Page 31 of In It for the Long Ride

“We’re about to find out.” She smiled and jerked the door open before I could reach for it. I gestured for her to enter first, and she did so.

Two priests were lingering near the front. One I recognized as a local figure, the other I’d never seen before.

“Carl, you remember Father Barnetti,” Daisy began the introduction before we’d even reached them.

“Father Barnetti,” I repeated with a polite nod.

“Yes, this is my friend, Father Petrillo, of Chicago,” Barnetti took over.

“Nice to meet you both,” I hurriedly clipped, growing more uncomfortable by the second. I could stop looking around at the stained glass and symbols of hope.

“You’re the father…” Petrillo asked, jerking my attention back to him at once.

“That’s what this is about? Look, gentlemen…”

“Fathers,” Daisy spoke over me in correction of the title I’d assigned them.

“Right.Fathers, we’re busy. We got some business to attend.” I tried to turn before the shit could get any deeper, but that Chicago priest wasn’t having it.

“By business, you refer to Demetri Valentino?” He spoke up.

A chill ran straight up my spine. I stopped and dragged in a deep breath, praying it wasn’t a set up.

“His sister said you were his man,” I returned, while glancing toward Daisy in an effort to move her along.

I reached for her arm as I suddenly considered turning her back around and leaving the way we’d come. I wasn’t here to discuss my past, the club’s crimes, mob wars, or Demetri fucking Valentino with anyone.

“I am a man of God.” Petrillo almost sounded insulted.

“Be that as it may,” I met his gaze finally and didn’t back down.

There were plenty of people in this world that were moved to sentiment by emotional language and religion. I wasn’t one of them. The fact that he was a priest did not render him immune to criminal involvement.

Petrillo’s heavily wrinkled jaw set and his eyes widened.

“Carl… It’s Carl, right?” the local priest spoke.

I shifted my gaze to him and nodded.

“Carl, I was the priest who assisted Daisy with her adoption many years ago,” Barnetti quietly and gently explained while I glared at him. “It was at her father’s behest.”

Daisy nodded and stared at the ground. I reached toward her and rubbed her back until she seemed to mentally rejoin us with a rugged breath.

“Perhaps we should sit down,” Petrillo suggested.

I rubbed my neck and looked back toward the door.

“Carl,” Daisy quietly pleaded.

When I finally met her gaze, her big, brown eyes were so full of pain I couldn’t speak. I just nodded and allowed myself to be guided to some kind of large office. There weren’t enough chairs. One was behind the desk and two were on opposite sides of a table. I urged Daisy toward one of the lounge chairs and crossed my arms and stood sentinel at her side.

When it was clear I wasn’t about to get myself comfortable, Father Petrillo took the chair opposite of Daisy. Barnetti chose to lean against his desk rather than sit behind it.

“Where to start…?” He sighed, shooting Petrillo a nervous glance.

Petrillo held his hand up with a subtle shrug.

Barnetti licked his lips and seemed to be choosing his words very carefully as he quietly began, “When your father asked me to arrange this, he did not want the child placed with a local family. He did not want anyone associating it with you at such a young age, or for you to be moved by regret.”

---