Because of this, right here. That look in his eyes, that terrible knowledge.
But Sophie still wasn’t a little bitch, much as she wanted to be one at the moment, if it would keep her safe. And she would never let her father down like that, not even about this.
“Did you get your answers?” she asked.
“The investigators say that Priest went straight when the road curved. No hesitation. The only way that happened was if he accelerated and aimed for a fucking tree. They can’t prove he killed himself, but that’s what they think, ’cause he sure as shit wasn’t drunk. First thing they checked.”
Ajax watched her. He waited.
“No,” Sophie whispered.
“That’s not who he was,” Ajax agreed with a quiet ferocity. “The man I knew was never meant to die alone.”
“He didn’t kill himself,” Sophie said, feeling nothing but dull inside. Or maybe that was numbness. “That wasn’t in him. He would have hated the idea that anyone could think he was that much of a whiny bitch.”
Ajax nodded. “That’s my take.”
Her head spun. And again, Ajax was her anchor. Solid and unyielding beneath her and around her, holding her tight.
She let out a long, hard breath.
“You think somebody ran him off the road,” she said, and she knew what she was saying even as it came out of her mouth.
She knew it meant war, one way or another. Blood and darkness. Retribution. She could see it as if it was scrolling across Ajax’s hard face, and unlike yesterday at the cemetery, there was nothing she could do to stop this.
He hadn’t even had to tell her. Her father wouldn’t have, she knew. But Ajax had.
She clung to that.
“You think,” she said, very distinctly, “that someone killed my father.”
Ajax nodded. Hard. And his eyes were a holy terror. Then he grinned in that way of his, and that was worse.
“Yeah,” he said. “I do.”
Chapter 13
The lawyer was still a fucking douche, just like Ajax remembered.
Ten minutes late turned into fifteen, and Ajax wanted to start kicking asses to relieve his own irritation at being kept waiting by a man he could crush with one hand. It was that or throw Sophie on the bar and let off some steam in a far more interesting manner, but he figured he could keep his dick in his pants through a single morning while waiting for a will to be read.
Maybe.
He eyed Sophie, looking entirely too hot to his way of thinking in a long, black skirt that made him think about getting beneath it and a little cropped thing that showed off her belly ring. It made his pulse hammer in his cock. She also looked pissed, leaning against the Priory bar with her arms crossed, which he had to admit was pretty much his favorite thing. He wanted to lick that cranky expression right off her—
Not helpful, asshole.
With effort, Ajax stretched out his legs in front of him, leaned back in his chair so the front legs lifted from the floor, and surveyed the motley fucking crew that was all that remained of his full-patch, full-bodied brothers.
He’d give himself and Blue pretty good odds against whoever might have taken Priest out, Ajax thought. Blue sat across the table from him, his expression closed off and dark, his back to the same wall like he and Ajax were holding off a fucking siege.
Solid and dependable, the way a brother was supposed to be.
Unlike those other two pricks.
Prince had rolled in wearing another one of those suits, looking a lot like the kind of asswipe he used to enjoy beating up ten years ago. Now he stood all the way on the other side of the bar’s floor space from Ajax and Blue, like maybe he thought getting too close might contaminate him. Ajax felt he could definitely pollute that motherfucker should the time come, and happily. Bring it on. Prince had hardly said a word since he’d arrived this morning, right on time. Just muttered something about a plane he had to catch, which Ajax might have told him he was going to have to cancel, except fuck that guy. He’d find out soon enough.
Ajax shifted his attention to Cash. Back in the day the guy had been magic with money, and last night Ajax was pretty sure he’d heard the bitch tell someone he was a fucking “security analyst” in Florida. Ajax would have offered to cut his balls off, but that seemed a little redundant. Today he was scowling as he paced back and forth in front of the bar, like his agitation could make a scumbag lawyer appear faster.
And Ajax knew that if he offered any commentary on any of this, it would end in a fistfight. Which he would win, because please, but would likely cause more trouble than it was worth.
He was eyeing Prince’s fancy fucking tie with pure malice when the door slammed open, the clatter of Bourbon Street filled the air, and then the lawyer shut the door behind him and walked in. Not, Ajax noted darkly, in any kind of hurry, which might indicate he was aware he’d kept them all waiting.
It reminded him of way back when this same lawyer had showed up to bail Ajax out of jail on some or other charge. He’d been as unimpressed, and as late, back then. Ajax couldn’t really blame him. His entire career was based on the seedier side of New Orleans and all the shit they stirred. He was unimpressible.
On the other hand, he’d kept Ajax’s record pretty clean for a man with his interests and associations. Which didn’t make Ajax any less interested in making him bleed.
“Oh, good, we’re all here,” the man said as he walked toward them, in a Cajun accent that sounded dusted through with powdered sugar. “If any of you don’t know, I’m Jared Dauvers, attorney of record for the recreational organization called the Deacons of Bourbon Street Motorcycle Club”—Dauvers only eyed Prince when he let out a little laugh at that—“and personal attorney to one Theodore Lombard, better known to you all as Priest, I believe.”
“We know who you are,” Blue said. The menace was implied in the way he looked at the much, much smaller man.
