Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Monk
The inside of the Wilcox house smelled like home.
Not my home. I’d never had one of those.
Not really. Not in any lasting way. Home had always been temporary for me—a string of cheap motel rooms with buzzing neon signs outside the window, safe houses with peeling paint, rented apartments where the furniture didn’t match and the locks got changed too often.
Places the Marshals stashed us while my old man’s sins chased us from one corner of the country to another.
But this... this was the kind of home I used to imagine when I was a kid lying awake in some unfamiliar bed, staring at water stains on the ceiling and trying to picture what normal people had.
Wood polish. Fresh coffee. Something sweet baking in the oven—cookies, maybe, or bread.
The kind of smells that said family and safety and permanence.
Things I’d never had. Things I’d trained myself not to want.
Until now.
Lina stepped inside first, and I followed a half step behind her, suddenly hyperaware of everything—my boots sounding too heavy on the hardwood floor, the broadness of my shoulders in the narrow entryway, the patch on my cut, the fact that I looked like I belonged in grease and asphalt and smoke, not in a house that felt this warm and lived in.
The living room opened around me in a rush of detail—a worn leather couch softened by years of use, a recliner that had seen better days, family photos lined across the mantle above a wide stone fireplace, a crocheted blanket folded over the arm of a chair, a pair of tiny pink sneakers abandoned near the coffee table.
It was cozy. Real. The kind of room that had held a thousand evenings and arguments and birthdays and quiet moments.
And there, sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the coffee table like she belonged at the center of it all, was my daughter.
Tatum.
She was bent over a coloring book with the fierce concentration only kids seemed capable of, one hand planted on the page while the other gripped a crayon in a determined little fist. A box of crayons lay spilled around her in a bright wax rainbow.
Her hair was dark like Lina’s, pulled back into a messy ponytail that had half come loose, and she was wearing jeans and a purple T-shirt with a cartoon horse on the front.
She looked small and sturdy and impossibly real.
Then she heard the door close and looked up.
And I saw her eyes.
My eyes. The same blue-gray that stared back at me in the mirror every morning.
The same eyes I’d watched harden over the years, watched go flat with violence and grief and too much blood on my hands.
But on her they looked different. Clearer.
Softer. Untouched by all the shit that had stained mine.
The sight of them in that tiny face hit me so hard my chest locked up around the breath in my lungs.
That’s my daughter. That’s my little girl.
Tatum’s gaze flicked from Lina to me, and I watched the exact second her expression changed.
Curiosity gave way to caution. Her shoulders drew in a little.
Her mouth flattened into a thoughtful line.
She wasn’t afraid, not exactly. Just wary.
Careful. Measuring me the way a skittish colt might measure a stranger stepping into its stall.
She didn’t smile. Didn’t run to me. Didn’t do any of the wild, impossible things some broken-off, hopeful piece of me might have secretly wanted. She just stared, her crayon frozen in midair, like she was waiting to see what kind of man had just walked into her house.
“Tatum,” Lina said softly, moving farther into the room and kneeling beside her. The gentleness in her voice hit me almost as hard as looking at the kid did. “This is John. Remember? I told you about him.”
Tatum’s eyes narrowed just a little, like she was sorting through a memory. “The man from the barn,” she said, her voice small but steady.
Lina nodded once. “Yes, baby. The man from the barn.”
Tatum looked at me again, really looked this time, her gaze direct and far too perceptive for a six-year-old. “You made Momma cry,” she said.
Her words hit me like a fist straight to the sternum. Clean. Brutal. Deserved.
I swallowed against the sudden rawness in my throat and gave a small nod. “I did,” I said, my voice rough. “And I’m sorry for that.”
Tatum didn’t say anything. She just kept studying me with that solemn little face, like she was deciding whether my apology meant anything.
Lina took a breath I could hear from where I stood.
“Tatum,” she said gently, one hand resting on her daughter’s shoulder. “John is... he’s your father.”
