2. Judge
JUDGE
Shay opens the door, and the sight of her hits me almost as hard as seeing the little girl did this afternoon. She's changed into soft gray shorts and a faded black shirt, her dark hair twisted up loosely. Bare legs and bare feet.
I'm this close to her again, and my body recognizes her before my head catches up with the reason I'm standing here.
Her daughter, the child with my eyes.
“We stay on the porch,” Shay says.
Her voice is cold enough to remind me that wanting her is the least important thing happening tonight. She steps outside and leaves the front door cracked. The porch is narrow, with two old chairs beneath the window, but she doesn't sit or invite me to.
I grip the railing instead. “Tell me.”
“You already worked it out.”
“I need to hear it from you.”
Her eyes meet mine. “Evie is yours.”
For a second, I don't understand the words. I know what they mean. I knew the moment I looked at the girl, but hearing Shay say them knocks something loose inside me.
“Mine?”
“Yes.”
“I have a daughter?” The question sounds stupid as soon as it leaves my mouth, but I can't stop staring at Shay as though she might tell me I heard wrong, but she doesn't.
My knees go weak enough that I lower myself into one of the chairs before my body makes the decision for me. I have a four-year-old daughter, a whole person who exists in the world because of me, and I didn't know her name until today.
“Jesus Christ, Shay.”
She flinches at the volume and glances toward the open door.
I lower my voice, but not the disbelief in it. “I've got a fucking child?”
“Yes, Judge.”
“How old exactly?”
“Four. She'll be five in October.”
“When did you find out?”
“A few weeks after I left.”
The shock twists into something sharper. “You knew when you were pregnant and didn't tell me?”
Her entire expression changes. “Don't you dare.”
I stand again. “I'm trying to understand.”
“No. You're looking at me like I stole something from you.”
“You knew where I was.”
“And I came back.”
The anger drops out of me so fast it leaves cold behind. “What do you mean?”
“I was six months pregnant when I came back to Ransom. I went to the compound because I thought you had a right to know, even after everything you'd said to me.”
“I never saw you.”
“I know.”
Shay gives me a hard, humorless look. “King met me at the gate.”
The name settles heavily between us. King our old president had been a ruthless bastard who ruled the club with an iron fist and treated every person around him as something he either owned or could use.
He's been dead for months, but the old man has still found another way to reach out of the ground and fuck with our lives.
“What did he say?”
“That you knew where I'd gone. That if you wanted me back, you would've come for me.”
My hands curl at my sides.
“He said the club didn't need a baby tying you down. Then he warned me that staying near Kingdom Come would put my child in danger.”
“I didn't know that he’d done that. He never told me you were there.”
I turn away because if King were alive right now, I'd kill him with my bare hands.
He knew Shay was pregnant. He knew I was going to have a child. He sent her away, then walked back through the compound gates as though he hadn't taken something from me that I can never get back.
First steps. First words. Four birthdays. Every ordinary day in between.
“He stole four years from me.”
Shay's laugh is bitter. “No. He finished what you started.”
I turn back.
“You made him believable,” she says. “That's the part you don't get to put on King. You told me I'd only ever been temporary. You told me the club would always come first and that you were done with me.”
“I lied.”
“You were very convincing.”
“I needed you to leave.”
“That doesn't make it better.”
“No.”
“Then don't stand there as though the reason wipes out what you did.”
I lean back against the rail, putting space between us before I forget I have no right to touch her.
“King used one of the brothers' women during a dispute,” I say. “He knew the men we were dealing with had noticed her routine, so he let them think she was unprotected. Used her to draw them out.”
Shay's anger stills. “Did she know?”
“No.”
“Was she hurt?”
“Yes.”
The memory is clear even now. Blood across a pale shirt. A brother carrying his woman into the clubhouse while King talked about the result as if she hadn't mattered.
“I knew then that anybody I loved could become leverage,” I say. “Not only to our enemies. To King.”
“So you got rid of me before anybody could use me.”
“Yes.”
“You could've told me.”
“You wouldn't have left.”
“You don't know that.”
“I knew you.”
Her face twists. “You knew the woman I was then. You didn't own her. But you decided anyway.”
