Monk by Ivy Black

Chapter Twenty

Monk

Standing at the back of the clubhouse next to the bar, I look at Kasey but say nothing for a long moment. Instead, I take a long swallow of beer. We’re the only two in the clubhouse right now—club leadership is in the other room deciding what’s going to happen next, and I can’t help but feel a bit anxious about that.

Kasey is sitting at a table in the middle of the room, her arms folded over her chest, a scowl on her face. She’s completely oblivious as to what’s being decided right now. If she has any inkling, she’ll be as worried as I am. Though I don’t think they’ll go to the extremes, we’ve never dealt with something like this before. Not in the time I’ve been riding with the club.

“You want something to drink? Soda? Beer?”

“No. Thank you,” she fumes.

I sigh and lean against the bar. Our clubhouse is fairly large—twenty by twenty. It’s all done in light pine, but the tables and bar are done in a darker wood, and it’s all polished to a near mirror finish. On one wall hangs a massive American flag, and behind the bar, all of our unit patches are mounted to a blackboard and kept behind glass.

Prophet had a statue of our logo crafted in black iron. The head-to-torso bust of the Egyptian god Anubis sits on a pedestal next to the door. His long, pointed ears stand up from the half helmet, and his long muzzle protrudes out of it, a pair of sunglasses covering his eyes. He’s got bandoliers of bullets crisscrossing his bare chest, and he’s holding a sidearm in his hand. The subject image aside, it’s actually pretty exquisite work.

The one thing I appreciate most about our clubhouse is that Prophet insists the place is kept spotless. Clean enough to pass a military inspection. Everything has a place, and everything is in its place. That’s one of the biggest rules around here. The prospects are usually the ones doing the shit work, but that’s just the circle of life in an MC.

The front door opens and Max walks in like he owns the place. He sees me staring at him and stops.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I say to him, ticked off. “Clubhouse is closed.”

“Oh, shit. Sorry, man. I didn’t—”

“Go wash my bike, Prospect. Detail it. I want the chrome to shine.”

Without another word, Max turns and walks out of the clubhouse, closing the door behind him. Kasey looks at me, an expression of contempt on her face.

“It’s the way things are in the club,” I tell her and shake my head. “I don’t know why I bother. You wouldn’t understand.”

“Yeah, I don’t understand a lot of things apparently.”

“What were you thinking, Kasey?”

“What was I thinking? Why didn’t you stand up for me? Why didn’t you tell them who I was from the start?” she hisses. “You just stood there with your fucking thumb up your ass. They were going to kill me, Jacob. And you stood there and did nothing!”

“I wasn’t going to let it get that far,” I tell her.

“You did, though.”

“And then I stopped it, didn’t I?”

She sits back in her seat, glaring at me with furious eyes. This is exactly why I knew I shouldn’t have let myself get involved with her in the first place. It’s why I’d pushed her away this morning. The last thing I wanted was for her to get mixed up in this bullshit.

“Those were drugs you sold to those guys, wasn’t it?” she asks.

I run a hand through my hair, then take a long swallow of beer. My gaze drifts over to the statue of Anubis by the door simply because I can’t bear to look into her eyes right now.

“Answer me, Jacob,” she insists. “I’m right, aren’t I?”

The answer burst from my mouth before I can think to stop it. “Yes, Kasey. It was drugs. We sell weed to other clubs, all right? Happy now?”

“Weed?”

“Did I stutter?”

“I thought it was meth or something,” she mutters.

“We don’t deal with that shit,” I tell her.

“You don’t?”

“Why is that so surprising to you?”

“I just—when I saw you guys unloading all those boxes, I just assumed…”

“You just assumed that we really are the dirtbags your dad says we are,” I finish for her.

She shrugs and falls silent. A moment later, a door in the far wall slides open and the leadership comes out. I look at Poe and Cosmo and cringe when I see the grim expressions on their faces. They’re followed out by Cueball, club treasurer, Doc, the vice president, Trig, our sergeant at arms, and finally by Prophet.

