Judge (Shady Valley Henchmen 1)

It was no secret around Shady Valley that the Murphy family patriarch—Delaney’s father Brendan—had a younger brother, Rory, who had a chronic alcohol and hard drug problem thanks to a bullet he took during a work rift that left him with chronic pain.

It wasn’t unusual to find Rory passed out in one of the alleys in town, and to need to seek out Brendan or even one of the boys to drag him home, so he could sober up.

Clearly, that had left quite an impact on a young Delaney. So much so that it made her paranoid in adulthood to take prescribed medication for an assault.

Slash saw the wince and sighed. “Look, if it makes you feel better, I’ll drag your ass to rehab myself if you end up with a problem.”

With that, he walked off, leaving Dell to let out a strange snorting laugh.

“Oddly, that kind of makes me feel better,” she admitted.

“Why didn’t you call me?” I asked. “I could have brought coffee up to you.”

“You just didn’t want me to see that,” she said, waving toward the living area where Raff was passed out across the back of the couch wearing nothing but black boxer briefs and a single ladies knee sock in a pink and white striped pattern.

“That is a tough one to explain,” I agreed, nodding.

“Not really. The other one of those socks is on Sway’s doorknob,” Dell said, smiling. “This place is insane.”

“Not the best place to recover, huh?” I asked.

“Are you kidding? It’s perfect. It keeps me distracted, so I don’t start feeling too sorry for myself.”

“You earned the right to feel sorry for yourself,” I reminded her.

“I don’t want to feel sorry for myself,” she said, moving over toward me to press her face into my chest, her one arm going around me. “I’m too happy to feel sorry for myself.”

Her words made a warm sensation move across my chest.

It was something new. But it had been happening a lot.

And I had a feeling I knew what it was.

It felt too soon.

And I knew nothing about such things.

But I was pretty sure it was love.

“Dell, I…” I started, but got interrupted by the sound of Raff falling off the back of the couch and slamming to the ground.

“If you wanted to get rough, baby, you should have… oh,” Raff said, eyes opening to realize there was no gorgeous woman wanting to get kinky.

“You lost her to Sway,” Dell informed him.

“Well, if ever there was a worthy opponent for the affections of lovely ladies,” Raff said, getting to his feet and reaching for one of the random bottles of beer on the coffee table so he could take a long swig. “Who wants to go to the diner?” he asked, turning and making his way toward the door.

“Ah, Raff?” she called.

“Yeah, babe?” he called, opening the front door.

“You might want to put something on,” she said.

“Right, right,” he said, reaching for a leather cut, and slipping it on before moving outside.

“You know, I could go for the diner,” she said, looking up at me. “Go grab your brother some pants and I’ll meet you out by the car,” she said, going to take a few steps away before turning back with a giant smile. “Have I mentioned that I really, really love it here?”

“Only about five times a day.”

“Well, I really mean it,” she told me. She got to the door before turning back again. “And, just so you know, I really, really love you too,” she said, then rushed outside before she could see what I had to say to that.

Delaney - 3 weeks

“Girl, trust me, you will hear them coming back,” Nyx said, shaking her head at me when I went to the window in her apartment to look toward the clubhouse again.

I was being a little ridiculous. Even I could admit to that.

But I’d been worried sick about Jass since he went out of town on a drop.

It was silly.

I mean, I’d been dealing with the uncertainty that came with having your loved ones involved in criminal activities literally my entire life.

But, I don’t know, it just felt different now.

It had only been about a day and a half.

I’d spent the night with Nyx because the idea of staying at the clubhouse alone was as unappealing as going back to my childhood bedroom.

That part of my life just felt over now.

I’d even moved a bunch of my stuff into the room at the clubhouse.

Jass had allowed me to do whatever I wanted to do to decorate the blank slate of the oversized room, so I’d been having the time of my life nesting.

Did some part of me know that, someday, we were going to need to get a home outside of the clubhouse? Of course. It wasn’t exactly the place for children, what with all the nudity and such.