Page 13 of Preacher

“Definitely.”

Then he kissed me, slower now, with none of the urgency from before but none of the apology I’d half expected either.

“This isn’t a mistake,” he said when he pulled back. His arm tightened around me, and that was all there was to it. No lecture about my age, no sudden attack of honor and no attempt to put me back into the box marked Rowan’s daughter now that we’d crossed a line he’d spent years respecting.

Outside this office, somebody still wanted Curtis Freight badly enough to break in for its route information. Salvation had one sheriff trying to hold together a town he no longer had enough manpower to control, and the Unholy Few clearly had no intention of waiting for the law to catch up.

Preacher’s thumb moved slowly against my side. Yesterday, he’d been Dad’s best friend trying to protect me. There was no pretending that was all he was anymore.

CHAPTER 4

PREACHER

Deacon had the buyer stripped down to its bones by nine the next morning.

The company on Holly’s offer existed. It had an office, a bank, an attorney and enough paperwork to survive the kind of search most people stopped at, but Deacon had kept digging.

He stood at the end of the clubhouse table with his laptop open while Smoke leaned against the wall and Gage sat opposite me. We’d kept the meeting small; I didn’t need eight men crowding around a screen while we still had more questions than answers.

“Acquisition company was formed six months ago,” Deacon said. “No history before that. It’s owned by another LLC out of Arizona, which is owned by a holding company that shares an address with a transport outfit that’s been flagged in more than one federal investigation.”

“Drugs?” Gage asked.

“Drugs, money, people. Depends which file you read.”

Smoke folded his arms, all humor gone. “Cartel.”

Deacon nodded. “Close enough that I wouldn’t sell them a shed.”

The names meant nothing to me, but the structure did. Companies stacked behind companies, clean enough for some polished asshole to make Holly a cash offer and expect a signature.

“Other properties?”

Deacon clicked to another page. “That’s where it gets interesting. Different shell names, same pattern. Storage lot near the old rail spur, fuel access outside town and Moreno’s warehouse. Two offers, one quiet inquiry, one owner suddenly decided he didn’t want to talk after all.”

Smoke’s expression hardened as the implication settled. “Somebody leaned on him.”

“Would be my guess.”

Salvation had been picked because it looked weak. One sheriff, barely any deputies, struggling businesses and enough empty property that outsiders could convince themselves nobody would care who bought what. The cartel was buying pieces first and figuring out which routes, yards and buildings could be useful. Smart, if they’d chosen somewhere other than my town.

“They want a foothold,” I said. “Freight gives them trucks, storage and a reason to move in and out without anybody asking why.”

Gage’s mouth flattened as he looked at the screen. “And they think Rowan dying makes the place easy.”

That part got under my skin in a way the rest didn’t. Curtis Freight had never belonged to the club. Rowan wasn’t patched, never wanted to be, and I’d never tried to pull him into our business. But he’d been mine in the ways that mattered. My friend, my brother without the leather. Somebody had looked at his death, looked at Holly inheriting the place and decided they’d found a weak point.

They were about to learn the difference between vulnerable and undefended.

Smoke watched me for a beat before asking, “You telling White?”

“Not directly. He can find his side without me pretending we suddenly work together.”

Smoke gave me a look. “That stubborn thing you two do is going to get old.”

“It’s already old.”

White had spent years trying to make arrests stick while I made sure he couldn’t. We weren’t friends, and somebody worse coming to town didn’t change that, but I didn’t want him blind either.