Page 71 of Priest

I shake my head. “No.”

“Then why now?”

I glance back at the empty chair where Deacon should be. “I think somebody wants me looking the wrong way.”

And whoever it is, they picked the right moment.

When the doors open and the night spills back in, Saints goes back to being Saints. That’s how it has to look. Men drift toward beer, smoke, pool tables, and the low hum of familiar noise. Nobody rushes. Nobody glances over his shoulder too often. The lie starts breathing before the room has even cooled.

Ink and Ghost head for the clubhouse bar built into the far wall, all scarred wood and cheap bottles, the place men go when they want noise without leaving home. They don’t sit close or lower their voices. They talk like two guys killing time, which is exactly why a couple of patched brothers nearby pretend not to listen.

“Evernight Cove’s been quieter than usual,” Ghost says, eyes on the muted TV above the bar. “Harbor patrols backed off last week.”

Ink shrugs, slow and casual. “That’s a coastal window. Only worth it if we’re dropping light and moving fast.”

No orders. No details that matter. Just enough to sound like possibility.

Toward the back, Rook is at the pool tables, cue balanced easy in his hand while Patch and Switch hover close with beers sweating onto the felt. He lines up a shot like he hasn’t just been given a thread to carry and says, “Next run might come up quicker than planned. Southern stretch through Black Ash still hasn’t cooled.”

Patch winces. “That road eats tires.”

“Yeah,” Rook says, sinking the ball with a sharp crack. “But it skips three checkpoints if you time it right.”

At the next table, two brothers keep their eyes on their game and their ears open.

They always do.

I end up near the fire pit where Graves and Ledger stand with their Old Ladies, Nomad joined by his sister, Raina. Jackets are off. Laughter drifts easy through the night, the kind that only happens when men feel like they’re home, even if home is built out of concrete, patched leather, and rules written in blood.

Sadie is there too, not hovering, not pushing, just present like she’s earned a place at the edge of the circle.

Lena stands a little apart from Ledger, arms crossed, eyes tracking the group instead of the fire. She doesn’t laugh when Nomad cracks a joke. She doesn’t lean into Ledger when he speaks. She hasn’t in a while, and the distance between them has started to feel less like a rough patch and more like something with roots. I need to check in with him soon, make sure whatever’s going on hasn’t slipped deeper than he’s letting show.

Graves tips his beer back. “North might open up again.”

Nomad glances at him. “Industrial side?”

Graves nods. “Iron Cut’s been moving freight steady. Lots of noise. Easy to hide in.”

Ledger exhales slowly. “Depends who’s watching. Industrial traffic covers a lot, but it remembers faces.”

Lena’s jaw tightens just a fraction.

Sadie doesn’t speak because she doesn’t need to. She’s listening.

I don’t look at her. I don’t look at Lena either. I let the conversation drift the way it naturally would, toward work schedules and late nights, toward the exhaustion that settles into marriages orbiting this life.

Nothing said here sounds like a plan, and that’s the beauty of it. Different conversations carrying incomplete truths. Only one of them needs to leave my walls the wrong way.

Later, when the night thins and the fire burns down to embers, I watch people drift off in pairs or alone. Conversations end. Laughter fades. Engines start up in the distance.

Somewhere in all of that, information leaves my walls.

I don’t know when. I don’t know how. I don’t know through who. But I know it will, because someone always mistakes access for safety. Someone always convinces themselves they’re the exception.

And when the wrong people move in response, when the timing lines up too clean and too fast, we’ll know which thread got pulled.

Not tonight.