But Dauvers only smiled faintly as he set his briefcase down on the table.
“I’m delighted to hear it. Let’s make this quick.” He snapped open the briefcase and pulled out a stack of papers, then proceeded to hand copies out to each of them as he spoke. “This isn’t a movie, so let’s get to the relevant parts that I’m sure most interest you, gentlemen.” He nodded at Sophie as he handed her a will. “And you, of course, ma’am. Approximately ten years ago, in an effort to shift the business enterprises of the Deacons of Bourbon Street Motorcycle Club in a more productive direction—”
“Legitimate,” Cash interrupted, like he was personally offended by the use of a different word. “You mean legitimate.”
“Because I’m pretty sure the previous direction the club was going in was plenty productive,” Prince drawled from his place against the bar’s far wall, his eyes on the lawyer. “If of greater interest to the NOPD, sadly.”
“Oh, cool,” Sophie said, her tone far more amused than that look in her green eyes, and Ajax wondered if he’d made the right call, telling her his suspicions about how Priest had died. Then he wondered why the fuck he was second-guessing himself, like a bitch. “I’ve always wanted to be a Deacon and hear club business. Does this make me, like, a prospect? My daddy would be so proud.”
Ajax had to admire the way she did that, and sure, he had a fucking hard-on all the time where this woman was concerned. But still, she’d managed to cut off a conversation about shit that shouldn’t have been mentioned in front of her and remind everybody that they were there for a reason and it wasn’t a dick-measuring contest.
She was the perfect woman. In his bed and in his life. There wasn’t even the slightest shred of doubt in him.
The lawyer cleared his throat. “The Deacons of Bourbon Street is a recreational club, and as such, participates only in club activities dedicated to enhancing the lives and enjoyment of its members. Theodore Lombard, on the other hand, a local businessman, privately owned a number of properties in the French Quarter, both residential and commercial.”
&n
bsp; He started rattling off names and addresses. Some falling-down, abandoned rich person’s house somewhere in the Quarter that Ajax had no idea why Priest would ever have owned in the first place. All the buildings around the courtyard, from the Priory to the clubhouse—it still pissed him off it was an art gallery, of all things—and the handful of apartments that brothers or other friends of the club had rented over the years and that the woman who ran the gallery and Sophie lived in now. And, of course, the strip joint across the street. All once used for various other reasons by the club, but all now fully tax-paying and law-abiding, which the lawyer managed to say using about seventy more words than necessary.
“All of these properties are to be jointly owned and administered by”—and the lawyer paused, peering around the dim interior of the bar—“the four members of the Deacons of Bourbon Street Mr. Lombard, in his capacity as president of the club, ordered to leave this city ten years ago.” He read off all four of their names, Ajax, Blue, Prince, and Cash, using the full legal name Ajax definitely didn’t need to hear again and thought maybe Dauvers said only because he could. Then the lawyer turned to Sophie. “And to you, his daughter, he leaves his personal effects and the contents of his bank account minus any costs stemming from his funeral, which, by my estimation and allowing for certain vagaries, amounts to about three thousand dollars. Does everybody understand the terms I’ve just outlined?”
For a long moment, no one moved. The bar seemed both tense and abandoned at once. On the street outside, some fool with a trumpet went blaring by, and when he’d moved on the Priory seemed even quieter.
“I don’t want any part of this bullshit,” Cash said, his tone almost venomous.
“You and me both, brother,” Prince said from his corner. “I have a plane to catch. You can fill me in on the details later. I don’t care either way.”
“How quickly can we sell it all off?” Cash demanded, glaring at the lawyer. “This is a prime French Quarter location. We should be able to find a buyer in about thirty seconds.”
Ajax looked at Blue. His brother gazed back at him and the same fury Ajax knew was pounding in him made Blue’s gaze terrible. Same page.
“We’re not fucking selling,” Ajax growled. He shifted his scowl to Prince. “And you’re not going anywhere.”
Prince eyed him, then shifted his gaze to the lawyer.
“Can you read back the part where Ajax is named the boss of me? Because I missed it.”
“Church meets tomorrow,” Ajax bit out, getting to his feet and letting the chair clatter behind him like a gunshot. “You want to vote me out as VP and nominate someone else for president, like maybe your own candy ass? Go nuts and see if you get that unanimous vote. But until then, I’m acting president of the Deacons—”
“What Deacons?”
He didn’t expect that, coming low and dark from the side he wasn’t watching. From Sophie—and he didn’t like how much it felt like a knife in the back. Like a fucking betrayal. He turned to face her. She was pale, her eyes too big and much too dark, clearly too emotional to watch her damned mouth and this wasn’t the place.
“This is none of your business.”
She laughed at that. It was a hollow, awful little sound.
“Because the only Deacons I’ve seen around here the past few days are three old men who can barely wipe their own asses and you-all.” Her tone was withering and her gaze worse as she ran it over the group of men before her. “Two whiny little babies who don’t even want to be here and two giant assholes who act like they never left in the first place.”
“Sophie.”
But she ignored that lash of temper and command that was also her name, like she couldn’t even hear him, though Ajax knew she could. He could see it in that hectic glittering thing that took over her gaze when she glared at him.
