Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
Monk
“KANSAS AARON STONE!”
The shout ripped through the clubhouse like a gunshot, yanking me out of sleep with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer to the face.
I groaned, rolling onto my back and pressing the heels of my hands against my eyes.
My head pounded—whiskey and rage and too little sleep combining into a vicious hangover that made my skull feel like it was splitting open.
The sunlight streamed through the blinds felt like daggers stabbing directly into my brain, each ray a fresh assault on my senses.
Fuck.
I sat up slowly, the room spinning slightly as I swung my legs over the side of the bed.
The world tilted on its axis for a moment before settling into a nauseating equilibrium.
My mouth tasted like ash and regret, like I had spent the night licking the bottom of an ashtray.
My body ached in all the wrong ways. Not from satisfaction, but from the hollow, empty fucking that had done nothing to dull the edges. If anything, it had made things worse.
My clothes were scattered across the floor like evidence at a crime scene. My jeans crumpled in a heap near the door, my shirt hanging off the back of a chair.
She isn’t her.
The thought hit me again, sharp and brutal.
She will never be her.
I scrubbed a hand over my face, trying to shake off the fog, but it clung to me like smoke. My head was pounding, a dull throb behind my eyes that reminded me I had stayed up way too late last night drinking.
“Kansas Aaron Stone. You get your ass out here right now!”
Kali’s voice again, louder this time, echoed through the hallway like a thunderclap. She only used full names when someone was in serious trouble, and judging by the fury in her tone, that someone was about to catch hell.
I stood, grabbing my jeans off the floor and pulling them on.
The denim was rough against my skin. My cut was draped over the chair where I had thrown it last night, and I shrugged into it, the familiar weight settling across my shoulders like armor.
The leather was worn soft from years of wear.
The patches and colors were faded but still proud.
The VP patch glaringly new above my name.
It was who I was, what I was. The vice president of the Diamondback MC.
Get it together, Monk.
After slipping into my boots, I took a deep breath, rolled my shoulders, and tried to clear the cobwebs from my brain. Whatever was waiting for me out there, I needed to be sharp.
I opened the door and stepped into the hallway, the sounds of the clubhouse filtering through—voices raised in conversation, heavy footsteps moving across worn floorboards, the faint hum of the coffeemaker in the kitchen working overtime like it did every morning.
The smell of bacon and burned toast drifted through the air, mixing with the ever-present scent of motor oil and leather.
I walked toward the gathering room, my boots heavy on the floor, each step echoing in the narrow hallway. A couple of prospects scrambled out of my way, their eyes wide, smart enough to know that when Kali was yelling, everyone needed to stay clear of the blast radius.
When I stepped through the doorway, I stopped dead in my tracks.
Kali stood in the center of the room, one hand on her hip, the other holding Tulsa, the newest addition to the Stone family, against her side.
The baby was chewing on his fist, oblivious to the chaos around him as drool ran down his chin and soaked into Kali’s shirt.
Her blonde hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail, and her eyes were blazing with the kind of maternal fury that could bring grown men to their knees.
And there, standing in front of Kali with her arms crossed and her chin lifted defiantly, was Hellraiser.
The brat, because that was what she was, no matter how tough she acted.
Her jaw was set, her shoulders squared, and there was a wild, reckless gleam in her eyes that I recognized all too well.
It was the same look I had seen in the mirror plenty of times when I was her age, back when I thought I was invincible and the world couldn’t touch me.
Talia.
She was covered in mud. Head to toe. Her blonde curly hair was matted with it, clumped together in thick, dripping strands that hung limply around her face.
Her clothes were streaked brown and wet, soaked through to the skin, clinging to her small frame in a way that made her look even more bedraggled than usual.
Her face was smudged like she had rolled around in a pigpen for hours, with dark streaks across her cheeks and forehead, and even a blob of mud on the tip of her nose.
Kansas walked out of his office and stopped dead in his tracks, then groaned as he crossed his arms tightly over his chest, his expression caught somewhere between exasperation and amusement.
