Page 85 of Inked Daddies

I swallow hard. Part of me understands why he’s so terrified of more gossip. But that doesn’t justify his trying to run my life. “I know you’ve been through a lot, tonight included. But this is my decision. Not yours. Let them talk. Let them whisper. I don’t care.”

“Marie,” he whispers, voice grating with raw emotion. “I just don’t want you to get hurt.”

Trick exhales and rubs a hand down his face, clearly torn between wanting to lighten the mood and wanting to defend my honor. His leg is trembling. Even from here, I can see the strain. Sam stands a little straighter, as though he might step between me and Dad if this escalates again.

But it’s Hugo who speaks up next, moving quietly to my side. “Preacher, Marie’s happiness is paramount to us. No matter what else is going on in our lives, we would never jeopardize her safety. We’ve told her enough that she can make her own choice. We’re not running missions anymore. And if we did, we certainly wouldn’t ask Marie to be in harm’s way.”

Dad’s gaze drifts over Hugo’s expensive watch, his tailored shirt spattered with Trick’s blood. “I’m not worried about the four of you going off to war again. It’s the principle of it all. I gave up that lifestyle when I found my calling in the church. You three were content to keep living on the edge, and I never judged you for that. But I never expected you to rope my daughter into it.”

“I love you, Dad,” I say, struggling not to let my voice crack. “I always will. And I know you love me in your way. But you have to accept that I’m not a child anymore. They didn’t rope me into anything. You have to stop telling yourself they did, because you’re lying to yourself, and that lie will tear us apart.” The tears spill over, and I quickly swipe at them. “You have to accept that your daughter is choosing this life of her own accord.”

Dad shifts uncomfortably, his eyes flicking to Sam, Trick, and Hugo as if he’s blaming them for making me cry. But then his expression softens, just a fraction, and I see the father who used to tuck me into bed when I was little—before he got so absorbed in the church, before the world wore him down.

Trick clears his throat, drawing Dad’s attention. “Preacher, I’m sorry if the kiss was in poor taste, but I…I couldn’t help it. We almost lost everything tonight—Marie, you, ourselves. I just…I was happy.”

He doesn’t listen. His eyes are on me. “You chose this?”

I’m relieved. He’s finally getting it. “Yes. I chose them.”

“Then you disgust me. This isn’t how I raised you to be. I raised you?—”

“You didn’t raise me at all!” I scream. Maybe it’s being told that I disgust him, but I’m fucking done. “Mom raised me! You were barely around even before the divorce, and after, you didn’t even call me on my birthdays! I got an unsigned card with a gift card in it!”

He swallows, grinding his teeth in anger. “I had missions to run?—”

“See? You’ve hidden shit from me my whole life! And you think you raised me? Are you kidding right now?”

Dad’s expression darkens. “Then it’s a choice,” he says, voice seething. “Them or me. You don’t get both.”

35

TRICK

My leg is restingon a chair to take the weight off, but it doesn’t help much. If anything, propping it up only makes the dull ache sharper. I grit my teeth, determined not to show a hint of weakness. I might be dopey sometimes, and I might be the “fun one,” but I do know when it’s time to get serious. Right now feels like one of those times.

But I still can’t resist the urge. “You know, we did save your life, so maybe you can let this slide?”

“Do not test me, Trick,” Preacher growls.

But then we hear it. Sirens.

“Let’s put a pin in this for now,” Sam says, trying to bring us together. “We have bigger problems at the moment. Everyone got their story straight?”

“What are you talking about?” Marie asks. “There’s nothing to lie about?—”

“It’d be great if that were true,” I tell her. “But the thing is, those men out there—the bodies and the ones who are about to bebodies—they have wounds that your average minister, librarian, and tattoo artists wouldn’t be able to give them.”

“What’s that mean?”

Hugo explains, “That means it was very dark, and they couldn’t see that they had attacked one another in the dark.” He adds, “I have already shot out the streetlamps. It will make the story plausible.”

“Better to let them explain their own wounds than have us try to explain it,” Sam advises. “Everything else—what you did, how you made Crow leave—that’s fine. They can know about that. You’ll be a hero. But as for the bodies?—”

“We let them take the heat for that?” she asks.

“Precisely.”

When the cops come in, that’s exactly what we tell them. The five of us tell a consistent story about how they tried to force a trade of Preacher for Marie, how they shot out the streetlamps to make it harder to see when we arrived, how they attacked both us and each other in the black confusion. And Marie saved us all with her bravery and a knife to Crow’s dick.

---