He felt that knife go deeper, then twist.
“And yet,” she continued, her voice a mess and that look in her eyes even worse, and he didn’t get how he could want to help her and shut her the fuck up at the same time, “my father took everything that mattered to me and gave it to you. I don’t care about his stupid fucking club. But my job. My home. My life—”
“You need to stop talking,” Ajax growled at her, exactly the same way he’d have said it to anyone who stepped up to him. No quarter. No softness, no matter how much he wanted her. “Now.”
And Sophie stopped then, with a sharp, indrawn breath. She swayed slightly on her feet, and he felt raw and fucked up and twisted all around in a thousand ways inside, and he didn’t know if he wanted to blame her or fuck her or punch a hole through the fucking wall beside his own head.
But this needed to stop. Immediately.
“I’m going to give you a gift because grief makes people do crazy shit,” he hurled at her, making no attempt to contain his temper or modify his tone. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t just disrespect this club, all my brothers, your dead father, and me to my face. This is club business, Sophie. You can either pretend you didn’t just say that shit and start over with a civil fucking tongue in your head, or you can shut the door behind you on your way out. You have three seconds to choose.”
He saw her lips part. He remembered them wrapped around his dick last night, in vivid detail. He saw her gorgeous green eyes cloud over, and he thought if he actually made her cry it would finish him off. He’d done terrible things with his own hands and he slept fine at night but he suspected her tears would be the end of him. Hurting her would destroy him.
And in case he’d been in any remaining doubt about what she meant to him after yesterday, that alien notion cleared it right up.
But he couldn’t let this go. Not here. Not in public, in Deacons territory, in the presence of his brothers, no matter how messed up the club was these days. Not when she’d just shot her mouth off in a way that could get her seriously hurt under different circumstances—like if she’d said anything even remotely that crazy in front of the Devil’s Keepers.
And he knew perfectly well she knew it.
“I’m such a fucking idiot,” she breathed. She wrapped her arms around her belly. “I keep thinking it’s going to be different, but it never is. You’re just like him.” She sent a searing glare around the room. “He made you, didn’t he, and you’re all just like him. You care about one thing and it’s never, ever what matters.” Her haunted green gaze slid back to Ajax. “It’s certainly not me.”
His chest was so tight it felt like he’d cracked a rib. Two or three. “That was your only warning. Next step is me removing you myself.”
“I heard you.”
She was standing in an unnaturally stiff way, still holding herself like she thought she might throw up and looking at him like he could fix it if he wanted, and in all his life Ajax had never felt anything like this. Torn. He wanted to be the thing she held on to. He wanted that more than he knew how to say out loud. But his club was who he was. It was the skin he wore. It was his life.
Sophie knew him. She knew the life. She knew exactly what she was asking him—and she didn’t back down.
And he couldn’t.
She swallowed. Hard. She held his gaze for a long, hard moment, and he didn’t recognize the person who stared back at him.
“Fuck your club, Ajax,” Sophie said quietly and distinctly. “And fuck you.”
And then she walked past him, down that hall that led past her father’s old office where he knew for a fact she’d learned better than this, and out into the midday light. The door shut behind her, quietly enough.
Ajax felt it like a fucking axe to the side of his head.
He wanted to run after her. He needed to run after her. But he made his hands into fists instead and he made himself stand still.
“It’s regrettable that Ms. Lombard isn’t particularly enthusiastic about the distribution of her father’s assets,” the lawyer said into the echoing silence that hung there after she’d gone, like smoke. “But I want to make certain you all—and s
he—are aware that Mr. Lombard was very, very clear about this. He set up his will this way ten years ago and he never deviated.”
Dauvers packed up his briefcase, left his card on the table like they didn’t all have him on speed dial—or had ten years ago, anyway, for all the good it had done when the shit had come down—and walked out the way he’d come in. Lazy and unbothered, like he hadn’t dropped a bombshell on all of them.
Or, Ajax thought grimly, more like he just didn’t care either way.
“Listen,” Cash said, frowning, once it was only the four of them again, “there’s nothing we can do about whatever relationship Priest did or didn’t have with his own daughter—”
“Sophie is mine,” Ajax said.
Or maybe he shouted it. The stunned looks coming back at him suggested he might have roared the whole fucking bar down around them, then leveled the goddamned French Quarter. Good. Message fucking received.
“She’s mine,” he said again, and he knew exactly what he was saying. What he was doing. What it meant to stake this claim, here before his brothers in as close to a sacred spot as he knew, right here where Priest had spent so much of his life. He eyed Cash. “My responsibility, my problem. Her relationship with her father is none of your business.”
Nothing but more of that silence. Then Blue stood up. He nodded at Ajax, then angled himself so he faced the other dickheads. Silently throwing his support and considerable brawn in with Ajax.
Because Blue, at least, wasn’t confused about who he was. About who they were. Like everybody else around here seemed to be—but that was all about to change, goddamn it. Ajax was done with this shit.
And just so there could be absolutely no mistake, Ajax gritted it out a third time. “She’s my property, assholes. Don’t throw her name around unless you want my boot up your ass.”