His jaw was set, but there was a telltale twitch at the corner of his mouth that told me he was fighting back a smile.
“What the hell happened to you, Hellraiser?” Kansas demanded, his voice sharp enough to cut glass as he looked at his daughter.
Talia’s bottom lip jutted out in that stubborn way of hers, her eyes narrowing into little slits of defiance. “It wasn’t my fault.”
“It’s never your fault,” Kansas shot back, his tone dripping with sarcasm. “But somehow, you’re always the one covered in mud. Every single time.”
I leaned against the doorframe, crossing my arms, as I watched the scene unfold like it was my own personal entertainment. This wasn’t the first time I’d witnessed one of their standoffs, and it probably wouldn’t be the last.
Talia’s gaze flicked toward me, and her eyes lit up.
“Monk!” she shouted, breaking away from her mother as she ran toward me.
I straightened as she barreled into my legs, her muddy hands grabbing onto my jeans.
“Help me, Uncle Monk,” she begged, her voice pitching high with desperation. “Momma’s really mad this time.”
I looked down at her, this defiant little brat who had more fire in her than most grown men I knew. “What did you do this time, Hellraiser?” I asked, my voice low and even.
She looked up at me with those big, innocent eyes—eyes that didn’t fool me for a second.
“I got into a fight,” she said, her voice small but unapologetic.
“A fight,” I repeated, raising an eyebrow.
“With a new girl at school,” Talia continued, her words tumbling out in a rush. “She said my hair looked stupid, so I pushed her, and then she pushed me back, and then we were on the ground, and there was mud everywhere, and—”
“And you decided to make it worse by rolling around in it?” I finished, fighting to keep the smile off my face.
Talia’s chin lifted. “She started it.”
“That’s not the point!” Kali interjected, stepping forward. “You don’t solve problems by fighting, Talia. How many times do I have to tell you that?”
“But she—”
“No buts,” Kali said firmly. “You’re grounded. No TV, no dessert, and you’re cleaning your room by yourself when I get you home.”
Talia’s face crumpled, her eyes welling with tears. “That’s not fair!”
“Life’s not fair, baby girl,” Kansas said, his voice calm but firm. “You made a choice. Now you deal with the consequences.”
I kneeled down in front of Talia, meeting her eyes. She looked at me like I was her last hope, her small hands still gripping my cut.
“You know your momma’s right,” I said quietly.
Her lip trembled. “But, Uncle Monk.”
“But nothing,” I said, my voice gentle but unyielding. “You fight when you have to. Not because someone says something you don’t like.”
She sniffled, her defiance cracking just a little. “She said my hair looked stupid.”
“Your hair’s fine,” I said, reaching out to ruffle it, mud and all. “But you don’t prove people wrong by rolling around in the dirt with them. You prove them wrong by being better.”
Talia stared at me for a long moment, her eyes searching mine. Then she nodded, her shoulders slumping. “Okay.”
“Good,” I said, standing. “Now go clean up before your momma loses her mind.”
Talia turned and trudged toward the hallway, her muddy footprints trailing behind her.
Kali sighed, shifting Tulsa to her other hip. “Thank you,” she said, her voice softer now.
I nodded, stepping back toward the counter as Kansas moved to stand beside Kali, his hand resting on the small of her back. “She’s got your fire,” he said, his tone teasing.
Kali shot him a look. “She’s got your stubbornness.”
“Fair,” Kansas said with a grin.
I grabbed a mug from the counter and poured myself a cup of coffee, the bitter scent cutting through the fog in my head.
“I don’t have time for this,” Kali muttered, more to herself than anyone else. “I’ve got to meet with the mayor this afternoon.”
Kansas frowned. “What’s going on with the mayor?”
I watched her as she spoke—this woman who had shown up in Lawton when the club was at its worst. When we had nothing left to live for.
Then Kali arrived, with four kids and bruises she couldn’t hide, running from John Stevens, a husband who had beaten her so badly she nearly died.
