Page 54

FIFTY-FOUR

BANE

I spent all night with my phone in hand, staring at it and waiting for Moira to text. I typed out a hundred messages to her.

Where are you?

Are you okay?

Just let me know where you are and that you’re all right.

Moira, damn it, let me know you’re okay.

But I deleted each one, letter by letter, hands dragging through my hair as the clock ticked onward—two a.m., three a.m., four.

I lie in bed, but I don’t sleep. I can’t imagine that sleep is something that’s going to happen anymore. Not without her beside me. Not with this clawing, empty ache sitting inside my chest like something gaping and bottomless.

The sheets are ice-cold. My body is stiff, restless, clenched with the need to do something, anything , to chase away the ghost of her warmth. My stomach twists with hunger, but I don’t eat. My throat is dry, but I don’t drink. My body demands, but I refuse it. What’s the point of anything if she’s not here?

I haven’t shared a bed with a woman for twenty-seven years, and suddenly, I can’t imagine sleeping alone for the rest of my life. No one will ever replace Moira. No one ever could. She’s a gemstone with a million unique facets, brilliant and dazzling and completely irreplaceable. The hole of her absence in my life is a wound that will never heal.

So I do what Quinn said.

I let myself feel it.

I let the grief swallow me whole. I wallow in it like a pig in mud.

Because at least in the pain that stretches my chest like a doctor’s chest spreader, I can feel her presence.

She’s there in the ache, in the absence, in the all-consuming devastation of losing her. She is the pain, and that’s the only satisfaction I will get tonight.

But the salt on the open wound is the fucking wondering . The not knowing. She exists somewhere in the world, but God only knows where.

Is she sleeping peacefully right now? Is she missing me? Or is she tucked up in some warm bed without me—in some other man’s bed?

The thought sears through me like acid, burning a hole straight through my gut.

Or is she just back at her apartment, our time together meaning as little to her as all the men who came before me? Was I just another flavor to taste?

Or maybe—maybe she just needed time away from me.

You fucking egotistical, self-involved bastard.

I turn over in bed and punch the mattress, then do it again. Harder. Again. Until my knuckles sting and the ache in my hands is something solid. Something real. Something to ground me in this stupid goddamned night that won’t ever fucking end.

I squeeze my eyes shut and try to sleep again. I try to block out the images of her in my mind. But she’s everywhere—in every inch of this bed and every shift in the sheets. She is everywhere, but she’s gone.

Oh fuck, she’s fucking gone .

I shove my face into the mattress and howl in fury and rage and grief.

When the sky begins to lighten, I give up.

The night is done with me. Sleep never came.

I move to the shower, stripping off my clothes and stepping under the hot spray. The water scalds, but it doesn’t cleanse. It doesn’t burn away the phantom weight of her body against mine.

I scrub harder. Hard enough that my skin turns red. Hard enough that my muscles strain with the force of it. Hard enough that if I just keep going, maybe I can scrub the ache from my bones.

She’s not here. I have to face it. And I can’t show up to the prison today looking like a whiskey-soaked wreck.

I promised Caleb.

Wallowing isn’t getting me anywhere. I don’t think I even know how to sit in my pain right. I think Quinn intended some sort of meditation, some sort of quiet reckoning.

But I am not a man who sits still. I am not a man who finds peace in stillness.

Fuck sitting still. Fuck meditation.

Movement is the plan of the day.

Soon enough, I’m on the road to Waco, two hours away.

The drive should be a distraction. It should be something that pulls me out of my own head. Instead, it’s just another reminder. I have to slap myself awake several times when my eyelids grow heavier and heavier as exhaustion sets in. Each slap is a punishment, a reminder—Moira should be here. She should be in the passenger seat, chattering away and filling the car with her endless energy.

I never thought I’d miss her chatter.

But my life is so fucking quiet without her.

Finally, I arrive at the prison.

It sits atop a hill, cold and imposing. I know the routine. I know what to expect. The sign-in process is smooth. It always is. I’ve done this for years.

Prison ministry is an ostentatious title for what I do. I don’t lead Bible studies. I just offer volunteer chaplain services. I talk to guys one-on-one who want to talk. I just listen. Offer counsel if it’s asked for.

These men are different from my usual congregation. They don’t have the luxury of pretense. They don’t get to hide behind status and wealth and reputations.

As much as I like to pretend I have any sort of control, I know it’s all a lie. There’s no rhyme or reason to the hand we’re dealt in life. Some are born into privilege. Some are born into suffering. Some fight their way out. Some never get the chance.

It makes me furious. Furious at the structures and systems that push some down and elevate others. Furious at the world, furious at my father, furious at myself.

But anger is useless unless it transforms into action. So I do what little I can. I show up. I sit down. I shut up and listen.

“I’d like to talk to a particular inmate, Silas Graham, if he’s up for a visit. Tell him that his son, Caleb, sent me.”

I sit in the waiting room for a while, staring at the walls and letting the sterile quiet fill the hollow spaces in my chest.

Finally, they call my name and nod me through the system of locked doors and hallways.

I take my seat across from the thick glass, waiting.

A man appears on the other side. Grizzled, salt and pepper at his temples, dark eyes that are weary but sharp.

He picks up the phone.

So do I.

“Caleb sent you?” Silas asks, voice gravelly.

