“Like you have any shit worth stealing,” Ajax scoffed. Then he focused on Boner and let his scowl deepen into pure ferocity. “And your door is the least of your problems tonight.”

He nodded at Blue, who grinned in that icy way of his and stepped forward—and Boner screamed. Actually screamed like someone had kicked him in the ribs, right there beneath the skirt he was apparently wearing, when no one had even touched him. Yet.

Pathetic.

“I’ll tell you whatever you want!” he cried out, the way they all had tonight. One New Orleans miscreant after the next. Ajax and Blue had kicked down doors and reintroduced themselves to old friends all over the Big Easy, and it was the most fun Ajax had allowed himself in years. It felt like old times. “Whatever you want!”

We’re gonna take a little inventory, Ajax had muttered outside the Priory, Sophie’s fucking smart mouth still biting at him and the feel of her chin in his palm like a burn. He’d had to shake it off, stamp it down deep, and preparing to kick a little ass was the only way he knew how to do that.

Not me, Prince had said, no surprise, the pansy.

Afraid you might get some blood on your pretty dress? Ajax had sneered.

More that I don’t give a shit, Prince had replied. I’m here to pay my respects to Priest, not play these stupid games with you.

Do I look like I’m playing a game, motherfucker? Ajax had demanded, even though it wasn’t Prince’s ass he’d wanted to kick. He was flexible.

With me or with Priest’s daughter, asshole? Prince had thrown right back, and Ajax had gone for him. Only Blue’s intervention had held him back from planting his fist in the smug bastard’s face.

He and Prince had glared at each other while the tourists veered around them.

Get out of my face, Ajax had growled.

With pleasure, Prince had retorted. He’d looked at Blue. I’ll be at my hotel. Still not giving a shit.

Blue had grunted, which could have been anything from commiseration to a raised middle finger, and Prince had pranced off to go play grab ass with himself and his shiny new suits. Dick.

Then Ajax and Blue had celebrated their homecoming the way it deserved to be celebrated. With blood.

“What do you want to know?” Boner asked again now, his voice getting higher as Blue moved toward him with that dark intent Ajax recognized and had missed. He’d really missed it all. His brothers. His life. “Come on. I’ll tell you anything you want to know! Anything!”

Ajax grinned, and pushed himself away from the wall. Vacation time was over.

“Oh,” he said quietly, and with great satisfaction, “I know you will, Boner.”

And then they went to work.

—

It was already light out when Ajax climbed back up the stairs to the rambling old apartment above the quiet Priory and let himself in. He was tired and hurting a little bit in that bone-deep, satisfying way that meant he’d kicked some decent ass over the past few hours but hadn’t yet stiffened up. That would come. He kicked off his boots and shrugged out of his cut in the kitchen, taking care to hang it neatly over the nearest chair before he moved to the sink to wash the dried blood and the dregs of too many scumbags off his knuckles and his heavy rings. Then he moved into the living room and dropped onto the sofa, clicking on the television and inspecting his battered hands in the morning light.

Not bad, he thought.

He didn’t look toward Sophie’s fucking bedroom door, no matter how it loomed there, taunting him.

He didn’t get instantly painfully hard at the thought that she was right there on the other side of a slab of wood that he knew he could kick open in an instant, the way he’d been taking turns doing all night all across the city—not that any amount of knocking heads together had made him forget about Sophie for even a second.

He didn’t ask himself why he hadn’t wrapped shit up a little earlier so he could get his ass home to all that sweetness of hers, made that much better because it came wrapped up in so much attitude.

Because all of that was fucking crazy. The ramblings of some loser handcuffed to a nine-to-five life with some housewife door prize. Not Ajax. Not ever.

He wasn’t here for some bitch, no matter how hard his cock got at the thought of her. He and Blue had spent a long night taking stock of every lowlife who had managed to live through the storm and the past decade who’d had any kind of connection to Priest or the Deacons. Taking stock and taking note. Building a new map of this city that had rolled right along without them. Marking down every betrayal that needed to be addressed and filing away every scrap of information they could beat out of the scumbags who oozed along the streets and into the gutters, hopped up on junk and preying on whatever they could find a little lower down than themselves.

Things looked a little bit different today, here in New Orleans. And Ajax knew that his idea of a satisfying night on the town would have repercussions all over the city this morning. He was counting on it.

He was flexing his hand out flat in front of him to see if it actually hurt or was just aching a little when Sophie’s door opened, and everything inside him went hard. Tight and tense. He told himself it was just him getting a little pissed at the interruption, the way it should have been, but his dick knew better.

Ajax scowled at her. She looked like she’d just rolled out of that soft bed of hers and, God help him, he didn’t want to be sitting on this couch. He wanted the life where he walked in after a long night and found a little peace between this woman’s soft thighs. Where he could pound out the rest of his aggression into her hot little pussy and make her scream until the blood was out of his head, and then he could haul her close and wrap himself around her and—

What. The. Fuck.

He was no fucking house cat. He hated that shit.

“I didn’t hear you come in,” Sophie said.

It only made things worse. She was in a pair of cotton shorts and another one of her goddamned tank tops, all soft and rumpled and sexy, everything a little jiggly and sleepy. All her dark hair was piled high on her head, her legs were long and formed like a fucking wet dream, and he wanted to put his beat-up fists through the wall.

“Don’t recall putting a collar with a bell on it around my dick,” Ajax growled at her.

Sophie blinked.

She shifted, but only slightly, and only someone who was already paying too much attention to her would have noticed anyway, it was so gradual. Her green eyes darkened as they focused in on him. Her chin lifted into a much haughtier line. She eyed him for a minute like he was one of the pieces of shit he’d kicked around all night, with the stink of the gutter still on him, and then she turned and walked into the kitchen instead of answering him.

As if she was all alone in this apartment and he’d never said a word.

And Ajax fucking hated that.

He seethed, trying to keep that driving fury in him under control, and punched out new channels on the television without paying any attention to whatever the hell was happening onscreen. It took everything he had to stay where he was, sprawled out on the couch like he was relaxing, instead of going in there and expressing his irritation all over her. It was a hard, vicious battle and it only pissed him off. And while he sat there fighting himself, he could hear Sophie moving around the kitchen with a certain efficiency that rubbed at him like sandpaper. Like she was doing it to him.

It only took her a few moments to come out with a mug of coffee from that one-cup coffeemaker on the counter, but it felt like years to Ajax. Very angry, bitter, infuriating years.

“What’s the problem?” he gritted out. “You pissed off that I didn’t come sniffing around after you, Sophie? You wait up for me and cry into your pillow when I didn’t show?”