She fled across state lines with nothing but her kids and the clothes on her back, looking for safety in a town where she knew nobody.
Instead of disappearing, she stayed. Rebuilt herself from nothing.
And as she healed, she healed all of us.
She turned herself into someone the community respected, someone the mayor called when shit needed fixing, someone who fought developers and protected this town like it was her own flesh and blood.
Kansas looked at her like she hung the fucking moon, and maybe she did.
She gave him something to fight for beyond the club, something worth protecting that didn’t end in bloodshed.
The irony wasn’t lost on me. Kali had lost her brother Jinx, nearly died at the hands of a monster, and still chose to love a man who wore a cut and lived by the same code that had killed her family.
Kali shifted Tulsa again before handing him over to Kansas, and her expression tightened. “There’s a big investment company trying to buy the Wilcox Farm. They want to tear it down and build a casino. This town doesn’t need another casino. It needs new roads. A new library.”
My hand froze halfway to my mouth, the mug suspended in midair. The coffee inside had gone cold, but I barely noticed.
Wilcox Farm. Lina’s farm. The name hung in the air between us like smoke, refusing to dissipate. I felt my pulse quicken as a familiar ache settled in my chest. “Is David planning to sell?” I asked, my voice coming out rougher than I intended, scratching against my throat like sandpaper.
Kali glanced at me, her eyebrows lifting slightly in that way that told me she had caught the edge in my tone. “Not if his daughter has a say.”
Her words hit me like a freight train barreling down the tracks at full speed.
His daughter. Carolina. My Lina.
My chest constricted. The mug felt suddenly heavy in my hand, the ceramic warming against my palm even as the coffee inside had long since cooled. “What do you mean?” I asked, as my grip tightened on the mug until my knuckles went white.
Kali’s expression was casual and unbothered, completely unaware of the bomb she had just dropped into my lap. “David handed over the running of the farm to her. She’s moving back home. Permanently.”
The room tilted. The edges of my vision blurred, and for a moment, I thought I might actually drop the mug. Permanently.
The word echoed in my head, louder and louder, drowning out everything else.
She’s staying. She’s not leaving.
My fingers gripped the edge of the counter, my knuckles going white.
Kansas was saying something—something about the mayor, about the investment company, about community support—but I couldn’t hear him. All I could hear was that word.
Permanently. Lina is staying, and so is the kid.
My chest tightened, my breath coming shallow and fast.
She fucked another man. Had his kid. And now she’s staying. The rage I buried under whiskey and sex and distance roared back to life, mixing with something else, something I didn’t want to name.
Hope.
I shoved the thought away violently. There was no hope. No second chances. No fucking fairy-tale ending. She moved on. She had made her choice, and I’d made mine.
“Monk?”
Kali’s voice cut through the noise in my head.
I blinked, forcing myself to focus. She was staring at me, her expression concerned.
“You okay?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I said, my voice flat. “Fine.”
She didn’t look convinced, but she didn’t push. Kansas was watching me too, his eyes narrowed slightly, like he was trying to read something I wasn’t saying. I set the mug down on the counter, my hand steady despite the chaos raging inside me. “I’ve got shit to do,” I said, my voice clipped.
Kansas nodded slowly. “Alright.”
I turned and walked out of the gathering room, my boots heavy on the floor.
I didn’t look back. Didn’t let them see the way my hands were shaking, the way my jaw was clenched so tight it ached as I pushed through the front door and stepped out into the morning air, the cool breeze doing nothing to calm the storm inside me.
She’s staying. Permanently.
I walked to my bike, my legs moving on autopilot. I threw my leg over the seat and fired up the engine, the roar of it drowning out everything else. I revved the engine once, twice, then peeled out of the compound, the gravel kicking up behind me. I didn’t know where I was going.
Didn’t care.
I just needed to ride.
Needed to outrun the realization that was clawing at my chest, threatening to tear me apart.
She is staying, and so is the kid.
And I can’t fucking escape her.
Not anymore.