A man I didn’t know came to my son’s wake. He offered his condolences to me and Connie and then sat in the back of the funeral home unnoticed to everyone but me. He faded into the background of flowers and leather until I saw him at the mass. The church choir sang as he leaned over the tiny white coffin and prayed for my son’s soul and then took a seat in the last pew.

I saw him once more, this time he was the last to leave the cemetery. Before I kissed my son’s coffin one final time and watched the gravediggers lower him into the earth, the man came to stand beside me.

Once Jack Jr.’s coffin disappeared from my sight he turned to me and offered me the book of hymnals and he asked me if I was a music man. In my state of my mind, I didn’t process the question much less answer it. Then he told me music was the soundtrack to our lives. He told me music was the language of a man’s spirit. It abolishes strife and brings peace to every lost soul.

Then he took my hands and closed them around the book. I opened my mouth to ask him who he was but he was gone before I could. Still, to this day, I don’t know who he was and sometimes I question if he was real or a product of my maker. Then I take the book out of Jack Jr.’s room and turn to the page he bookmarked.

Hallelujah.

As I reach for the bourbon Wolf keeps stocked, I hum the first verse allowing the music and the words to prepare me for what I’m about to do.

I heard there was a secret chord.

That David played and it pleased the Lord.

The verse goes on to speak of man who never really took a liking to music. He’s introduced to the minor fall and the major lift—the baffled king. Then he composes his own hallelujah.

The amber liquid fills the glass as I lift my eyes to the woman sitting in front of me and play the second verse over. The blue-eyed girl is as much a part of this hallelujah as I am. While I’m the baffled king she’s the woman in the song that tied me to the kitchen chair and broke my throne. She’s the one drawing the hallelujah out of all of us, the beauty sent to restore faith.

“Thanks, but I don’t drink,” she says, eyeing the full glass between us.

I feel the smile tick my lips.

“This one’s for me, sweetheart,” I tell her as I raise the glass to her. “Here’s to you,” I salute before I take a long sip of poison. Drawing the crystal away from my lips, I glance at the two guard dogs standing behind her.

The brother who lost his twin.

And the brother who found his heart.

So very different and yet we’re all the same.

“Ally, you don’t have to do this,” Cobra says.

“You don’t have to relive it,” Deuce adds.

I fix my eyes back to Ally and she stares back at me. She doesn’t blink and neither do I. It’s just me and her.

I’m the man who ordered her death.

She’s the one woman who begged for it.

Then I became the man who saved her and she became the hallelujah that’s going to save this club.

“I appreciate what you’re doing here,” I tell her.

“Well, I appreciate what you’ve done for me,” she replies. “I don’t think I’ve properly thanked you for not putting a bullet in my head.”

Leaning back in my chair, I scratch the whiskers at my jaw and stare back at her. Giving in, I smile at her and nod my head.

“You’re welcome.”

“I thought you were just like them,” she admits.

“And now what do you think?”

“I think you’re crazy.”

A chuckle escapes my lips and I reach for the glass again.

“You’re smart,” I say, before taking another sip.

“But as crazy as you are, you are also kind. You care for the people around you and it’s obvious you put them all before yourself,” she says, pausing for a beat. “You’re an admirable man, Jack Parrish, and I’m proud to know you, to know there are still good people in the world and not every man who wears leather is a monster.”

Music isn’t all that heals the soul.

Sometimes it’s just words.

It’s respect and appreciation.

It’s the truth you don’t believe.

The truth you don’t always deserve.

“I want to help you catch Yankovich because I know you can,” she whispers. “If anyone can stop that monster it’s you,” she says. Tearing her eyes away from mine, she glances over her right shoulder to her brother. Then her left, letting her gaze linger over Deuce.

“It’s all of you,” she adds.

“Appreciate your faith, sweetheart,” I reply hoarsely. “It’s much needed right about now.”

Drawing out a heavy sigh she turns her attention back to me and braces both hands on the armrests of the chair.

“I was fourteen,” she begins then pauses and closes her eyes. “You know that already.”

“It’s fine,” I tell her. “Just say it as it comes to you and if it’s too much then stop. The last thing I want to do here is make you hurt any more than you already have.”

“Okay,” she nods and starts over. “He told me his daughter was missing. He asked me to help him find her, said she was about my age and thought maybe I knew her. I believed him, there was no reason not to. He was dressed nicely and he genuinely looked upset. Then I saw the van and I knew I had made a mistake, but it was too late.”

She breaks for a moment and I lift my eyes to her brother, watching as he grips the back of the couch and stares up at the ceiling.

“He told me I had nothing to fear and then he threw me in the back of the van,” she says. “I screamed. I cried. I begged for help and then he put a helmet over my head. The kind of helmet that completely covers your face and blocks out any sound.”

My eyes dart to Deuce and I watch as he roughly drives his fingers through his hair. I wonder if he realizes he’s in love with her. I wonder if he knows the girl sitting here, sharing her grief, giving me her pain, I wonder if our Cowboy knows she’s his heart.

“I don’t remember much about the ride. How long it was or who was driving. All I remember is being dragged out by my ankles. Then everything fades to black and I don’t know if it’s because I was drugged or because I blocked it out of my head.” She lets her words trail off.

I find myself leaning forward, enthralled by her. She’s got me hooked, not on her words, not on the story, but on the strength and courage raging in her eyes.

