“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 she—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.