Page 16 of Priest

I looked at Keeper, who shook his head.

“Stupid ass. Three as if one of you ain’t enough evil running around.” Keeper mumbled, chewing on the wad of tobacco in his jaw.

“Descend to the pits of hell, muthafucka,” I declared.

I released the trigger as the adrenaline flowed through my body and filled me with an incomparable high. The man’s body rocked and fell backward onto the concrete floor. I stepped closer and stood over him with my feet planted on either side of his body. Too many homeless teens had come up missing over the last three years, and I wanted to bring that shit to an end. I couldn’t combat evil across the world, but I could do it in our community.

Releasing two more bullets into his heart, I moved aside and looked at Keeper.

“I gotcha, Prez,” he replied, spitting the tobacco on the dead man’s body.

I nodded and turned back to the door of the crypt, which was a concrete bunker on the outskirts of town that we’d built underground.

I climbed the ladder and pulled the rusty ring hanging above my head. It pulled the door open, and I stepped out into a small trailer. Heading for the front of the trailer, I climbed out and into the bright sunlight.

The outside world looked vastly different than it had underground in the cold, dank dwelling that my MC had created for the souls who needed to be terminated from the earth. Soulless bastards who preyed on young, homeless kids and runaways.

I had been looking for the asshole Keeper was preparing to dispose of for the last two months. Sunny called me this morning saying that the kidnapper had been found. When one of the teens, Jeremih, who my MC protected, came to me a couple of months ago and told me about his missing friend, I promised him that I would find the kid and get vengeance against whoever had taken him.

Sunny had been in charge of the MC for the last three days. Three days when I hadn’t left the house or attended club business. I didn’t trust September to not escape. Her ass had been overly chatty and friendly lately, and she was too costly for me to lose her or let her go. But on the third day, when I received the phone call, I knew it was time for me to make my presence known.

I hadn’t trusted September alone in my house, although I had every square inch of my house and the surrounding acres covered with camera footage and my dogs.

The night that I picked her up in the woods, she didn’t know how I had located her so easily. All I had to do was tap into the app on my watch, and it would sync with the sensors on my property. It could easily detect if there was another presence on my property aside from myself and my dogs, and it distinguished between human and animal.

“What about the kid? Did you find out anything?” Jagged asked.

Jagged, Chainz, Knuckles, Road Rage, and Ox all jumped on their bikes when they saw the urgency of my rapid steps.

“We’re heading over to Vanguard.”

Birds flew out of the trees, and squirrels scampered into the trees as the sound of our straight pipes cut through the serene afternoon. We took off with only one bike remaining in our rearview, Keeper’s. He would be here for the next three hours to dismember the man I had just killed, cook up the solution to dispose of his remains, pour them into the vat, and then clean the crypt and himself before he would return to our clubhouse.

My thoughts wandered to September, and frustration grew inside of me. I would only keep her around long enough to make Christopher Morgan suffer. I wanted him to feel the pain that he had inflicted on others, and I wanted to know that he was suffering before his days came to an end. I needed him to know that it was me who would bring about his demise, and he needed to know why.

Our drive took just over twenty minutes before we pulled into the seemingly quiet and peaceful neighborhood.

“Surprise, Mr. and Mrs. Jones. You have no idea who your next-door neighbor is. And we’ve come knocking because it’s time to pay the price, muthafucka.” I muttered and rolled up on the lawn of the house with the green door.

I rotated my finger in the air to signal to my men to go around back and cover the sides. Ox and I climbed off our bikes and bounded up the steps of the front porch.

Ox peered into a window while I stood to the side of the door with my Pit Viper at my side. Ox shook his head and took my place at the door. I peered into the other window and saw a slight movement. I moved back to the door and gave Ox a brief nod.

He tapped out the “Shave and Haircut” tune on the door. I could hear feet scrambling inside. Nodding again, I kicked in the front door, and Ox rushed inside with me right on his heels. I pointed to the rear of the house and canted my head twice in that direction.

Ox headed for the back of the house, and I headed upstairs. I could hear my men’s bikes out back where they waited for someone to come out the back door. I slowly moved up the stairs and froze when I heard the fifth step creak.

I waited several seconds and listened to hear anything at all, but I heard nothing. I hated these situations because I had no idea what the fuck I was walking into. But it was a risk that I was willing to take if it might save one kid.

When I came to the top of the stairwell, there were four doors—three on one side and one on the other, and all of them were closed. I didn’t like the odds of that, and my only reassurance came in knowing that my men were out back and that Ox would be up here once he cleared the bottom of the house.

I slid along the wall and reached my hand out to the first doorknob. I twisted it slowly and carefully, knowing that if someone were in there who might see it move, they could very well have a gun and shoot first and ask questions later.

I quickly peered inside when the door flew open. There was a large king-size bed, a dresser, and nothing more. The bathroom door, like the closet door, was open, and I could see there wasn’t much room for hiding inside of there.

I moved along to the second room and did the same thing. Where the fuck was Ox, and why was it taking him so long to appear? By the time I made it to the fourth room, he finally crept up the stairs. He pointed at the other three rooms, and I shook my head and pointed to the final room on the opposite side of the hallway.

Ox met me and took up his position on the other side of the door. Just before I reached out to grab the doorknob, a spattering of bullets hit the door, causing both Ox and me to jump back. We waited for several seconds before Ox kicked the door but remained out of harm’s way.

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