They all stand in a semicircle in front of the table Kasey is sitting at, all of them glaring hard at her. Kasey shrinks back against her seat, her eyes wide and her face turning pale.

“We’ve got a problem, Ms. Singer,” Prophet says.

Kasey shakes her head. “There’s no problem. I—I didn’t see anything.”

The guys all laugh, and though I know they’re genuinely amused, their voices are all low and rough. To somebody who doesn’t know them, that sounds ominous enough. Frightening. Their laughter tells me the worst of my fears won’t be coming to pass. All they’re going to do is scare her. Teach her a lesson. I let out a silent breath of relief. I don’t think they’ll actually kill her, but I’ve been wrong about things before. Many times. I’m just glad this won’t be one of them.

Prophet leans down, putting his hands on the table and bracing himself as he looks into Kasey’s eyes. She leans back, somehow growing even paler.

“I know you,” Prophet says, a light of recognition dawning in his eyes. “You’re Singer’s daughter.”

She looks away and doesn’t say anything. Prophet’s face darkens and he looks over at me for a long moment, an inscrutable expression on his face.

“Thought you were gone,” he presses. “Heard you moved away and got married or some shit.”

Kasey finally seems to pull herself together and turns to him, raising her chin, her eyes narrowed, and a look of pure defiance on her face. I groan inwardly, knowing this is not going to go well. There’s a reason why I haven’t told any of them about her. Aside from not being a big fan of sharing my personal shit, I know the fact that she’s the sheriff’s daughter can only cause problems for me.

“I did move away and get married, and that kind of shit,” she hisses. “Then, I left him, trying to divorce him, and moved back here. Any other questions? Do I need a special Pharaoh permit to move back to my childhood home and stay with my father?”

The heat in her voice takes Prophet aback for a moment. He stares at her, looking completely dumbfounded. But then, he starts to smile at her.

“You got a mouth on you, don’t you?” he says.

“You’re not the first to tell me that and I’m sure you won’t be the last.”

“Yeah, well, our club business is private,” he bellows at her. “And we take our privacy very seriously. Were you up there spyin’ for your daddy? You plannin’ on usin’ that mouth to rat us out?”

“Do I look like a rat?” she asks.

He slams his fist down on the table so hard, it rattles everything on the tabletop. Kasey flinches back, stark terror in her eyes.

“You’re the sheriff’s daughter, so yeah, you kinda look like a rat to me.”

She gives him a look that can curdle milk. “What in the hell are you going to do, kill me?”

A wicked look forms on Prophet’s face. “Should we kill you?”

“I’ve already got a hole dug out back,” Trig says. “Be a damn shame to let it go to waste.”

I see Kasey’s eyes shimmering as they well with tears, suddenly regretting her words. She’s fighting like hell to keep them from falling. She’s tough, I’ll give her that.

“How’d you know where we’d be?” he asks.

She drops her gaze to the table, chewing on her bottom lip. “I heard Jacob on the phone with somebody earlier. I heard him say they were going to be meeting at the old mill.”

“Why the hell were you spying on us in the first place?” Prophet says, leaning closer to her.

Kasey draws in a deep breath and lets it out slowly. She closes her eyes for a moment, appearing to be gathering herself. And when she opens her eyes again, she seems a little steadier.

“I wasn’t trying to spy on you,” she said, her voice barely more than a whisper. “I was actually just trying to figure out what was going on with Jacob.”

Prophet looks at me, amused. “I’ve never heard anybody actually call you Jacob before. Makes you sound like a fuckin’ choir boy. It’s cute.”

I roll my eyes. “Yeah, because I had a choice in what I was named.”

I hear one of the guys making a joke out of it. Prophet stands back up, returning his gaze to Kasey once more.

“So, why were you spying on Monk—sorry, Jacob—then?” he asks.

