Fool Me Once [dark romance]

Murphy
Her face split into a grin as she gripped the embossed cashier's check in her hand. Her husband would be shocked to be handed such a large sum, especially from her, seemingly out of nowhere. Murphy wanted to make his doctorate degree go a little smoother, and paying his tuition in full would do just that. Murphy walked from the bank and turned the corner, tucking the check into her shoulder bag. She had a meeting with her second-in-command, Jude Black, in less than ten minutes. He had been keeping watch over her club for the past few hours, making sure no one hauled ass to the wrong side of the tracks. Building her own empire had been years in the making and she was finally beginning to see the fruit of her labor. She hesitated before pulling the heavy metal door open, leading into her warehouse. No, she thought, she wouldn't let anything fuck this up. She couldn't.

Jude
Being second-in-command was a job with little benefits. But working with Murph? That was a no-brainer and she had approached Jude years ago about creating her own world, he didn't have to think twice. They had been friends since they were basically teenagers, trying to fumble their way through high school. Murph was there when his mother died; she knew how it felt. Jude was her best man in her wedding five years ago. He watched as Clark Henderson swept her off her feet and twirled her through the air, high on love. He wanted nothing more than for Murph to be happy and it was all coming together. The club was thriving, turning profit at every Friday Night Fight and he crawled to his own studio on Saturday mornings, painting the canvases that lined his walls. He should have gone to school for it, at least that's what Murph always told him, then she would let out a breathy laugh and thank him for sticking by her when no one else would. He would shrug her off and go back to it, the blood not fully dry on his forearms before picking up his brushes, a secret on the tip of its bristles.