Page 43 of Priest

My Old Lady.

The silence changes shape.

Because she isn’t here. She doesn’t know. I just claimed her in front of every brother and Old Lady in this room without asking if she wanted the title, and guilt hits fast enough to cut through the possessive heat still riding me. I release Sadie and step back, but the words keep ringing.

Blue is carrying my child. That much is truth. The rest is the kind of thing a man should say to a woman before he says it to his club.

I know that.

I also know what happened inside me the second I saw her with my baby under her heart. Every fantasy I ever shoved down, every secret picture of Blue round with my child, every impossible want I told myself belonged to weaker men, all of it came roaring up so hard it nearly took my knees out. She became everything in one breath. Woman. Baby. Home. Mine in a way that scared the hell out of me because for the first time in my life, wanting did not feel like a weakness. It felt like a war I was ready to start.

Sadie stands frozen, one hand at her throat, eyes bright with humiliation and something darker. No one moves to comfort her. That tells me plenty.

For the first time since I walked into this hospital, I understand exactly how badly I have fucked this up. I claimed too late. I claimed too loud. I claimed without giving Blue the choice to stand beside me or put me on my ass for trying.

And she isn’t here to hear any of it.

14

Sadie

Sadie has always hated hospitals.

They smell like antiseptic and judgment, like places where the truth leaks out whether you want it to or not. The lighting is too bright, the walls too thin, people listening, watching, waiting for a miracle or an ending. She sits beside Priest, leaning into his shoulder with one hand rubbing slow circles along his arm, careful to make the touch feel soothing instead of needy. Grief has a way of opening doors people keep locked, and Sadie knows enough to slip through one before it closes.

Across the waiting room, the Saints fill the space the way they always do, leather and ink and broad shoulders pressing against the sterile edges of the hospital. It is the look Sadie has always loved, the reason she learned early which men were worth standing near. Tonight, the room feels sharper than usual. Voices stay low. Eyes keep moving. The men are quiet in that dangerous way that tells her grief has already started turning into plans.

Sadie sits beside Priest, one hand rubbing slow circles along his arm like she can turn comfort into a claim if she’s careful enough. Tragedy opens doors people usually keep locked, and she knows enough to slip through while the hinges are still loose. He is hurt. Scared. Bleeding in places no one can see. If she can be the comfort beside him while the rest of the room waits for bad news, maybe he will start needing her before he realizes he has.

Then Blue walks in.

Sadie sees her at the same time Priest does because his whole body reacts. His shoulders tighten, his spine goes rigid, and his attention leaves the room in one clean motion. Sadie follows his stare and finds Blue standing there in scrubs, calm in a way that immediately grates. She looks tired, with blood on her clothes and light catching in her pale hair, but she also looks rooted. Steady. Like this place has given her a kind of power Sadie cannot touch.

Annoyance sparks hot beneath Sadie’s ribs. Of all the hospitals, of all the doctors, of all the bad timing in the world, Blue has to be here.

Priest moves, and Sadie rises with him by instinct, already stepping into the place she has been working so hard to make hers. She only means to stay close. To support him. To remind the room that she is the one who has been here while Blue vanished. Her hand barely clears the arm of the chair before Priest’s voice cuts across the space.

“Sit down.”

Heat rushes to her face. The words are sharp enough to slice, and he delivers them without looking back, as if her obedience is assumed. Every set of eyes in the waiting room feels suddenly pointed at her, even the ones pretending otherwise. She lowers herself back into the chair because making a scene would only hand the room something to talk about.

For one breath, she wants to hate him for that.

She keeps her expression smooth instead, fingers folding over her stomach while she forces the sting down. She has survived worse than embarrassment. Joker taught her that pride is useful only when it knows when to stay quiet. So she sits, chin lifted, while Blue gives the update and Priest looks at her like the rest of the room has gone dim around the edges.

Blue talks about Deacon surviving surgery. She talks about the ICU and the next twenty-four hours, and Sadie tries to focus on the relief moving through the room. But Priest is already watching Blue too closely. His body angles toward her. His eyes track every step she takes, and when Blue turns to leave, Sadie feels the moment shift before anyone says a word.

Priest catches Blue’s arm. “Blue. We need to talk.”

Blue resists. Priest moves anyway, steering her toward the doors with a kind of focus that makes Sadie’s nails bite into her palm. He is not asking. He is not hesitating. He is following the woman who walked away from him while Sadie sits exactly where she was told to stay.

Sadie rises again, slower this time. She keeps her pace unhurried as she crosses the waiting room, moving like she has every right to go after him. People pay less attention when you act like you belong, and Sadie has built half her life on that truth. She reaches the doors just as they start to swing closed behind Priest and Blue.

A hand catches her elbow.

“Ma’am.”

Sadie turns, already bracing for the irritation that flashes through her. A nurse stands there, eyes steady, body angled enough to block the doorway without making a production of it.