Undeserving (Undeniable #5)(5)

         
       
        

Don't fuck it up.

Don't fuck it up.

This time it had been a deal gone bad. Preacher had been carrying enough cocaine on his person to get thrown away for life, but thankfully he'd stashed most of what he'd had before his arrest and ended up getting charged solely with possession. He might have been able to lighten his sentence even more if he'd agreed to rat out his club, but Preacher wasn't a rat.

And so he'd ended up a casualty of his father's secret war against society, a war Preacher was no longer sure he wanted to continue waging.

Yet he had nothing else to go back to but the life. His father had all the money, the resources, everything. He'd slap Preacher's Silver Demons vest on his back, and in return, Preacher would be expected to resume service as vice president, utterly devoted to the club and to his father.

But it would never be the same. There was no returning to life as it once was. As happy as he was to be free, he knew now he wasn't really free. He was simply trading one cage for another.

"Number eight-five-seven!"

Preacher recognized the deep, booming voice as belonging to Pat, one of the guards, and the clanking clatter of a nightstick being dragged across steel bars. All over the cell block, fellow inmates began to stir, some shouting curses, others whistling. Someone began to bark like a dog.

As Pat's booted steps drew closer, Preacher's stomach flip-flopped.

Mickey jumped to his feet and crossed the cell. He gripped Preacher's shoulders and pulled him into an awkward hug that caught Preacher so off guard, he almost didn't reciprocate.

"I don't wanna see you again, Damon," Mickey said. "I fuckin' mean it."

Sentimental old fool.

"Let's go, Fox! You can fag it up on the outside from now on!"

Mickey pulled back, his tired old eyes full of cold, hard truths. "Get the fuck outta here," he growled, shoving Preacher toward the waiting guard.

"You gonna behave?" Pat asked. A pair of handcuffs dangled from his hand.

Preacher nodded.

"Get a move on, then. That sunshine is callin' your name."

Reaching up, Preacher quickly tied back his long brown hair, shot Mickey one last look, and then dutifully turned around and put his hands behind his back.

As Preacher was led through his cell block, he caught the eyes of the men he'd been forced to live side by side with for two years. In the pairs of eyes that met his, he found a variety of emotions. Jealous sneers, genuine smiles and congratulatory nods, and knowing stares-stares that seared straight through him, making him feel like those men knew something he didn't.

When they left the cell block and entered the bowels of the prison, Preacher released a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. 

"You gonna tell me now why they call you Preacher?" Pat asked. "You said you would on your last day, and it's your last day."

Preacher smiled faintly. "I don't know when to shut my fuckin' mouth. Got an opinion 'bout everything, always preachin' 'bout this and that."

Pat was silent for a moment. "Maybe that was true two years ago, but things sure have changed, huh?"

Preacher didn't bother answering. Yeah, things had definitely changed. He'd lived the last two years being told when to sit, stand, eat, sleep, and take a shit. At first, he'd had quite a bit to say about it, but he'd since learned his place.

"Park it over there," Pat said as they turned into the booking room. Leading Preacher to a far corner of the room, he removed his handcuffs and pointed to a rundown wooden bench.

Taking a seat, Preacher glanced around the room, rubbing his wrists. It was the same room he'd been brought into two years ago, the beige-colored walls lined with dark gray file cabinets, the same three guards manning separate desks, their heads bowed as they looked over various paperwork.

It was the same room where all his belongings had been taken away, where he'd been stripped and searched, put into a stiff gray jumpsuit, and shuffled off to his cell block. The same room where'd he'd become a nameless, faceless nobody, the equivalent of a maggot, just one among thousands forced to live off the garbage they were thrown into.

"Fox!" Pat called. The guard was gesturing toward a chair beside a desk and the bored-looking guard seated behind it. "We need your John Hancock. Get'cher ass over here."

When all his release forms were signed, dated, and sealed away, when his belongings-a pair of ratty old jeans, a white T-shirt, a leather jacket, a pair of riding boots, a wallet, and a small gold chain-were returned to him, when he was dressed and ready to walk out the door marked EXIT in big bright bold lettering, he paused.