I nod. “Yes. He’s been worried about you.”

Silas snorts, shifting in his chair. “Well, then he could drag his ass down here and check in on me face to face, couldn’t he?”

I tilt my head, meeting his steely gray eyes. “He feels guilty, and he’s young.”

Silas exhales heavily, running a hand through his thick, graying hair. “Yeah, I know. He’s just a kid, still.”

“I don’t know. Twenty-six is hardly a kid,” I say wryly, considering I’m only a year older.

Silas lets out a rough laugh. “The way that kid was raised... it was chaos. He didn’t have a father until his mom and I hooked up.”

I nod. “It’s difficult growing up without a parent you need.” I swallow down my own shit and try to focus on the man in front of me. “How are you ?”

His mouth presses into a hard line. “Been doing hard time, going on a dime—ten years. That’s a long time to be on the inside.”

“That means you went through COVID in here.”

He shakes his head, eyes darkening. “That was a shitshow. Place is understaffed as it is. Everyone all but went feral. Never seen so much death, and I was with the fucking Kings for a few years back in the day.”

Shit. If he’s talking about the Lone Star Kings, they’re a legendary ruthless MC—mostly underground these days. When you hang out in prisons, you learn the local landscape. La Eme, Bandidos, not to mention the warring cartels active in Texas.

I do a pretty good poker face even though I now realize that Caleb’s father is a man seriously not to be fucked with. “How have you handled things? Do they have a counselor in there for anyone to talk to?”

He barks out a laugh. “Mental health? What’s that?”

I nod, understanding. “I know short-staffed is an understatement for most prisons.” Seventy-five percent staffed is a good day for most facilities in Texas. Some are as bad as fifty-five percent.

Silas straightens, muscles stretching the fabric of his faded orange jumpsuit. The man is built like a fucking tank. “I keep things in line on my block.”

I bet he does.

“Is there a message you wanted me to pass along to Caleb?” I ask.

“I told him not to visit when I first went away, and,” he sighs, dragging a hand through his thick hair, “that’s still probably for the fuckin’ best. But at my last parole hearing, there was some talk about letting me out early.” His eyes snap to mine. “But don’t tell Caleb that.”

I raise a brow. “But that’s good news. How soon?—?”

He shifts, his gaze sliding away, like even saying it out loud might jinx it. “Six months.”

“Six months? That’s great.”

He shrugs. “Won’t believe it’s real ’til I’m walking out those doors. Sunshine on my face.”

I nod. Understandable for a man who’s been on the inside so long. “Is there anything I can get you? Anything you need?”

He shakes his head. “Caleb supplies me with a good stipend each month so I can get the things I need… and the things I need to trade.”

I get it. Prisons have their own internal economy, and Silas has no doubt learned it well after so many years inside.

“That all?” he asks roughly.

I relay Caleb’s message—his love and support. “Do you have any messages you want me to give Caleb? Or anyone else?”

“Don’t tell him about the possible parole,” he reminds me again. It sounds like a warning.

I hold up my hands. “My lips are sealed. I’m a priest, after all. If you can’t trust me, who the hell can you trust?”

He nods. “All right, priest. Yeah, there is someone I’d like you to reach out to for me. She changed her number, and I haven’t been able to get ahold of her.”

“A sweetheart?”

His eyes narrow. “No. My daughter.”

His daughter?

Caleb never mentioned a sister. Or stepsister, I suppose, if she’s Silas’s natural-born daughter.

“She kept in contact for a few years, but… then we had a falling out, you could say.”

“You want to talk about it?” I offer.

“No.” His eyes are like flint.

The entire man is hardened—cut muscle and sharp edges. A survivor.

“But now that I’m about to get out… potentially,” he adds quickly, “it might be time to try to reconnect.”

He gives me her name, and I take it down on my phone.

“Where did she live when you were last in contact?”

“Austin. But she was talking about moving out west.” His eyes go distant. “California. She always said she wanted to see a real ocean. One that was blue instead of brown like the Gulf. So maybe she made it out there, finally.”

His voice gets gruff again when he says, “Don’t mention this to Caleb, either. They used to be close, but… I don’t know now.”

He looks away again, settling back in his chair with his arms crossed over his chest. His muscles bulge, making clear again that he’s one intimidating motherfucker. And that the subject is done.

“I’ll see what I can do about contacting her,” I say.

He nods, then studies me long and hard. “If I do get out of here…” He hesitates, uncomfortable. “They have halfway houses for fuckers like me, but it’s better if family gives you a place to land. The parole officers prefer that kind of shit.”

I nod. “From everything I’ve seen of Caleb, I think he’d be more than happy to accommodate.”

“Well, since I still own the club, I’d fuckin’ think so.”

I blink. “Wait—you own the club?”

He nods. “Half, anyway. Caleb inherited the other half when his mama passed. Whole thing was a clusterfuck.”

Considering he’s in prison orange, across an impenetrable barrier of glass, I’d say whatever happened back then was.

The guard calls his name, and he stands.

But I say quickly into the receiver, “Silas.”

He pulls the phone back to his ear.

“I’ll do my best to find your daughter. And you’re going to get out of here.” I meet his gaze. “I’ll come back and visit you.”

He nods, but he doesn’t let any emotion show before he hangs up the phone.