Page 119 of Priest

“And lock the gate behind him.”

Everyone in that room knows what that means.

I stand, and the rest of my officers follow without needing to be told. The main clubhouse has gone quiet by the time we step out of Church. Conversations die mid-sentence. Men shift out of the way. The Dead Man’s Hand prospect stands near the bar with his hands visible, two of ours flanking him. He looks too young for whatever role he agreed to play, or was stupid enough to accept.

“I was told to play this,” he says, voice tight. “Then leave.”

He holds out a phone, thumb hovering for half a second before he presses the screen.

Joker’s voice fills the room.

Older than I remember. Rougher maybe.

Unmistakable.

“You think you know darkness, son?

I’m about to show you how a real king rules.

Your woman’s already property. Being sold while I start dismantling your club piece by piece.

Don’t waste time looking for her. Use that time to apologize to your brothers for putting them in their graves.

Remember this voice.

This is Joker, I am King.”

The recording ends, and the silence that follows is worse than shouting.

I don’t move. I don’t speak. For a moment, all I can hear is the echo of that voice in my own head, dragging up memories I’ve spent years burying. My hand curls at my side, but the rest of me stays locked down because if I let the first wave out, it’ll take the whole damn room with it.

Rook’s hand closes around the back of a chair near the bar. He doesn’t think about it. He throws it. The crash against the wall splits the silence open, sharp enough that a few women flinch. Ink has gone utterly still, the kind of stillness that means violence is being calculated instead of reacted to.

Ledger’s gaze finds mine, and I see it there. The realization that this has gone past club business. This is personal now.

“Take him downstairs,” Graves says evenly, nodding toward the prospect.

Switch and Patch move in.

Graves steps forward, hands loose at his sides, expression unreadable. He looks at the kid the way a man looks at something already decided.

“You’re a fool,” Graves says evenly. “Joker didn’t send you here to leave.”

The prospect’s face drains.

“He sent you on a suicide mission,” Graves continues, voice steady and almost patient. “He knew you weren’t walking out of here after that.”

The weight of it settles in slow. Switch and Patch each take an arm, and the prospect starts to protest, but the sound comes out thin and desperate this time. It doesn’t carry far. It doesn’t need to.

Nobody in the room looks at him anymore.

Orders begin to ripple outward almost immediately. Lock down the gates. Call in the rest of the men. Account for everyone on the property. Old Ladies and kids to the clubhouse. Nobody comes in or out without an officer clearing it. The energy shifts from stunned to surgical in seconds, because that’s the difference between chaos and discipline.

Then someone near the bar asks, almost as an afterthought, “Where’s Sadie?”

The question doesn’t register at first.

Then it does.