Page 24 of Judge’s Redemption

“They do,” Judge agrees.

I drive to preschool with Judge ahead of us and Gray behind. Cash waits across the road while Judge walks Evie to the door with me, but he doesn’t touch her until she takes his hand first.

When she disappears inside, his fingers remain curled as if he can still feel hers.

“You all right?” I ask.

“No.” He looks at the preschool door. “I missed her first day. I missed all of them.”

The grief in his voice isn't aimed at me. He isn't asking me to make it better.

I touch his arm before I can think better of it. “We can't change that.”

“No, I know”

“But you were here today.” His eyes meet mine. For once, I don't pull away.

Back at the compound, Judge goes straight into church. I don't see the meeting, but I hear the shape of it through the closed door. Kane's voice, low and controlled; Judge answering; Cash giving locations; Tank asking one blunt question that silences the room.

I sit at the end of the clubhouse bar with coffee I don't want, watching brothers who aren’t in the meeting move through the common room. Some nod to me. One offers breakfast. Another carries a locked gun case toward the rear hall.

This is what Judge meant when he said the club is his life. Not the bikes alone, the leather, or the painted emblem on the wall. The constant readiness. The certainty that when one of them is threatened, the others close ranks without needing to be asked.

Kingdom Come hasn't become safe by becoming less dangerous. It's safe for me because every dangerous man inside these gates knows where Judge has drawn the line.

The church door opens. Kane comes out first. Cash catches his arm and passes him a page torn from a notebook. “The warehouse lease connects Mercer to a Cape Girardeau crew,” Cash says. “Looks like Reddick's debt was supposed to fill a hole Mercer made in their money.”

Kane scans the page. “Confirmed?”

“Close. Give me another hour.”

“Get it solid, then make the call.”

They move away before I hear more, but Mercer's confidence suddenly makes less sense. He isn't only trying to collect a debt. He's trying to hide a failure from men above him. Tank follows them outside, rolling his shoulders as though disappointed nobody needs hitting yet.

Judge's eyes find me immediately. He crosses the room and places one hand at the back of my neck. The touch is possessive enough to draw heat low in my belly, but his thumb brushes gently beneath my hair.

“Evie's covered,” he says. “Gray will be outside the school until pickup.”

“And you?”

“Here for the next hour.”

The way he says it changes my breathing. Judge feels it beneath his palm. “Come with me.”

The door to his room closes behind us.

For the first time since arriving at the compound, we're completely alone. Evie is safely at preschool. Armed men guard the gates. Nobody needs me for the next hour.

Judge stands between me and the door, watching carefully. He doesn't reach for me, but I step closer and put both hands against his chest. “I don't want this because I'm scared.”

I slide my hands beneath his cut and push it from his shoulders. Judge catches it before it hits the floor and hangs it over the chair. Even now, he treats the leather like part of him.

Then he turns back to me. “What do you want, Shay?”

The question undoes something inside me. Five years ago, he decided what I could survive. Today, he asks.

“You,” I say. “But this time, I choose how.”