Page 75 of Paladin's Hell

“Prez. Just before we break. Been looking into the police chief some more.”

“What you got, Cad?”

“Zilch. Can’t dig anything up. If he’s targeting us, from his record he’d do it legal.”

“This doesn’t have the feel of a set-up,” I raise my chin to Cad. “Thanks, Brother.”

Cad nods.

“Okay, assholes. Let’s get this shit done.”

As everyone stands and leaves, Bomber hesitates. “You want me in your office, Prez?”

I nod to him. “I’ll be there in a moment.”

When he leaves, it’s just me and my son. Demon’s head is moving from side to side. “Reckon you know what you’re in for?”

I don’t, that’s the problem. “My gut feel is it’s personal. Against the club. We’ve either got a common enemy, or someone gunning for one of us. Seems too haphazard to be something organised by a gang.”

“Runt was the one who got shot.”

“Speed of the attack meant they were aiming for the poor fucker on guard duty. Could have been any one of us. We were rotatin’ the prospects so they all got food at the barbeque. I can’t see how Runt could have been the target.”

“Maybe you’re right.” He doesn’t sound convinced.

“You any other ideas?”

“Other than you acting as father confessor?” Demon grins. “Nah.”

Bomber’s waiting for me in my office as instructed. I walk in and go to my chair, with the desk in between us. Behind me hangs the flag that’s in all our chapters, the insignia of the Satan’s Devils.

“Got fuck all to say, Prez.”

“Whoa. Let me get my ass in the chair first, Bomb.” I sit, then lean forward with my chin resting on my hands. “No judgement, Brother. But are you fucking around on Jeannie?”

Instead of an instant denial, my old friend starts to shake his head, then his eyes crease as thought he’s remembering something. The silence seems to stretch out. Bomber made Jeannie his old lady a few months after Mo and I married. A year later they’d made it legal. Seemed solid as fuck all these years. Even today I’d noticed they were still demonstrable toward each other, a closeness still shared that I seemed to have lost with my wife.

“Brother,” I say in encouragement. “I need to know.”

His lips thin as they press together, his hands are clasped between his legs. He takes in a deep breath, then says firmly, “I don’t fuck around on Jeannie.”

I stay quiet. Something else is coming. Despite what he said in church, does she fuck around on him?

Suddenly he sits back, folding his arms across his chest defensively, then looks at me with a challenge in his eyes. “You know what it’s like. Thirty-five, thirty-six years is a fuck of a long time to be with one woman. To stay attracted to each other? Well that’s fuckin’ hard. Things become so familiar, making love becomes practiced. Hard to put the spice back in it.”

I know what he’s talking about. Fuck, do I.

Again I don’t speak, letting him continue.

“Well, Jeannie and I decided we’d do something different. We don’t cheat on each other. Or not in our eyes. We, er, we joined a swinger’s club a few years back.”

I feel my eyes open wide. Like me, Bomber and Jeannie have a house off compound, we don’t live in each other’s pockets. But I never would have guessed that about him. Now I’m quiet as I don’t know what the fuck to say. I couldn’t have predicted I’d hear that.

He takes it as unspoken criticism, and glares. “We don’t cheat. We do fuck other people. But only when we’re doing it in the same room.”

Could I do that? Let Mo be fucked by another man while I was watching? Fuck no. He’d get a bullet in his ass before he could get his dick close to her cunt. She’s all mine. No one else’s.

I try to gather my thoughts, to put my prez hat back on. “You do what you have to Brother. Ain’t no business of mine. What I need to know is, were all the parties willing? Anyone not too happy seeing you fucking his old lady?”

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