“I felt like I had no choice.” The admission costs less than pretending I had the right.
“I couldn't leave the club,” I say. “Kane was trapped under King too. There were brothers depending on us, families depending on the club, and enemies who would've followed me if I walked. Kane and I both knew the club had to change. We didn't know when we'd get the chance.”
“So you made me hate you.”
“I thought it was the only way you'd go.”
“And you were right.” Her eyes shine, but her voice stays furious. “I left because you made me believe I meant nothing to you.”
“You meant everything.”
“Then you should've trusted me with the truth.”
“I should have.”
“You should've let me choose.”
“I know, but it felt right at the time.”
She presses her lips together, fighting whatever wants to come out next. I look at the woman I've wanted every day since she left and understand that no explanation can return those years to her either.
“I'm sorry,” I say. “Not because King lied. I'm sorry because I made sure you'd believe him.”
Her throat moves. It isn't forgiveness. I don't expect it to be.
“What happens now?” I ask.
“Nothing happens now.”
“She's my daughter Shay.”
“And she doesn't know you.”
“I want to know her.”
“That isn't enough.”
“No. But it's where I'm starting.”
Shay folds her arms. “You don't walk into her life and claim her because you saw her once on Main Street.”
“I'm not walking away.”
“You did before.”
“I won't again.”
Her eyes flash. “You don't get to make promises I'm expected to trust five minutes after explaining why your last ones were lies.”
Anger sparks beneath the guilt. Not at her. At all the truth in what she's saying. “I'm asking to see my daughter.”
“And I'm telling you it'll be on my terms.”
“Fine.”
She blinks, as though she expected me to fight harder.
“Tomorrow,” she says. “Half past five. Here. I'll be in the room, and you don't tell her who you are.”
The words cut, but I nod.
“She doesn't call you Daddy. She doesn't get promises. Not yet.”
“I understand that you're protecting her from me.”
Her expression flickers.
“And I understand why,” I add.
For a moment, neither of us speaks. The porch light buzzes overhead. Somewhere down the street, a dog starts barking. Shay looks tired suddenly. Angry, beautiful, and exhausted.
Want hits me again, hot enough to feel wrong in the middle of everything else. My gaze drops to her mouth.
She notices. “Don't.”
It isn't a strong enough word.
“You're looking at me too.”
“I'm furious with you.”
“I can see that.”
She shoves both hands against my chest and I catch her wrists on instinct.
The contact turns the air between us combustible. Her palms are trapped over the hard beat of my heart, and her breathing changes as the anger in her eyes shifts into something just as dangerous. Time hasn't killed this. It's only made it meaner.
“Let go,” she says.
My grip loosens, but she doesn't pull away. “Tell me you don't want me.”
Her mouth parts. “You don't get to ask me that.”
“Because you can't say it?”
“I hate you right now.”
“Then hate me.”
I kiss her. There's nothing gentle about it.
Shay makes an angry sound against my mouth, and for half a second I expect her to shove me away. Instead, she grabs my cut and kisses me back hard enough to split my control wide open.
I turn us, putting her against the porch wall as her mouth opens beneath mine. Every memory of her tastes like nothing compared with the real thing. She bites my lower lip. I groan and grip her hips, dragging her against me so she can feel exactly what she still does to me.
Her body arches and I kiss her harder, swallowing the sound she makes as my hand slides beneath the loose edge of her shirt. Warm skin meets my palm. My fingers spread over her waist, remembering how she used to fit beneath my hands and discovering every way she's changed.
“Fuck, Shay.”
She tangles one hand in my hair and pulls, anger in every stroke of her tongue against mine.
This isn't reconciliation. It's a fight with our mouths.
My lips move down her throat. She trembles when I find the place beneath her ear, and the familiar reaction nearly destroys what's left of my control.
“I never stopped wanting you,” I say against her skin.
“Shut up.” She says breathlessly.
“Every fucking day.”
She pulls my mouth back to hers. My hand moves higher beneath her shirt. My thumb brushes the underside of her breast, and she gasps, her hips pressing into the thick length of me.
Then she freezes and I stop.
Her eyes open, dazed for a second before anger and reality return.
“No.”
I remove my hand and step back, though it takes everything I have.
