Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
Monk
The word hit me like a bullet to the chest.
Mom.
A child’s voice. High-pitched, innocent. Calling from somewhere outside the barn.
“Momma!”
My entire body went rigid, every muscle locking up as though I had been frozen solid in an instant.
My world tilted sideways, the edges of my vision blurring and darkening, as the barn spun around me in dizzying, nauseating circles.
For a second, I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think.
Couldn’t process what I had just heard. The words echoed in my head, repeating over and over, but they made no sense.
They couldn’t be real. This couldn’t be happening.
My heart hammered against my ribs so hard I thought it might break through, and my legs felt like they might give out beneath me at any moment.
Mom. Momma.
Lina’s eyes went wide with panic, her face draining of all color. “Shit,” she whispered, her voice breaking. “Shit. John—”
I stepped back immediately, the loss of contact jarring and abrupt, as if I had been burned. My hands shook uncontrollably as I yanked my jeans up, fumbling with the button and zipper, my mind racing a million miles an hour, trying desperately to catch up with what was happening.
She has a kid. She has a fucking kid. The realization crashed through me like a freight train at full speed, obliterating everything else in its path.
The warmth that had enveloped us moments before.
The connection I felt building between our bodies.
The desperate, raw need that had consumed me completely just seconds ago.
Gone. All of it. Vanished into thin air.
Replaced by something cold and sharp and suffocating that wrapped around my chest like a vise, making it hard to breathe.
My heart pounded against my ribs, but now it was from panic rather than desire.
“John,” Lina started, scrambling to pull her clothes back on, her hands fumbling with her bra and her jeans. “Let me explain. I didn’t know—”
But I couldn’t hear her. Couldn’t hear anything over the roaring in my ears, the blood pounding through my skull like a freight train barreling through my brain.
She has a kid. She moved on. She fucked another man.
The thought made me want to vomit. Made me want to put my fist through the barn wall until my knuckles were nothing but shattered bone and pulp. Made me want to scream until my throat bled, until there was nothing left of me but raw, howling agony.
I spent seven years mourning her. Seven years tearing myself apart with grief and guilt and the unbearable weight of losing the only woman I had ever loved.
Seven years of nightmares and whiskey and waking up in cold sweats, reaching for her in the dark.
And she had been out there. Fucking someone else.
Building a life with him. Having his kid.
The betrayal cut deeper than any knife ever could.
“You have a fucking kid?” I snarled, my voice low and dangerous, barely controlled. Each word dripped with venom.
Lina froze, her jeans halfway up her hips, her eyes wide and terrified.
“John, please...”
“YOU HAVE A FUCKING KID?” I roared this time, louder, angrier, the words ripping out of me like shrapnel, tearing through the sudden silence that had fallen between us.
She flinched visibly, her entire body recoiling from the force of my voice, her hands trembling uncontrollably as she finished pulling her jeans up over her hips, fastening the button with shaking fingers that fumbled with the metal clasp, her eyes refusing to meet mine as the weight of what she’d just revealed hung heavy in the air between us.
“I can explain.”
“Explain what?” I grabbed her arms, my fingers digging into her skin, and yanked her toward me with a force that made her stumble.
“Explain how you fucked another man? Explain how you moved on like I never fucking existed?” Her eyes filled with tears, glistening in the dim light of the barn, but I didn’t care.
I couldn’t care. Not when my entire world was collapsing around me, crumbling into dust and ash.
The pain in my chest was suffocating, a white-hot rage mixed with a devastation so profound I could barely breathe.
“You fucked another man!” I roared again, my voice cracking with raw emotion as I shook her slightly, my grip tightening around her arms. I knew I should let go, knew I was hurting her, but the betrayal coursing through my veins made it impossible to think clearly.
“You let someone else touch you. Let someone else inside you.” The words tasted like poison on my tongue, each syllable a fresh wound tearing through what was left of my sanity.
“Fuck you, John!” she screamed, shoving me hard in the chest.
I stumbled back, shocked by the force of it, by the fury burning in her eyes.
“Fuck you!” she screamed again, her voice breaking. “Like you’ve been celibate! Tell me, how many club whores have you fucked since I’ve been gone? How many women have you buried yourself in trying to forget me?”
Her accusation hit like a slap, but I didn’t back down. “You left me!” I shouted, my voice raw and broken. “You fucking left me, Lina!”
“I did what you told me to do!” she screamed back, tears streaming down her face now. “You told me if anything ever happened to you, I needed to run! I needed to disappear! I thought you were dead, John! I was there! I saw the bodies! I saw the blood!”
“I looked for you!” I roared, my hands clenching into fists at my sides. “I tore this fucking town apart looking for you!”
“And I mourned you!” she sobbed, her entire body shaking. “I mourned you every single day! But I had to survive! I had to—”
“By fucking someone else?” I spat, the words venomous. “By letting some other man put his hands on you? His mouth? His cock?”
She slapped me. Hard. The crack echoed through the barn, sharp and final.
I stood there, my cheek stinging, my chest heaving, and stared at her. Her hand was still raised, trembling, her face twisted with grief and rage and something I couldn’t name.
“I hate you,” she whispered, her voice breaking. “I hate you for making me feel like this. I hate you for coming back. I hate you for...”
But I didn’t let her finish. I couldn’t. I turned and walked away, tucking myself back into my jeans, zipping them up with shaking hands.
“John.”
I didn’t look back. Didn’t stop. I shoved the barn door open and stepped out into the fading sunlight, my vision blurring, my chest so tight I could barely breathe. And that was when I saw her.
The kid.
She was standing a few feet away, her eyes wide, her mouth slightly open.
She couldn’t have been more than five or six years old.
Dark hair pulled back in a ponytail. She stared at me, and I stared back.
And all I felt was rage. I kept walking, my boots crunching against the gravel, my hands shaking so badly I could barely grip my bike’s handlebars.
Behind me, I heard Lina scoop the kid up, heard the child’s soft whimper, heard Lina’s soothing murmurs.
“John!” she screamed, her voice cracking.
I threw my leg over the seat, my jaw clenching so tight my teeth ached.
I didn’t look back. Didn’t let myself. I started my bike.
The roar of it drowned out everything else.
Her voice, the kid’s crying, the sound of my own heart breaking as I revved the throttle hard, the bike vibrating beneath me, and then I peeled away, gravel spraying behind me, the farm disappearing in my rearview mirror.
And I didn’t look back.
Not once.