Undeserving (Undeniable #5)(82)

       
         
       
        

Preacher's eyes flew open, as did his mouth, and Deuce wondered if getting straight to the point had been a bad idea. The last thing he wanted to do was give his already dying father-in-law a heart attack.

"What did you tell Eva?" Preacher hoarsely demanded. "What the fuck did you tell her?"

Deuce shrugged. "Nothin' yet. But if you ain't gonna tell her, I sure as fuck will."

Preacher's sunken features contorted with anger. "Don't you threaten me, asshole. You think you know what you're talkin' about, but you don't. There's more to it-there's some shit I gotta explain first."

"It's true, then?" Disgusted, Deuce closed his eyes and shook his head. "You fuckin' knew that kid came from crazy."

Deuce was referring to Franklin Deluva Jr., better known as Crazy Frankie, the only child of the late Franklin Deluva Sr. and his wife, Maria, also deceased. Preacher had taken Frankie in after both his parents had died and raised him as his own.

"It might've been Eva who put that blade in Frankie's neck," Deuce continued angrily. "But it was because of you that she had to do it! You let that messed-up fuck into your house, into your club, and into her mother-fuckin' bed!"

Preacher gritted his teeth and attempted to push himself upright. "I don't need you to remind me that I failed my daughter," he growled. "But what you're not understandin', you self-righteous piece of shit, is why I didn't know what Frankie was doing to her. I was lettin' Eva be. I was lettin' her do her own damn thing, become her own woman. I was givin' her the chances my old man never gave me. Hell, I did everything I could to make sure she had friends outside of the life. I woulda paid for any college she wanted to attend, too, didn't matter if it was on the other side of the world. I gave her every out and she didn't take a single one of ‘em. She refused to leave the city, refused to leave the club."

Preacher paused to catch his breath, and the painful-sounding rattle in his chest grew louder.

"I thought she was always hangin' around for Frankie. I thought someday I'd be handing the club to them both. I didn't know enough, I know that now. And because I didn't know enough, I never saw it. I never saw what he was doin' to her. I just thought …  I just thought she was … "

Shaking his head, Preacher glared up at Deuce. "In hindsight," he spat, "I think maybe she wasn't leavin' because she was waitin' on you, Deuce. You ever think of that?"

It was an accusation meant to give Deuce pause, and it worked. But fuck if Deuce was going to let Preacher know he'd struck a nerve. 

"She wasn't waitin' on me," Deuce shot back, "She knew she coulda had me. Hell, she did have me whenever the fuck she wanted me, and every damn time it was her who walked away."

Walked away and went right back to Frankie.

Deuce's heart rate shot up, and his chest grew uncomfortably tight. Just because he'd learned to live with Frankie's ghost, didn't mean he'd ever get over what that lunatic had done to Eva. Frankie's brand of crazy had left a mark on everything it touched. You could cover it up and ignore it, but that mark was always going to be there, just below the surface, burning a slowly growing hole through whatever peace you thought you may have found.

"Eva is just like us, you fuckin' asshole." Deuce pointed between him and Preacher. "She's lived and breathed the club from day fuckin' one. And not one of us ever had a fuckin' chance."

As the two men continued to stare at one another, the anger in Preacher's eyes began to slowly fade.

"You're wrong," Preacher said, sounding resigned. "I used to think that …  but I was wrong. We had choices. I made the choice to bring Frankie into my home, and Eva chose to marry him. You made the choice to knock up another man's wife and then drag her off to Montana with you. We all made our motherfuckin' choices, and we've all been living with the consequences of ‘em ever since."

Seeing red, Deuce's nostrils flared. Drag Eva to Montana? Fuck that and fuck Preacher. He hadn't dragged Eva anywhere. She'd come home with him because she was his. She had always been his.

"Preacher," Deuce growled, feeling like crushing someone's skull with his bare hands. "Forget fuckin' Frankie and tell me about Frank."

Preacher closed his eyes and let out a ragged sigh. When his eyes reopened, he stared out across the room. "Joe was tellin' the truth. It was Frank who killed my parents."

"Yeah, but when did you find out? Fuck, how did you find out? Was Frank at the rally?"