Shay pulls her shirt down with shaking fingers. “That can't happen.”
“It just did.”
“It doesn't mean I forgive you.”
“I didn't think it did.”
“It doesn't mean we're getting back together.”
I look at her swollen mouth. “No. It means we still want each other.”
“That's all it means.”
She needs that to be true tonight, so I don't push. “I'll be here at five thirty.”
Her chin lifts. “Don't be late.”
She watches me walk to the gate, and I feel her gaze between my shoulder blades until I start my bike.
Kane calls church at nine the next morning.
I take my usual seat at his right hand and Tank lowers himself into the chair opposite me.
Cash sits beside him, turning a toothpick between his fingers.
Gray takes the next place, quiet as ever but paying attention to everything.
Griz and Chains sit farther down and the other brothers take their places too.
Kane rests his forearms on the table. “Cal Mercer's changed the job.” The room settles.
King accepted Mercer's money before he died. Kingdom Come was supposed to collect a debt from a criminal associate named Reddick. Straight business between men who chose the life.
Now Reddick has disappeared.
“Mercer wants the sister,” Kane says. “And they want to hold her until Reddick comes back.”
“Is she involved?” Gray asks.
“No,” I answer. “Works at an elementary school. No record. No part in her brother's business.”
Tank's expression hardens.
Cash removes the toothpick from his mouth. “Then she isn't the job.”
A small sound comes from Griz's end of the table, more acknowledgment than agreement.
Kane slides a thick envelope toward me. “The advance is all there. Take it back and tell Mercer the deal's dead. This isn’t who we are now.”
There's no discussion between us. Kane already knows where I stand, and I know what he's building Kingdom Come into.
We'll collect from criminals. Hurt them if the job demands it. We don't drag innocent women into their mess.
“I'll handle it.”
Tank shifts forward. “Want company?”
“No. If Mercer tries something, I'll call you.” Tank sits back, almost disappointed.
“Make the line clear.” Kane says.
“It will be.”
Mercer chooses an abandoned warehouse twelve miles outside town.
He's waiting beside a folding table with three men when I walk in. Expensive shirt, clean boots, and the smug expression of a man used to having violence done for him.
I drop the envelope in front of him. “Your money.”
He doesn't touch it. “I paid for a result.”
“You paid us to collect from Reddick.”
“The sister will bring him back.”
“She isn't part of it.”
Mercer smiles. “King understood leverage.”
“King's dead.”
“And Kane's gone soft.”
I hold his gaze. “If you mistake a line for weakness, that's your problem.” I turn toward the door.
One of his men blocks it. Another reaches for my arm. I catch his wrist, turn, and drive him face-first into the concrete before the others get their hands near their weapons. The impact cracks through the warehouse. I wrench his arm behind him and look at Mercer while the man chokes beneath me.
“If they draw, all three go down.”
Mercer studies me, then raises one hand. His men stop.
I release the one on the floor and straighten. “The agreement's over. Find Reddick yourself.”
Mercer's smile is gone. “This isn't finished.”
“For Kingdom Come, it is.” I leave him beside his returned money and ride back to Ransom.
At five twenty-seven, I knock on Shay's door.
She opens it, glances at the paper bag in my hand, and narrows her eyes. “What's that?”
“Crayons.”
“You bought her a present?”
“And a coloring book.”
“No attempting to buy her.”
“Understood, but it’s just something small.”
Evie is sitting at the small table, drawing circles across a sheet of paper. She looks up when I enter. The same shock hits me again, this is my daughter. I crouch beside her chair.
“You came back,” she says.
“I said I would.”
“No, you didn't.”
I glance at Shay. She folds her arms. “She's right.”
“Then I should've said it when I saw you.”
Evie considers me with that serious little frown. “Are you coming back tomorrow too?”
The question catches somewhere behind my ribs and I don't tell her yes until Shay says I can.
“I'll come whenever your mom says it's okay.”
Evie looks at Shay. After a long second, Shay gives one small nod.
“Tomorrow,” she says.
I turn back to Evie. “Then I'll be here tomorrow.”
She accepts that and pushes a red crayon toward me. “You can do some drawing too.”
I take the crayon and sit beside her. For tonight, it's enough and also everything.