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Of course, he was just Freddy back then Most of the time he was known as Fucked-Up Freddy because of his heroin addiction Like the legendary Hells Angels, the Raiders had a bylaw about no needles in the club Youup rained a whole different type of shit down on you and your brothers

Preacher Man tried to intervene to help Freddy, but he finally had to kick hi before Freddy adopted a new road nay It was a nod to his ties with the Aryan Brotherhood He then for he could to fuck with us, including trying to ardless of sos, we never dealt in drugs or wohts out of Raiders territory

Our true hatred of Sigel came from the fact he had our father’s blood on his hands And not metaphorically from some hit he’d put out He’d pue when the tere e as I reeant, I had gone with hi up on the streets had hardened me to where the death of aan annoying fly from your face The quicker you desensitized yourself, the better I’d witnessed all ly deaths--torture scenes with bodies flayed open like cadavers on a med-school table, the charred, blackened flesh of burned bodies, the cross still wrapped around the neck of a decapitated head that had been blown off in a car bomb

But nocompares to the death of someone you love--someone as your savior Those eround co In a way it is--it’s the Areddon of your soul As the emotional tor would be better than the agony consu places--their life for your own But instead, you find an emotional immortality that places you in a private hell on earth

Alht we’d lost Preacher Man I’d tried to put as much space and distance as I could between ht, the ones that wokeat the sheets But just hearing the nahts ricocheted ht Like a movie reel on repeat, I watched Preacher Man’s body contort as the bullets entered his chest and gut I’dbody before it hit the grimy pavement

I shook my head to try to rid myself of the memories But no matter how hard I tried, the harsh, htened on the arhed down the sa across the night sky, I was once again back in that alley with led to keep my hold on him as the blood, mixed with pieces of flesh and intestines, et a better hold on hione down on the pave Preach’s head into channel my fear, I’d focused aze told ratitude and love that I wanted to express wouldn’t come from my mouth, no matter how hard I tried to speak

As if he sensed , blood-soaked hand to my cheek "I know, son," he wheezed And then he said soed to understand "Angels … beautiful angels with dark hair are co for you They are your only salvation"

With his eyes fixed above us on the sky, he exhaled a long, painful breath And then he was gone The realization lit everythe switch on the electric chair I shot off the pavee and resented for the un’s muzzle met me in the face

"My beef ith your pops Bad blood froht, at least"

"You ht now, motherfucker ’Cause if you letfirestorm down on you!"

A smile had curled at his lips "I’d love to see you try Whencomes and word spreads how I took down Preacher Man without a fight, you and your Raiders won’t have a fucking ally anywhere Me and the Knights will run you into the ground"

When I had lunged at hi my nose As tears blinded my eyes from the hit and blood poured down el had spat on Preacher Man’s body

But what Sigel couldn’t have iined, nor any of us Raiders, was that Preacher Man had been two steps ahead of him All of our allies stayed firs Preacher Man hadin a favor owed by one of the Atlanta PD--a so to falsify a warrant that took the drug task force straight to Sigel’s door With his arrest history, he would be behind bars for at least five to ten, and I would be forced to sit on any revenge plans Sure, I could’ve put out a hit for Sigel’s throat to be slit or for him to be shanked But I wanted full-on justice, an eye for an eye, with his blood onhis brokered deals, Preacher Man had gone against all the charter rules that forced a vote by the officers Like a sacrificial lahter, he had selflessly worked to ensure the safety of the club, even if all along it was going to cost hiel’s ie that would come from his probable death He must’ve feared I would be killed or imprisoned and wanted to protect me He never would have fatho me out of the past and into the present

"What?" I croaked Staring down at ht of a movie Rev had made me watch Soh back in high school Like the deranged chick, I rubbednot to see the blood I iel’s only son