She cuts a glance at me and I shift on my feet, feeling suddenly awkward. As private as the club is about our business, I’m even more private about mine. And the answer to Prophet’s question is going to blow my privacy out of the water and expose what I’ve been getting up to in my alone time. Not that it’s anything to be ashamed of, but I prefer not discussing my sex life with the boys. There are some things you just don’t share, not even with your brothers.

“So, why were you spying on him?” Prophet repeats.

“She doesn’t have to answer that,” I say.

Prophet turns to me, his face hard. “That’s not your call to make, kid.”

Kasey, perhaps seeing my discomfort, turns back to Prophet.

“We spent a nice evening together last night and this morning, something changed. I wanted to know what was wrong with him,” she announces. “And I’m sure you guys know how difficult it is to get anything out of him.”

The guys all look at me with raised eyebrows and smirks on their faces, all of them murmuring their agreement with her last statement. Assholes. I drain the last of my beer in one swallow and lean down on the bar, refusing to look at any of them any longer.

“That’s why we call him Monk,” Cosmo offers. “Bastard doesn’t seem to speak any more than he has to.”

There is more muttered agreement and snickering coming from the crowd, and I start getting the idea where this is all going. Which is nowhere good for me.

“Anyway, he made me dinner last night. We hung out with his dog,” she continues. “And then, we had some really amazing sex.”

All of the guys start to snicker and chuff like a pack of teenage boys. At this point, I don’t know if she’s spilling all of this because she’s trying to embarrass me, or if she’s trying to make Prophet uncomfortable. If she thinks she can make him squirm, she’s got another think coming.

But because she doesn’t know him, I don’t see her assuming she can make him uncomfortable, it leads me back to the idea that she’s trying to embarrass me. Which she’s doing a nice job of since I don’t like airing out my laundry like this. Prophet glances over at me, a wide grin on his face. But then, he turns back to Kasey, seeming to be enjoying this game of Whack-a-Monk.

“I hear a ‘but’ coming. So, what did Romeo here do?” he asks.

“Well, when he woke up this morning, he acted like an insufferable asshole, if you want to know the truth,” she says.

“That sounds more the Monk we all know and love,” Cosmo chimes in.

Everybody—except me, of course—starts to laugh. And unbelievably, Kasey seems to be warming up to the guys, laughing along with them. I roll my eyes.

“How was he acting like an asshole?” Poe asks. “I mean, I assume it’s different than the normal kind of asshole he is with us.”

“You guys got the basics, you don’t need anything else,” I interject.

“Nah, nah, we’re interested now,” Cueball throws in.

I open my mouth to object further, but Prophet gives me a sharp look. “You keep your yap shut, kid. Let her tell her story.”

The smile on her face is positively wolfish and she suddenly looks like she’s enjoying herself. I think I might have liked her better when she thought she the guys were going to kill her. Needing a smoke, I push off the bar and walk outside, closing the door behind me. Smoking’s not allowed inside the clubhouse.

Standing on the porch outside the clubhouse, I light my smoke and take a deep drag, then exhale a thick plume, and watch it drift up into the sky. The door opens behind me and Prophet steps out. He leans against the railing and lights his own cigarette. He takes a drag and blows it out, never taking his eyes from mine.

“She gave me her word that she’d forget anything she saw out at the mill today,” he says.

I nod. “And you believe her?”

“Any reason I shouldn’t?”

“Nah. She’s always been true to her word,” I reply.

“That’s the vibe I got from her. Seems like a good woman in there,” he says.

I frown. “Better than that.”

“So, why are you being a dick?”

I take a drag and look out over the yard of our compound, giving myself a minute to organize my thoughts. Max is busy wiping down the chrome with a chamois, diligently cleaning off any water spots, and I start to think that I probably shouldn’t have snapped at him like I did. Over in the garage, a couple of the guys are working on their bikes, their music blaring.

“I don’t want her mixed up in this bullshit. The last thing I want to do is drag her into it,” I say.

Prophet nods. “Shouldn’t that be her decision to make?”