The room went so quiet I could hear the old wall clock ticking somewhere in the next room.
Tatum blinked once. Twice. Then she looked up at Lina. “My dad?” she repeated, uncertainty threading through the words.
Lina nodded, and even from across the room, I could see how much that cost her. “Yes, baby,” she said softly. “I thought... I thought he was gone. I was wrong. He’s here now.”
Tatum looked back at me, her face unreadable in a way that made my pulse pound even harder.
“You’re my dad?” she asked.
I nodded, my throat locked down so hard the single syllable almost didn’t make it out. “Yeah,” I managed. “I am.”
She tilted her head just slightly, still looking at me with grave concentration. “Where were you?”
The question was simple. Innocent. And it absolutely wrecked me.
I moved before I even realized I was doing it, lowering myself carefully to one knee so I wasn’t towering over her. “I didn’t know about you,” I said. Honesty was all I had to give her right now. “If I had known, I would’ve been here. I swear to you, I would have.”
Tatum searched my face for a long second, like she was trying to find the truth in it. Then her gaze dropped back to the coloring book in front of her. “Okay,” she said quietly.
And that was it. No tears. No dramatic moment. No little arms flinging around my neck.
Just... okay.
And I understood.
She didn’t know me. Didn’t trust me. Couldn’t trust me yet.
And I couldn’t blame her for any of that.
I had been a ghost her whole life—some vague absence, maybe a question, maybe a story her mother told in pieces.
Now suddenly I was real. Standing in her living room.
Asking her to make room for me in a world I hadn’t helped build.
That kind of thing was never going to happen in a single moment.
It was going to take time. Patience. Proof.
And if that was what she needed, then that was what I’d give her.
I rose slowly, my knee protesting, and stepped back to give her room to breathe. Room to process. Room to decide, in her own time, what I was allowed to become to her.
“John.”
David’s voice pulled my attention away from Tatum.
He was sitting in the recliner near the fireplace, a blanket draped over his lap, his face pale and drawn from illness but his eyes still sharp as a tack.
“David,” I said with a small nod.
He gestured toward the couch. “Sit,” he said. “You look like you’re about to bolt.”
A laugh almost made it out of me. He wasn’t wrong. I crossed to the couch and sat on the edge of it, my hands braced on my knees like I might need to shove myself upright at any second.
David studied me for a beat, then asked, almost casually, “How are things at the clubhouse?”
I blinked. That was not the question I’d expected. “Uh,” I said, clearing my throat. “They’re... fine. Busy.”
David nodded. “Kansas still running things?”
“Yeah,” I said. “He is. And he’s good at it.”
“And you’re his VP now, right?”
I nodded. “As of a few weeks ago.”
David smiled faintly. “That’s a hell of a promotion.”
“It’s a hell of a responsibility,” I said.
David chuckled quietly. “I bet.”
After that, conversation came easier than I expected.
David asked about the club, about Kansas, about whether business was good, and I answered carefully, keeping to the surface.
I didn’t mention guns or rival clubs or the blood we’d spilled to keep our patch secure.
I sure as hell didn’t mention the fact that we’d recently executed our own vice president.
But even with all the truth I wasn’t saying, it was...
nice. Sitting in a family living room talking to a man who already, somehow, felt like something more than a stranger.
It gave me something to hold onto besides the little girl on the floor a few feet away, coloring like her whole world hadn’t just shifted under her feet.
But even while I talked, my attention kept drifting.
To Tatum. To the way she held a crayon in that stubborn little fist. To the way she bit her bottom lip when she concentrated.
To the tiny furrow that appeared between her brows when she was trying to stay inside the lines.
Every glance at her lodged somewhere under my ribs.
And then my gaze slid past the coffee table and landed on the kitchen table beyond it.
Bills. Stacks of them. Medical statements by the look of the letterhead. Past-due notices stamped in red. Bank envelopes. Final warnings.
My jaw tightened. “David,” I said, cutting across whatever he’d just been saying. “What’s going on with the farm?”
