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“I did,” Stella answered him. “She turned it down.”
Judge frowned. “Why?”
“She didn’t tell you?” Stella asked.
“Why the fuck would she tell me?”
“Oh, I don’t know... Maybe because someone saw her sneaking out of your apartment early Sunday morning?”
His frown deepened. “Who?”
“Does it matter?”
Fuck no, it didn’t. Not really.
But, shit, that meant the word already spread if Trip and Stella knew. The club was full of gossips who couldn’t keep their fucking mouth shut. Just like in high school.
Stella leaned over the bar toward him. “Don’t scare away my newest employee, Judge. We need her and she’s good at her job.”
“She needs this fuckin’ job, she ain’t gonna scare easy.”
“How’s he gonna scare her away? With his big dick?” Trip wrapped an arm around his ol’ lady.
“Oh, you have a big dick?” Stella wiggled her eyebrows at Judge, then bumped her shoulder into Trip’s. “Is it too late to switch ol’ lady cuts?”
“Woman, my dick might not be as big as the Jolly Green Giant’s here, but I got a golden fuckin’ tongue.” He stuck it out and wiggled it.
Stella elbowed the club prez in the gut and he dropped his arm from around her. “So, what are we talking here, Judge? A one-night thing?”
“Why you care?” Trip asked her.
Stella shrugged. “Just want to know if I need to be prepared for a scorned, broken-hearted employee.”
“What we did had nothin’ to do with hearts.”
Trip grinned.
“Done talkin’ about that shit. Ain’t no one’s biz. Need to talk to you about something else, prez.”
Trip’s grin flipped upside down. “Need to set up a meet?”
Judge took a long sip of his beer. “Not yet. Wanted to talk to you about it first. Give you a head’s up.”
Stella straightened. “I’ll go wipe down some tables.”
“Stel,” Judge stopped her. “Don’t care if you hear this.”
“Is it club business?” she asked.
“Yeah. But might need your help convincin’ your ol’ man.”
Stella’s blue eyes narrowed. “Convince him to do what?”
“Not likin’ this,” Trip grumbled.
“Yeah, well. Not likin’ what happened to Autumn. We fucked up. And it’s been eatin’ at me. I fucked up as your brother sittin’ at the table to your left. Didn’t want to take the Sergeant at Arms spot, knew how dirty it could be. Ignored my gut instinct, anyway. Became my job to protect the club’s property, but fucked up. Autumn got snagged on my watch.”
“She wasn’t the club’s property, Judge,” Stella reminded him.
“The fuck she wasn’t. Sig claimed her the second he brought her back to the farm. We all knew it. Just wasn’t official.”
“Did our best,” Trip said softly.
Judge knew Trip didn’t believe that, and he shouldered a lot of the guilt, too.
They both did.
“Shoulda had someone on her ass at all times. We got sloppy. No, I got fuckin’ sloppy. This is all on me. It’s my responsibility.”
“She’s fine,” Trip assured him.
“Yeah, now. Thank fuck. But what if they had...” He tugged on his beard. “Those motherfuckers had enough time to really fuckin’ hurt her. Kill her, kill that baby.”
None of them said a fucking word because it was true. That also weighed heavily on him.
“’Cause of all that shit, she ended up havin’ Levi early.”
“Only two weeks, Judge. He was fine. They both were,” Stella reminded him.
“Again, thank fuck. What if it had been two months early? What if he woulda died? What if she did?”
“Judge.”
Judge threw up a hand. He was done talking about it.
He’d failed.
It was his job to keep everyone safe and he’d failed.
He finally said what he’d been wanting to say since they came off the Shirleys’ mountain that night. “Need to find a new enforcer.”
“Bullshit,” Trip growled, his body tightening up. Stella put a hand on her ol’ man’s arm and he visibly loosened a bit.
“Ain’t like my pop. Ain’t a job for me. Told you that when you originally came to me about it.”
“Judge—”
“Trip, ain’t for me.”
Trip shook his head. “Not acceptin’ you leavin’ the club.”
“Not leavin’ the club. Just that spot at the table.”
“Not acceptin’ that, either. You’re the goddamn perfect person for it. Your pop was the Fury’s enforcer and you saw how he handled shit.”
“That’s the fuckin’ problem, brother. Look what fuckin’ happened to him. Promised myself and Jemma I wouldn’t follow in his fuckin’ footsteps and here the fuck I am.” Not only wearing the Fury cut, but his father’s patch, sitting in his goddamn seat.
“And I said the same fuckin’ thing about me followin’ in Buck’s, Judge. And here we the fuck are. Doin’ it right this time. Rightin’ all the fuckin’ wrongs.”
“Are we, though? What fuckin’ wrongs are we rightin’?” Judge asked him.
“We’re buildin’ a brotherhood that’s unbreakable.”
“You try hard enough, brother, everything’s breakable.”
Trip shook his head, hooking Stella around the neck with his elbow and pulling her into him. She was his rock. She was who kept his temper to a low simmer when it could easily become an erupting volcano.
