“You know, a couple of the girls have been talking. You haven’t been near any of them, and they’ve been worried about you.”

“You need to stop listening to gossip.”

“Does this have to do with Robin?” Bear asked.

Preacher stared at his friend. Bear was the closest person he’d consider a friend, but right now, he wasn’t in the mood to deal with this bullshit from him.

He had shit he wanted to do, and it wasn’t talking about girls and sex.

“What about Robin?”

“You’ve not been right since you discovered she’s pregnant with your kid.”

“I wonder why that is.”

“I’m not trying to be a dick about this,” Bear said. “Has she changed you?”

“No. I’m not talking about this shit with you. Don’t try to analyze me. I don’t like it.” He returned his attention to Milner. He slapped him on the stomach. “Do you feel like talking yet, or are we going to keep on pretending you don’t know what I’m talking about?”

“Fuck you!” Milner spat the word out.

Blood dripped from his mouth, and Preacher stepped out of the way so he didn’t get splattered.

Taking one of the knives off the tray, he held the tip up to the light, and drew it down in one slice across the man’s stomach.

It wasn’t deep enough to spill out his guts, just to cut the skin and cause no end of pain. He liked to hear the man’s screams.

“You shouldn’t have run from me, Milner.” He tutted. “You should know right now that I don’t like it when you do shit like this. It makes me so upset. What could you possibly have to hide from me?”

“Please, Preacher. I know you don’t want to do this.”

“But you see, here is the thing, I really, really do. I want to fucking kill you, and I think it’ll be a whole lot of fun. In fact…” He sliced him three more times, the screams getting louder and the blood dripping down.

“I had no choice. They want to put you in jail and throw away the key. They hate you. Please, don’t hurt me. I can’t take anymore.”

Preacher stood. “Your lies are boring me. You don’t have a fucking clue as to why O’Klaren is here, Milner. You see, unlike you, I know the truth. Your little gambling problem, it never really went away, and I discovered you lost big. This has nothing to do with O’Klaren or anyone else.”

Milner whimpered.

“You know what I discovered when I started to look into your finances, Milner?” Another whimper. “You need this job and can’t afford to go into retirement. O’Klaren taking this job, well, it has taken away your steady income and the only leverage you’ve got over your creditors.”