He slapped him hard across the face. “Come on, wake up, asshole. You’re tough enough to start shouting off and spewing your fucking hatred. Be clear. Open your fucking eyes and ears. Come on, bright eyes. Let me hear it. You know you want to talk back at me. Let me hear it.” He hit him again.

“Stop!”

Preacher didn’t stop. He wrapped his fingers even tighter around his neck. “You want to keep on spewing that hatred you have, do so, but I promise you, Bishop, I will end you. If you think there is any part of this that is fun for me, or I want to deal with, you’re wrong. There’s not. I can’t stand what happened. I have to look at her every single day and realize what I’ve done. Now I’m a man who has done a great deal of despicable things, but not to Robin. As far as I’m concerned, she’s your woman and will always belong to you, but if you keep on messing this up, you’re going to lose her for good. Is that what you want?”

Bishop shook his head.

“I didn’t think so.”

He released his hand, and Bishop took several deep breaths, collapsing to his knees.

Preacher stepped back, sitting down on the edge of the bed and looked at his son.

“Do you care about her?” Bishop asked. “Is that why you care so much?”

“I care because Robin has done nothing to this club. She’s an innocent, and do you have any idea how fucking rare that is in this world? If you keep on blaming her the way you do, she’s not going to want you. You’ve got to make a choice. Put all of this anger, hatred, and jealousy to one side, or allow it to fester, to build up and consume you, but that’s a choice you’re going to have to make, not me.” He ran his fingers through his hair, looking around the messed-up, dirty room. “Did you know Milly kept a file in here that she was going to use to blackmail me with?”

“What? No. I only ever brought Milly back here for sex.”

“Clearly she spent a lot of time here. You need to learn to keep control of yourself. There are people out there who will go to great lengths to bring you down. O’Klaren, he’s a start, and it’s going to get worse, much worse if we don’t nip this in the bud. He’s already sniffing around Robin. I need you to be with her.”

Bishop sat with his back to the door.

“I know what you need of me. I married her, didn’t I?” Bishop held up his hand.