Page 84 of Priest and his Anarchist

halen “drift queen” hayes has added luna nox to the group chat.

Halen: What the fuck is happening? Priest, I swear if this is another secret you’re hiding it’s not funny. A wife I can take, but this…

River: He didn’t.

Stella: I don’t like her.

Stella: Why she look at you like that, Priesty?

Evie: Fml. What am I missing out on?

Vaden: Just War about to explode after finding out he has another sister.

Evie: Standard. From the little baby farm?

Halen: … I don’t know.

I look up at War in time for my phone to vibrate again.

You know about this?

No.

Pop?

I read over it a few times.

Dad.

Nate loves Tillie, but he had an active past. There’s no saying how many kids any of our parents have walking around without us knowing, or when the next one is about to show up on our doorstep.

Exiting the group chat, I tap on Evie’s name away from prying eyes.

Your dad home?

The chat bubbles light up before disappearing.

Yep. My brain is fried from this weekend, or I’d help.

I close the message and type out another to War, telling him to pull himself together, before my phone is back in my pocket. In the darkest corner of the room, Pop’s eyes are already on me.

“Anything else I need to know about aside from the redhead on a power trip that’s gonna make Tillie’s old cat-fighting days shine bright?”

It’s a test for my grandfather. Everything I needed to know hit my phone an hour into the opening night, thanks to Dominique, Evie’s dad. Being my father’s best-kept secret, he has always remained on the outskirts of King drama, but soon, that same secret was about to be my own.

I’m undecided whether I want anyone at all to know about Jessica, since the possibility of her being hurt is enough to guarantee a full-blown war. There hasn’t been one since themarking of the first treaty that sits between both the Gentlemen family and the EKC, and no one wants another of those.

“No.” Pop leans against his Bugatti, staring up at my house behind me before crossing his ankles. “There is the issue of you needing to go to Perdita. Why haven’t you done that already?”

Crows squark above us as the cigarette burns between my fingers. Riverside Elite sits in a conclave of folklore, guarded by statues of our ancestors. As if nature itself could barely let the structures go, moss grows through the cracks of ancient stones, surrounded by flowering vessels.

“I will. I have things that need to be ironed out here before I can leave the mainland. I assumed everything was fine over there since War and Halen had been working on the new island that you so graciously gave. Always such a brat.”

The wrinkles around Pop’s eyes deepen when his grin spreads wide enough for the tattoos on his face to stretch. “And it is. At least for the surface. You still need to check in every now and then.”

“They won’t step out of line.” I bring my eyes to him. “Or I’ll kill them. They know that.”

He chokes on his laugh. “That I am sure of.”

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