Undeserving (Undeniable #5)(83)

"He musta been. But no one knew he was there, no one saw him. As far as we knew he was in Philly."

"Why'd he do it?"

When Preacher finally spoke, his tone was pained, his every word sounding as if it were being physically pried from his insides with a rusty blade. "Took me a long time to figure that out." He swallowed thickly. "Even longer than it took me to find out it was him who'd done it."

When it didn't look like Preacher was going to elaborate further, Deuce switched topics. "The accident on the expressway. Was that your doin'?"

Preacher choked out an ugly laugh. "No. That woulda been too easy. Frank, that sick shit-he needed my hands on him."

Preacher's gaze suddenly swung to Deuce, glowering with the hate of a thousand deadly men. "My only regret is that I could only kill him once."

Had Preacher not been lying in a hospital bed, knocking on death's door, Deuce might have taken a step back. Because this was the Preacher who'd turned The Judge's motorcycle club into an empire that rivaled most mafias. This was the man who didn't think twice about taking a life-even the life of a friend.

This was the man other men both feared and envied …  and with due cause.





Part Three




"Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional."

- Haruki Murakami

"Pain is power. It's what drives me.

Suffering is what happens to those that cause me pain."

- Damon "Preacher" Fox



       
         
       
        





Chapter 26


Parked on a one-way street in East Village, New York City, seated in the driver's seat of a dirt-brown Monaco sedan, Agent Donald Willis of the Federal Bureau of Investigation glanced over at his partner. Thirty years Willis's junior, Agent James Parker was fidgeting in his seat, pulling irritably at the wool scarf wrapped around his neck.

"It's fucking cold in here," Parker complained. "My coffee's gone cold."

"Roll up the window," Willis replied. "You're cold because you're sitting here with the goddamn window down, letting all the cold air in."

"Wouldn't be sitting here at all if the cops did their fucking jobs."

Willis glanced across the street, eyeing their target-the Silver Demons' clubhouse-and bobbed his head in agreement. It was no secret that the local police department tended to look the other way when it came to the Silver Demons. The Bureau had long suspected the Demons were paying off the police, but they hadn't been able to prove it …  yet.

There was nothing Willis hated more than a dirty cop. A former police officer, Willis had taken his oath seriously and expected the same from his fellow peacekeepers.

"I don't blame them." Parker rubbed his hands together before blowing on them. "Someone offered me the right amount, I'd be looking the other way, too."

Willis glared at Parker and the younger man laughed. "Kidding. Take a fucking joke, will ya?" Rolling his eyes, Parker slouched down in his seat and resumed pulling on his scarf.

"Once we get these guys," Willis muttered, "then it'll be easy pickings. They'll be clamoring to tell us which officers they've got in their pockets, and their house of cards will come tumbling down right on top of ‘em."

Parker shot Willis a skeptical look, silently conveying what Willis was already thinking-that the Silver Demons were too damn good at what they did. There were no holes in their operation-if there had been, the Bureau would have found them by now.

The telltale rumbling of a motorcycle approaching drew their attention to the street. The heavily bearded rider slowed to a near stop as he passed and flashed a grin-and his middle finger-at the agents.

Wearing matching sour expressions, Willis and Parker watched as the rider turned down the alleyway beside the clubhouse and disappeared from sight.

Willis didn't need to leaf through his stacks of files to identify the rider; he'd long ago memorized all their names and faces. This particular man was Robert M. Schneider, age 31, known to his family in Queens as ‘Bobby' and to his brothers in the Silver Demons as ‘Hightower'. 

A former private in the United States Army and a Purple Heart recipient, Hightower had once been considered an American hero. He'd dragged several unconscious soldiers to safety after an explosion had detonated near their camp, an explosion that had left him with a severely mangled left leg and a nasty limp. Willis had seen the pictures-it was a miracle he'd ever walked again.

"No respect," Parker muttered, shaking his head.

"Of course they don't have any respect for us. They don't respect the law, they aren't going to respect the people enforcing it."