the holy hell out of him, flushed him down the shitter, and sputtered and spit him back out a ravaged and shameful shell.

But he'd persevered. Lived through the beatings, educated himself on prison politics, the self-serving guards and the prison gangs, both of which consisted of men who found inflicting pain on others, both mental and physical, an enjoyable pastime. For a time, Preacher had struggled just to get through a single day without worrying for himself and without some sort of altercation. As a result, he'd hardly slept for several seemingly unending months.

Eventually he'd found a niche for himself within a small group of like-minded men, allowing him to ride out his remaining sentence in whatever the prison equivalent of peace and quiet was. But the peace had come at a price; he was no longer the same man he'd been.

Yeah, prison had changed him.

But if anything, prison had made him a better man than he'd been. Breaking him had only served to make him stronger, harder, full of determination and self-preservation. It made him appreciate the smaller things, things he'd once taken for granted.

From his seat on the bottom bunk, his cellmate Mickey looked up at Preacher solemnly. Mickey was in his sixties, had been in prison since his thirties, but had been transferred here about twelve years back after killing a guard at his last place of residence. He looked a great deal older than he was, his long hair and beard nearly all white, his teeth rotted, and his face a mass of deep wrinkles and scars.

Oftentimes, when he would look too long at Mickey, Preacher would start to see himself, old and decrepit, knowing these cold stone walls would be the last thing he'd ever see.

"Don't come back here," Mickey said gravely, his voice hoarse and grating like a hundred miles of bad road. "I fuckin' mean it, don't you walk out those gates and hop right back into the life. You're young, only twenty-four. You can have a life out there-a good woman, some kids, a job that ain't gonna get you killed. Don't fuck it up."

Preacher just stared back at him.