Page 159 of Priest

Before she could answer, the apartment door opened.

Jade stepped out onto the walkway, looking down at her phone. She made it a few steps toward the truck, probably coming for another box, then stopped when she saw Deacon standing there.

He froze.

Not dramatically. Not with some visible jolt. He just stopped moving altogether, like every part of him had gone silent at once.

Jade slowed too, frowning slightly. “Mom?”

Lila closed her eyes for half a second.

Deacon’s gaze moved from Jade to Lila and back again. The air around them changed so fast it felt like pressure gathering before a storm.

He looked at Lila. “Who is that?”

Lila didn’t answer right away.

Jade let her phone fall to her side and looked between them, confusion sharpening into caution.

Deacon’s voice dropped lower, rougher. “Lila.”

She swallowed hard. “Please don’t do this out here.”

That wasn’t an answer, and all three of them knew it.

Another truck pulled in farther down the row, and my attention shifted despite myself.

Evan already had a moving truck backed into one of the open spaces. Two hired movers were carrying boxes toward the apartment entrance while he stood near the curb with a clipboard in one hand and his car keys in the other, looking personally offended by the concept of heavy lifting.

Then Ink got out of the truck.

Two prospects climbed out after him, but Ink stayed beside the open door for a moment, eyes fixed on Evan like he had to make himself cross the last few feet. Evan looked up at the sound of the truck door and froze the second he saw who it was.

Even from where I stood, I could tell something shifted. For once in his life, Evan seemed to have lost all contact with his own mouth.

Ink glanced toward the hired movers carrying Evan’s things, and his expression hardened almost imperceptibly. He gave the smallest jerk of his chin toward the truck.

“Wait there,” he told the prospects.

They stopped without question.

Then Ink looked at the movers, who had just come back down for another load.

“We got it from here,” he said.

One of the movers blinked. “Uh, sir, we were hired to…”

“I said we got it.”

It wasn’t loud, which somehow made it land harder.

The movers looked past Ink toward Evan, clearly waiting for the actual customer to decide whether this was about to become their problem.

Evan stared at Ink for a beat too long. “You heard the man. Take five by the truck.”

That seemed to surprise the movers almost as much as it surprised me.

Ink’s gaze came back to Evan. “Heard you didn’t have anybody to help. Thought you could use a hand.”