Preacher’s name was in the title, but he made it clear from the very beginning, and with every move after, that we were partners.

In my mind and everyone else’s it was his band.

In Preacher’s mind, it was our band.

His and mine.

And what he said to me that day in his crib in LA, the last time I saw him before the trials, he was right.

Once.

He checks out once ’cause he’s dealin’ with his own shit, and it’s big fuckin’ shit.

Just once.

He doesn’t need to have to come to me and say, “Hey, brother, my world is about to blow up, can you look after the boys?”

[Hits chest with his fist]

I’m a grown-ass man.

Straight-up, I should have been at his side all along helping to look after the boys.

And I was not all that time.

And I was not when it mattered.

It isn’t my place to say, but in listening to these words, I must point out that it’s easy to see you did step up. You might not have handled things the way McCade would have, but you stepped up.

No, I did not handle things the way Preach would have.

Because he would not have lost control of the band.

When Trelane’s book releases, and Preacher is absent, Lyla has for the most part vanished as well, and regardless of the band’s attendance at the trials, once they’re done, Preacher does not resurface and Lyla is removed, therefore, the band faces an onslaught of breakup rumors.

Preacher was right.

I fell down on the job.

I know that.

I feel that.

That shit lives in me.

And I’m not gonna let it happen again.

Problem is, Preacher is MIA.

It’s coming clear Lyla is lost to us.

Those trials were ugly, sister. What we heard. What we saw. The media. Understanding on a visceral level what Preacher’s life was like. Hearing that shit come from his own goddamned mouth. Our brother, sitting on a witness stand, relating, in detail, the hell he lived through with those monsters. What he pulled himself out of to get where he got.

And for the rest of the guys, this is all news.

Tim’s dad was an alcoholic and his mom was checked out another way.

Dave’s parents spent their lives livin’ in a cloud of pot smoke.

They all know what happened to me with my friend knockin’ up my sister and losing Dad.

They think Preach’s shit is on the same level of all that.

No one, but me and Lyla are prepared for how sinister and evil this is.

I get word from Lyla that it’s irrevocably over between her and Preacher, I do not dig deep into that because she sounds like she is not lying, and I don’t mean in terms of being firm.