David’s expression changed immediately, the easy warmth in it slipping behind something more guarded. “What do you mean?”
I tipped my chin toward the kitchen table.
“Those bills,” I said. “How bad is it?”
David glanced at Lina. She’d gone stiff as wire. “It’s fine,” she said too quickly. “We’re handling it.”
I turned and looked at her fully, letting her see that I wasn’t buying it.
“Lina.”
She opened her mouth like she was about to fight me on it, then stopped.
Because she saw it on my face. Saw that I knew she was lying.
Her shoulders sagged under the weight of it.
“It’s bad,” she admitted quietly. “The farm is... we’re struggling.
We’ve lost clients. Revenue is down. And Dad’s medical bills—” Her voice broke before she could finish.
I was on my feet before I even realized I’d stood, my hands curling into fists at my sides. “Why didn’t you say anything?” I asked, looking at David.
David met my gaze without flinching. “Didn’t want to bother you,” he said simply.
“Bother me?” I echoed, my voice rising before I forced it back down. “David, you’re—” I stopped, took a breath, and tried again. “You’re family,” I said, my voice rougher now. “You don’t bother family. You ask for help.”
David’s eyes softened. “Didn’t know if you’d see us that way,” he said quietly.
I just stared at him for a second. Then I crossed the room to the kitchen table and started gathering the bills into a stack.
“John,” Lina said, rising from where she’d been standing near Tatum. “What are you doing?”
I didn’t answer. I just kept stacking papers—medical bills, bank notices, overdue statements—and sliding them into the inside pocket of my cut.
“John,” Lina said again, sharper this time. “Stop.”
I turned to face her, the last of the papers tucked away. “The farm isn’t your responsibility,” she said, eyes flashing with pride and frustration and about ten other things at once. “We’ll figure it out.”
I looked at her. Then I looked at Tatum, who had gone still again, watching us with wide uncertain eyes.
I pointed at my daughter. “No,” I said, my voice low and firm. “The farm may not be mine. But she is my responsibility. And this place—this farm—is her legacy.”
Lina’s mouth opened, then closed again. Her eyes filled so fast it nearly undid me. “John—”
“I’m handling it,” I said, cutting her off before she could argue. “End of discussion.”
I turned back to David. “The club’s having a barbecue this weekend,” I said. “Saturday. I’ll be here to pick you all up.”
Lina blinked. “John, we can’t.”
“You can,” I said, my tone making it clear I wasn’t interested in hearing another excuse. “And you will. Tatum needs to meet her family. And you need to stop carrying all of this by yourself.”
I looked at Tatum again, and my chest tightened all over.
Her crayon hung forgotten in her hand as I crossed back to her and lowered myself down in front of her once more.
“I know you don’t know me yet,” I said softly.
“And I know I haven’t been here. But I’m here now. And I’m not going anywhere. Okay?”
Tatum held my gaze for a long, solemn moment. Then she nodded once. “Okay.”
I reached out slowly, careful enough to give her every chance to pull away if she wanted to.
She didn’t.
I rested my hand lightly on top of her head for just a second, barely enough to feel the softness of her hair under my palm. Then I stood, because if I stayed there another minute, I might’ve come apart in the middle of that living room.
I headed for the door. “Saturday morning,” I said, looking at Lina over my shoulder. “Nine o’clock. Be ready.”
Before she could argue again, I walked out. The door shut behind me, and I stood on the porch with my chest heaving like I’d just gone ten rounds in a cage match.
I had just met my daughter. I had just taken responsibility for a mountain of debt tied to a farm I hadn’t stepped foot on in years.
I had just committed myself to pulling Lina and Tatum into the orbit of my club, my life, my world.
And I didn’t regret a single fucking second of it.
Because they were mine. And I would burn the world down before I let anything happen to either of them.
I climbed onto my bike, fired up the engine, and rode back toward the clubhouse with one thought pounding through me harder than the engine beneath me.
I had bills to pay and a family to protect.