There was nothing but that steady, hard, certain look in his blue eyes, and it gave her the strength to walk to him. Head high, eyes clear.

She would make her daddy proud. And Ajax, too. One way or another.

“You can do this,” he told her as she drew close, his voice as dark and deep as the engine beneath him.

“I can,” Sophie said, and in that moment, with his gaze on her like that, she believed it.

She swung into place behind him, letting her hand rest on the strip of Priest’s T-shirt Ajax wore wrapped once around his biceps, then settled herself into position. The long black dress she wore had a slit up one side that let her straddle his bike, and she made sure it fell the way it was supposed to—like long pants. This wasn’t about exposing herself. This was about honoring her father.

Sophie didn’t wear a helmet, either. She just looped her arms around Ajax and held on as he revved his engine and then took off, one great and mighty roar through the shadows of the alley and then out into the blinding light of Bourbon Street.

She had only a quick impression of the crowded street. Tourists pressed to either side and bikes stretching back down the block. So many bikes. Then down the next block. One man to each motorcycle, except for Ajax, who carried Priest’s only known family member.

They all revved their engines, and it fused with the machine between her legs and the hard back of the man in front of her, a great and glorious howl of unendurable loss. It roared down Bourbon Street and echoed off the delicately wrought French-style balconies. It bounced back from the tall buildings lining Canal Street in the distance. It became the very air.

It lodged deep inside of Sophie, like some kind of primal recognition.

Then Ajax made a curt signal with his hand in the air, and they began to move.

It was a fifteen-minute ride out to the funeral home, and as much as she hated the reason for it, Sophie couldn’t deny the deep thrill she got from being at the head of so many powerful machines and so many dangerous men. The sense of rightness that started at the top of her head and wound its way down to her feet.

The procession was slow. Police waved them through intersections and civilians in their cars stopped and gawked. Children pointed, as if the wave of bikes was a roll of thunder, storming through the Louisiana morning.

Sophie sat tall. This was all for her father, this show of respect. This was what he’d earned in his life, year after year of commitment to his ideals and his beliefs and his brothers. She couldn’t help but take pride in that. In him.

At the funeral home, the hearse pulled into the convoy and they headed for the cemetery, slower. Making sure that Priest’s last ride was smooth and righteous.

Sophie held on to Ajax as if he was her anchor, and he never wavered. He sat there, imposing and stoic at once, as they rolled through the gates and into the typical New Orleans cemetery with its aboveground tombs and the ghostly little alleyways between them that made them into cities of the dead.

They pulled up as near as they could get to Priest’s chosen tomb, and Sophie climbed off the bike. She waited until Ajax stood beside her, and for the rest of the Deacons to fall into place behind them. She heard the rippling effect of all that quiet as the rows upon rows of bikes went silent.

Sophie didn’t care if it made her look weak, because she didn’t feel weak—but she wanted that connection. She needed it. She held on to Ajax’s strong, tough arm as they walked the last little way, like any bereaved member of the family would with such a ruthless guide at her—

But they were stopped before they could reach the tomb. By the same officer who had been at the funeral home yesterday, and what appeared to be a few of his friends.

“That’s far enough,” he barked at them, all puffed-up chest and hands on his hips. He directed his scowl at Ajax. “I think we’re going to have anyone in one of those vests stay on this side of the tomb during the interment. We don’t want a situation.”

Beneath her hand, Sophie felt Ajax go rock hard and lethal.

Behind her, she heard the kind of muttering from the assembled men that sounded like Harley engines revving and could end only in blood.

“There is no situation,” Sophie said, loud and calm and clear. “This is my father’s funeral and these are my father’s friends. They’re invited guests.”

“They’re criminals,” one of the other cops muttered derisively, and Sophie gripped Ajax’s arm harder when he focused all his fierce blue attention on the sound.

And worse, grinned.

“I’m sure you’re mistaken,” she said crisply, before Ajax could say something far more inflammatory. “And even if you’re not mistaken, attending a funeral is not a criminal act. You need to step aside.”

“I told you yesterday, Ms. Lombard, that we need to keep a handle on things,” the first officer told her in that same sanctimonious voice, with that same inflection on Ms. he’d used the day before. “Why don’t you tell your guard dog to back down.”

And he made the great mistake of waving a dismissive hand at Ajax, who actually growled. And tensed even further, as if he was about to launch himself directly at the officer’s smug face, and Sophie couldn’t have that. She couldn’t allow it.

Not if she could stop it.

“His name is Ajax,” Sophie snapped. Ajax went very still beside her and beneath the hand she was digging into his arm, but she couldn’t look at him. She was too busy staring down the line of cops before her. “I suggest you call the man you’re insulting by name.”

“Ma’am,” the cop began.

But Sophie kept going, even though she could feel Ajax boring holes into the side of her head with that gaze of his, intense and wild. She was sure it would leave scars, but she’d handle that later.

“I would also suggest that you treat him with the respect he deserves,” she bit out, still cool and sharp. “That you respect the fact he’s the acting president of the same club my father ran and that all these men here take very seriously. That you find a way to respect the fact that regardless of your opinions, they are all here to honor my father. But if you can’t bring yourself to do any of that, respect this.” She drew herself up to her full height and glared at Officer Douchebag as if she expected him to burst into flame with the force of it. And the truth was, she did. “This is a family service and you are trespassing. And unless you plan to arrest every single one of us, I’d suggest you step aside.” She paused the barest instant. “Now.”

There was a taut, brilliant sort of silence. It stretched out from the six cops to Sophie and Ajax, then rolled out behind them into that great sea of bikers who, Sophie knew without a single word being spoken, had her back in every conceivable way.

The policemen blinked, one after the other. They exchanged shifty sorts of looks. And then they stepped back.

It was a measure of the respect due the occasion that no one cheered, Sophie thought, but it was a close thing. For her, anyway.

Ajax led Sophie past the clump of antsy officers, acting as if they weren’t there. Only when they stopped at the entrance to the raised tomb and nodded a greeting toward the waiting minister did he turn to look down at her.

His expression was so fierce, so deeply intense, it made her skin feel singed.

“That was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” he said, in a voice thick with power and need and a hundred other things that made her heart skip in her chest, then begin to bloom a little bit. Pain or pleasure, she couldn’t tell. She didn’t care. It was all Ajax. It was all this. Then his voice got even lower. “You are. I don’t think I’m gonna let you go, Sophie. I don’t see that happening.”

“Ajax,” she whispered.