Page 98 of Julien (Confessions 2)

“You aren’t finding shit.”

“And you are being a dick. Just remember, I’m the one who stayed here and dealt with this shit. You left, Joel.”

And because he was right, and Priest didn’t want to hear it, he hung up and glared at the phone. The last thing he wanted to think about was Jimmy being free and walking around amongst the general population again. The fact that that was even an option was ludicrous. But apparently someone high up had a career to make, and getting the new head of the New Orleans’s crime ring behind bars was more important than keeping an old killer off the streets.

Must be nice not to worry about that at night, Priest thought. To be able to go to sleep and not see rooms with blood on the floor, to hear the screams of men you’d never imagine screaming as they pleaded for their lives. That must be nice to be able to rest easy.

Not that he would know. He hadn’t slept easy for years. Not since he was seven. That was when his childhood had ended, when his innocence had been taken away from him, and even with Jimmy behind bars, Priest had never been able to escape him. Now Jimmy was about to be set free.

The monster who truly was evil incarnate was about to walk out into the light of day, and Priest couldn’t help but remember his words, remember the look of anger and betrayal on his face the day they’d dragged him away.

Maybe this leak was for the best after all, because if Jimmy really was dead and buried, Priest could finally shut the door on his wretched past once and for all.

ROBBIE STARED OUT the window of the Range Rover as Julien drove them home in silence, and as he watched the cars passing them by, he tried to focus on them and not the twisted knot in his stomach, which made him feel as though he wanted to vomit.

His mind was still reeling from the bomb Priest had just dropped at the brewhouse, and Robbie still hadn’t worked out how to speak to ask anything of importance.

Jimmy Donovan is Priest’s…dad? How is that even possible?

It made no sense at all. The man was a murderer. Not only a murderer, but one of the most infamous in the nation. As that thought hit him, Robbie clutched at his stomach and heard Julien say, “Do you need me to pull over, princesse?”

God, this felt like déjà vu. Hadn’t Julien said the exact same thing when he’d driven Robbie home after his nonna’s fall? Yeah, he had, and then he’d taken Robbie home to Priest, and the two of them had made Robbie feel safe, made him feel special, and now it turned out one of those men was the son of a— Oh my God. Priest is the son of Jimmy Donovan.

As the documentaries he’d seen scattered on cable over the years flashed through his mind, one very important and devastating fact glared out at him in all its red-haired glory.

The little boy who had witnessed—shit, it was too horrifying to even think—that had been…Priest? But not Priest, because that wasn’t his name, was it?

“Robbie?” Julien’s voice cut through Robbie’s jumbled thoughts. “Do you need me to pull over?”

But Robbie remembered Priest’s words—Go straight home—and shook his head.

“Did you…” Robbie said, and then licked his suddenly dry lips. “Have you… I mean, have you always known about…”

“His father?”

“Yes,” Robbie said, even as his entire body rebelled at the idea that someone like Priest had come from such a monster.

“Oui, he told me when things got serious between us.”

The comment was an innocent one, all things considered, but it cut deeper than Robbie expected, and the sting of it had him turning away. He didn’t want Julien to see how much it hurt him that Priest didn’t consider him—them—serious.

“Princesse?” Julien said, but Robbie shook his head. He didn’t want to show his hand just yet, or feel any more vulnerable or stupid than he already did.

But then Julien said, “Robert,” and the serious tone was so unlike him that Robbie found himself responding despite himself.

He looked over to see Julien turning into their parking garage, and said, “What?”

“He was going to tell you.”

Robbie ground his teeth together but remained silent as Julien wove them down to their spot and parked. The air in the car was tense, and Robbie hated that. He wanted to be understanding about this, and knew he probably should be, but this revelation was too much. It was…unfathomable.

“Priest found out about Jimmy’s parole the night you moved in.”

Robbie’s mind backtracked to that night. To the worry on Julien’s face when he opened the door, and the distracted light in Priest’s eyes when Robbie had gone to him in the bathroom. But never could he have imagined that this had been that chaos roiling through him.

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