“No. It shouldn’t.”

He takes another drag, his eyes still on me. “You know there’s clubs out there a whole hell of a lot worse than we are. What we do ain’t half as bad as some of the other clubs around.”

“I know that. But we’re still dealing weed.”

“Weed’s legal in this state.”

I laugh softly. “Not in the quantities we’re selling.”

“Be that as it may, we’re selling a legal substance.”

I draw from my cigarette. “The guns aren’t.”

“That’s true.”

A stab of guilt ripples through me. “Neither is killing a federal agent.”

“You didn’t kill him.”

I shrug. “Maybe I didn’t pull the trigger, but I might as well have. Telling the Bastards who he was—”

“You protected the club. If you hadn’t, we’d all be in deep shit right now,” Prophet cuts me off. “And for that, I’m proud of you.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not feelin’ very proud of anything right now.”

Prophet steps closer to me, his eyes boring into mine. “Listen to me, some decisions suck and there are no good choices. You know that. You had to make those kinds of choices in Afghanistan, and just as you did there, you chose to protect your brothers here. There’s no shame in that.”

I nod, knowing that he’s right. Sometimes, you’re fucked if you do, fucked if you don’t. The decision I made was as much to cover my own ass as it was to protect the club. Knowing a man is going to lose his life—if he hasn’t already—doesn’t mean I feel very good about the decision, though.

“Anyway, all the other bullshit aside, for reasons that are beyond me, that woman in there is crazy about you, kid,” Prophet says.

“She should get over that. I’m no good for her. She deserves better,” I reply.

“That’s what I told her.”

“Well, you weren’t lyin’ then.” I smirk at him.

He takes another drag. “That ain’t for you to say.”

“Sure, it is. I think I have at least some say in anything that happens. Or doesn’t happen.”

“Me and the boys have thought you need a good woman in your life, kid. We’ve thought that for a while now. You’re just too… isolated,” he says.

“When I’m not with you guys, I’ve got Bo.”

“Got an answer for everything, don’t you?”

I nod. “Yep.”

“Okay, listen up, I’m only going to tell you this once. You’re a good man, kid. Better than you give yourself credit for. And you deserve a good woman. A good woman can help ease that burden you’re carryin’. She’s stronger and can handle a lot more than you think. We don’t get a chance at somethin’ really special often, and we rarely get a second bite of that apple. You’ve got a second chance with her. You have a chance to set right what you fucked up before. I think she’s made her feelings clear. Ball’s in your court now. Don’t fumble this one again,” he says.

“That’s a fine speech. You sounded like Dr. Phil there.”

He takes a drag and drops his cigarette, crushing it with his boot as he laughs. “Go fuck yourself.”

I laugh along with him for a minute, but his words continue to echo through my mind. I drop my smoke and crush it out as our laughter fades, then look up at him.

“I appreciate the speech, Prophet.”

He nods. “You deserve to be happy, brother. You deserve more than you think.”

“Stop. You’re gonna make me tear up.”

He laughs. “You’re such a prick. I’m serious though. Handle your shit and don’t fuck it up this time.”

I nod as he walks off. A moment later, the rest of the guys file out of the clubhouse, all of them giving me sidelong glances and snickering loudly. It makes me wonder what in the hell she’s told them in there. I walk inside and find her sitting on top of the bar, beer in hand.

“They’re good guys,” she says. “Not what I was expecting at all.”

“What did you tell them?”

She shrugs. “We just shared stories about you.”

“There is still that hole Cueball dug out back, you know.”

She flashes me a smile, but the air between us crackles with tension and the weight of unsaid words.

“We should talk,” I say.

She nods. “Can we do it tomorrow? I really need a shower and some fresh clothes.”

I laugh softly. “Yeah. Just text me the details.”

As we head out and I watch her walk to her car, Prophet’s words come back to me again, ringing in my head loud and clear. Don’t fuck it up, he said.

But sometimes, it seems like that’s what I do best.