“I’ll bring somethin’ up for you.” Before I had a chance to respond, Deuce disappeared into the hallway.
“Wait!” I cried, rushing after him. Deuce stopped short and swiveled on his boot heel, causing a passing nurse to nearly trip trying to avoid crashing into him. The young man’s eyes grew wide at the sight of Deuce, a veritable wall of a man, and he hurried off down the hall.
Grabbing Deuce’s hand, I tugged him back inside Preacher’s room.
“The Four Points Rally upstate,” I said. “Did you ever go?”
Deuce scrubbed a hand over his grizzled jaw. “Yeah, I think—yeah, I went a few times back when I was a kid.”
“She was there,” I hurriedly told him. “At Four Points. My dad and my mom were there together the summer before I was born—were you there that year?”
“Darlin’, slow down.” Deuce shook his head. “That was a long-ass time ago, and your old man always had more than one piece of ass hangin’ off him.”
Internally I groaned. Of course he had. I’d never known Preacher without at least one leggy blonde on his arm.
“I know, I know,” I muttered. “But I’m talking specifically about the year before I was born. Think back to that summer. Were you there?”
“Eva… back then I was—” Deuce cut himself off and glanced to where Preacher lay sleeping. “The summer before you were born?” His eyes narrowed and then flicked to me, his expression turning grave. He shook his head. “Wasn’t that the summer The Judge was…”
When he didn’t finish his thought, I felt my stomach flip-flop. “What?” I demanded. “Wasn’t that the summer The Judge was what?”
Looking bewildered, he shook his head. “Eva, what the fuck? Don’t you know what happened that summer?”
Confused, I shook my head. “What do you mean? What happened?”
“You motherfucker.” Deuce sent a seething glare in Preacher’s direction. “You dirty, lyin’ motherfucker—”
“Deuce! Focus!” I grabbed his arm and shook it. “What the hell happened that summer?”
Nostrils flaring, Deuce finally faced me. His jaw was clenched tight, making his cheekbones more pronounced. Angry grooves lined his forehead. “That was the last year they held the rally in Four Points,” he bit out, “because that was the summer The Judge and his old lady were put to ground.”
“What?” I whispered, backing away from him. I shook my head. “No. No. The Judge and Ginny… they died in a car accident.”
Deuce cursed several times. “No, Eva, they fuckin’ didn’t. I thought you knew this shit. They’re your fuckin’ grandparents.”
Shock zinging through my body like mini electrical surges, I fell silent. The Judge and Ginny were about as familiar to me as my mother was. They were almost never discussed, and on the rare occasions I had asked about them, nobody had ever had much to say. Eventually I’d stopped asking.
“God, they were…murdered? At the rally?” Feeling disordered and overwhelmed, I continued shaking my head.
“Everyone was questioned,” Deuce said. “I don’t remember much, just that no one seemed to know jack shit.”
“They never… they never figured out who did it?”
Deuce took a deep breath, his chest rising noticeably, then blew it out slowly. “Wish I knew, darlin’. But all I remember from back then is after the boys in blue told us we were free to go, we got the fuck outta Dodge.”
? ? ?
Wanting answers, Deuce left Eva sitting by her father’s bedside, googling Four Points on her cell phone. He marched past the elevators and into the small waiting room, finding Tiny exactly where he’d left him—stretched out over a loveseat, sound asleep and snoring.
Deuce sent the toe of his boot into Tiny’s shin. “Wake up,” he growled. Nothing. Tiny continued to sleep, his large head lolling side to side with every earth-shattering snore.
Deuce kicked him harder. “Wake the fuck up!”
Tiny jerked, blinked twice, and then started snoring again.
Muttering curses, Deuce gathered the collar of Tiny’s sweat-stained T-shirt in his fist and yanked him upright. “Wake the fuck up, you useless piece of shit!”
Tiny’s eyes flew open. “What? Where?” Breathless, Tiny frantically scanned the waiting room.
Deuce released him with a light shove. “Who killed The Judge and his old lady?” he demanded.
There was no sense in beating around the bush. The Hells Horsemen and the Silver Demons were more than just business partners. While still technically two clubs, they both operated under one umbrella and functioned as one unit—a unit both Deuce and Preacher presided over. Soon though, all of that power would be going to Deuce’s eldest son, Cage, and who-the-fuck-ever the Demons chose to replace Preacher. Long story short, Demon business was Horsemen business and vice versa, and so Deuce figured he had every goddamn right to know who the fuck killed the former president of the Silver Demons.
“Wh-what?” Sputtering and wide-eyed, Tiny glanced nervously around the room.
“You heard me,” Deuce growled, his irritation mounting. “Who killed The Judge?”
Tiny pushed himself into as much of an upright position as his overly round body would allow. “Ain’t nobody ever figured that shit out, and why the fuck you bringin’ this up now? Ain’t it bad enough my Prez is—”
“Your Prez is on his fuckin’ deathbed spillin’ his guts to Eva. Tellin’ her all about Debbie and the summer he met her.”
Placing his hands on the loveseat’s armrests, Deuce leaned down into Tiny’s personal space. His next words were spoken softly, but with deadly intonation. “I’m guessin’ you remember that summer, yeah?”
Tiny’s eyes grew rounder, wider, and he began to shake his head, his heavy mass of gray curls bouncing riotously around his shoulders. “You’re lyin’!” he shouted, and Deuce quickly straightened in order to avoid the mist of spittle flying from Tiny’s mouth.
“You’re lyin’!” Tiny repeated as he attempted to stand.
It took him three tries to gain enough momentum to lift his giant body from the couch. Panting with exertion, Tiny glared angrily at Deuce. “Ain’t nobody talks about Debbie, you hear me? Ain’t nobody talks about The Judge and Ginny, or that summer! Those are Preacher’s rules and he wouldn’t be breakin’ ‘em!”
“His rules, genius,” Deuce said flatly. “And he’s dyin’, remember? So I’m guessin’ he doesn’t give two fucks about breakin’ ‘em.”
Tiny, his face a mass of angry red blotches, went still. The rage in his expression quickly shifted to shock. “Shit,” he muttered, wiping his brow. “Eva’s gonna know. She’s gonna know we all lied to her. She’s gonna know I lied to her.”
Deuce felt a pang of pity for Tiny, and for all the Silver Demons that had been around long enough to have been wrapped up in Preacher’s web of lies. Eva wasn’t just the love of Deuce’s life; she had an entire club full of old men who’d watched her grow up, who’d helped raise her. Men who’d rather shoot their own faces off than ever see her hurt.