“I woke up in a filthy warehouse, naked and chained to three other girls just like me,” she cries and I reach into my leather vest to pull out a handkerchief. Handing her the last thing Victor Pastore ever gave me, she takes it and I lift my eyes back to Cobra. Satan’s deadliest soldier is breaking, his walls are crumbling at his sister’s torment and tears fill his eyes.

“It was a long time before anyone came for us. Yankovich left us down there to rot for what seemed like days. Freezing, hungry and exhausted, we were weak and out of our minds. At least that’s what I remember thinking. When the door opened and the men walked in, I could barely lift my head, but he forced us to crawl on our hands and knees. Then he lined us up…I have to stop now for a moment,” she tells me as her lower lip quivers.

“You do what you gotta do, sweetheart,” I tell her.

Then I do what I got to do too. I lift the bottle to my lips, chug it straight down and play another verse in my head. My maker calls, the rancid bitch screams, begging to come out and play.

“One by one, he made us get on our knees,” she whispers.

Startling Ally, Cobra slams his fist against the back of the couch as the tears fall from his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he grates.

Without turning to face him, she reaches for her brother’s hand and continues.

“You can guess what happened then, can’t you?”

I nod.

“Okay,” she murmurs, looking up at her brother. “Do you want to step outside?”

He shakes his head and she nods before glancing over at Deuce then back at me.

“That was the first time,” she reveals. “I lost count over how many times I was raped, but it wasn’t always Yankovich. Sometimes it was the men who wanted to test-drive the product before they bought it. Other times it was his employees and a few times it was his brother.”

“Igor?”

“I don’t remember his name.”

Pausing for a beat, she glances down at her hands before she continues.

“I learned to block it out. I didn’t cry. I didn’t scream and I didn’t beg for help. I laid there and let them do whatever they wanted to do because I didn’t know any better. One girl did though, she managed to escape.”

My eyes narrow as I stare at her in shock.

“Do you remember her name?”

“No, but I’d recognize her if I saw her. At one point, he used us to traffic drugs, those were the only times we left the warehouse. He’d fill these little balloons with drugs and force us to swallow them then he’d put us on some sort of boat. One time, the balloon burst inside of me before he could transport us. Chaos ensued and as a butcher cut me open the girl ran.”

“Excuse me,” Cobra finally chokes as he releases Ally’s hand and wipes his tears. Turning around, he steps out of the room and Ally drops her head into her hands and sobs. Deuce is quick on his feet and takes a seat on the arm of the chair.

“I’m okay,” she cries.

“We can stop,” I remind her.

“No!” she says, pulling back her hands. “I don’t want to do this again.”

Her cries become the instruments.

It’s a cold and broken hallelujah.

Moments pass before she finds the strength to continue.

“After she got away one of the other girls tried to get away too but Yankovich caught her and he killed her right in front of me and Sara.”

“Sara?” I ask.

“She and I were the only two left and then after she was sold it was just me.”

“Do you know who—” I stop because it sounds wrong to say bought. “Do you know who she left with?”

“No,” she says with a shake of her head. “He just took her one day and chained me to the radiator. I never saw her after that. For a long while I was the only one left. There were no new girls, just me,” she says, wiping away her tears as she lifts her gaze back to me. “That’s when things get fuzzy for me and all I remember after that is Yankovich bringing me to Rush.”

“Rush didn’t come to the warehouse?”

“No, Yankovich took me to him.”

“Did you ever see Yankovich after that?” I ask.

“Once,” she says before she pauses and fights to remember. “I remember them arguing,” she reveals. “I remember Rush telling him he couldn’t take me back.”

She opens her eyes.

“I remember that because that’s when I started to believe Rush was my savior.”

“Is there anything else you remember after that? Did Yankovich bow down?”

“He told him he could only keep me if he made it worth his while, but I don’t know how he did. I never saw him after that…until today.”

Leaning back in the chair, I stare at Ally and for a moment I wonder about her parents. I wonder if they knew when they died that they raised such a fascinating creature. Then I think about my own children. I think about Jack and how it felt to lose him. He had only been two years old but I knew he was special, I knew he was too good, too pure for this world. I wonder if that’s what Ally’s parents thought when they lost her.

Then I lift my eyes to the heavens above and I vow with everything I am and everything I’ll be to take care of what they lost. I will take care of their daughter, like she’s my own and hope they may return the favor and take care of my boy.

That they look after him.

“Are we done?” Deuce asks, drawing my attention back to them.

“Does any of that help you?” Ally asks when I meet her gaze.

Leaning forward, I reach across the coffee table and take her hands in mine.

She glances at our joined hands and watches as I lace our fingers together.

“Do you like music?” I ask, watching as she slowly brings her eyes back to mine.

“A little bit,” she whispers.

“There’s a song I want you to listen to one day,” I tell her and as I expected, she looks at me like I’ve lost my mind.

Devilishly, I smile.

Crazy, I am definitely crazy.

But that’s okay.

Because it takes a certain breed of mentally deranged to capture a psychopath.

I’m the breed.

I’m the mentally ill man who is going to create his own hallelujah.

I’m going to bring this motherfucker to his knees.

And I’m going to do it because of this girl right here.

I’m going to do it for her.

“You told me I was property of Parrish,” she says.

“Yes, I did.”

“I didn’t know what that meant,” she admits.

“Do you know now?”

“I think I do.”

And just like that the blue-eyed beauty throws me and draws out the hallelujah.

Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah.