Monk by Ivy Black

Chapter Twenty-One

Kasey

The sun is high in the sky, only just beginning its slow descent toward the horizon. As I drive along, I see the waters of the Pacific are glittering. The water seems to beckon to me, and part of me is tempted to go down to the beach, run into the waves, and splash around like an idiot. I haven’t done that since I was a kid. But as recent events are teaching me, what’s old is suddenly new again.

Two hours ago, if you’d asked me to describe a biker, I would have rattled off a list of stereotypes. Big and burly. Scary. Mean. Not very intelligent or well spoken. Probably illiterate. Drug dealing murderer. I could have laid out a thousand different descriptions from things I’ve seen in movies, on TV, or whatever.

The Pharaohs, however, are making me rethink some of my preconceived notions and intolerant beliefs.

Don’t get me wrong, they absolutely live up to some of the stereotypes. They’re big, scary, and I have no doubts they can be mean when they need to be. But they’re more well-spoken than I’ve ever thought. A few of them even seem very well read and intelligent. And all of them, I’m quite certain, are very literate. They’re not just a bunch of brainless thugs.

Oh, I have no illusions about who or what they are. The incident at the mill today showed me that they are still bikers and very much embody some of those stereotypes. But what I learned today is that they’re not just that. They’re much more than what they appear to be.

Which brings my thoughts back to Jacob. Yesterday was… perfect. There really is no other way to put it. I can’t think of a better day I’ve ever spent with another person before in my life. And yeah, sadly, that includes my wedding day. It was wholly unexpected, and not something I was looking for, but the connection we shared last night seemed even stronger than it was back in the day.

And I hate to admit it, but even though the day I ran into him at the church, I vowed to myself that I would never see him, would not reopen those old wounds he’d left behind, and would shun him for as long as I’m in Blue Rock, he got through. He got under my skin, and I felt my heart open to him in ways it hadn’t since we were together. Maybe even in more ways than that.

But then, that all changed this morning when he pushed me away. After what happened at the mill and talking to the other guys in his club, I understand it a bit more. I understand him a bit more. But that doesn’t make any of this easier. The fact of the matter is the club commits crimes. They sell weed and guns. That’s pretty black and white to me.

The other side of that coin, however, is that they keep all of that stuff out of Blue Rock. They ensure that the drugs and violence prevalent in other cities don’t touch our town. They help keep our streets clean and relatively safe.

I pull into the driveway and shut off the engine, my mind racing a thousand miles a minute. The lights are burning downstairs, and a cold chill runs through me. My dad is going to be pissed that I didn’t come home last night. Feeling nervous about facing him makes me feel like an idiot. I’m a grown woman and not a little girl. And yet, I’m nervous all the same.

With a heavy sigh, I lock up the car up behind me and walk up the steps and to the door. I pause with my hand on the doorknob, silently counting to ten before I open it, and step inside. The moment I close the door behind me and turn the locks, I hear the TV in the living room shut off and feel a jolt of adrenaline.

The chair creaks beneath my father’s weight as he gets to his feet and I grit my teeth as I head for the kitchen. Grabbing a bottle of water out of the fridge, I turn around as he comes through the door, his face dark and pinched.

“So, you’re alive,” he says.

“Alive and well,” I say brightly, hoping my smile tamps down his irritation.

“Uh-huh,” he says. “And at the very least, you didn’t think to call?”

“I’m sorry, Dad. I had a few beers, and I didn’t want to drive.”

It’s mostly true. I did have some beers with Jacob, and if I had been pulled over and made to take a breathalyzer, I have no doubt I would have blown over the limit.

“Uh-huh.”

He silently stares at me with those piercing green eyes and I feel like he’s flaying me with them. Peeling back layers of skin and muscle, clawing deep down into my body and soul, trying to dig the truth out of me.

It’s an old cop trick and one he uses on people sitting in his interrogation rooms. He’s always done it and I can’t count the number of times I cracked under that pressure while I was growing up when I knew he was going to get the information out of me one way or another. It’s like his evil superpower. He either figures out what he wants to know, or he makes you freak out and tell him just to get him to quit looking at you. I hate it. I’ve always hated it.

“You were with him, weren’t you?” he finally asks.

Feigning ignorance right now is the worst thing I can do since that is clearly meant to be a statement, not a question. He obviously knows where I was last night. The feeling of being a teenager caught sneaking out in the middle of the night is overpowering. I’m not sure I’ve ever felt this awkward ever since I was actually a teenager.

“When are you going to learn, Kasey? He was a dirtbag back then, he’s a dirtbag now. Scum like him don’t change.”

Despite my feelings for Jacob being incredibly complicated right now, the one thing I can say with certainty is that he’s neither a dirtbag nor scum. He’s complex. All of the Pharaohs I met today are complex. It’s impossible to put them in one box. But this isn’t stuff I can share with my dad. Not right now because he won’t hear it. I doubt he’ll ever be in a place where he can hear it, to be honest.

“I don’t think you’re being fair, Dad.”

His face darkens even further and his hands clench into fists at his sides. I’m half afraid he’s going to have a stroke or have an aneurysm right then and there. I don’t remember ever seeing him so angry.

That anger in him and his judgement of Jacob, along with the rest of the Pharaohs, is unfair as far as I’m concerned, and it does nothing but piss me off in turn. It’s possible I’m just being naïve and trying to see the better side of people, but I don’t think so. I just think my dad is being a judgmental prick right now.

“Have you ever spent five minutes talking to him, Dad? Even when we were kids, did you ever talk to him?” I ask.

“I didn’t need to. All I needed was to look at what he came from to know what kind of person he was going to turn out to be. And hey, guess what? I was right.”

My jaw is clenched so tight I can probably shatter stone right now. I glare at him hard for a long moment, unable to speak for fear of saying something horrible that I might regret tomorrow. Drawing in a deep breath, I count to ten again, then let it out, feeling a modicum calmer.

“Did you know that when he disappeared when we were younger, it was because he enlisted?” I say. “He was off serving this country and not out doing all of the terrible things you accuse him of doing.”

That seems to give him pause, and for once, he doesn’t have something nasty to say. It doesn’t take any of the fire out of his eyes, though. He’s obviously going to cling to his beliefs no matter how wrong they are. He clears his throat and stands up straighter, seeming to gather himself and regain his swagger.

“Yeah, well, now he’s running with the goddam Pharaohs, so even if he wasn’t doing all that shit then, he is now,” he says.

I feel entirely spent and I don’t want to keep arguing with my dad. And I’m certainly not going to tell him that his assumptions about them are all wrong, and that I know this because I spent the day hanging out with them. That will only open up an entirely different can of worms I really don’t want to deal with right now. All I want is to take a hot shower and change my clothes.

“Maybe I made a mistake coming home,” I say quietly. “I just wanted someplace safe to stay for a little while. I don’t want to keep fighting with you, and I don’t want to keep feeling like I have to justify my actions to you. I’m a grown woman, Dad. I’m not a little girl anymore.”

“Then maybe you should act like a grown woman instead of a naïve little girl with a crush,” he snarls.

Feeling beyond drained and suddenly too weak to argue, I just nod. I’m not nodding because I agree with him, but because I’m resigning myself to the reality that my father is never going to change. He’s going to continue holding his ignorant and judgmental points of view until the end of days.

“I made a mistake coming here, and I’ll leave tomorrow. I’m sorry I caused you any trouble,” I say.

I turn and walk out of the kitchen before he can respond, and head upstairs. The door to my bedroom closes behind me and I flop face down onto the bed. Grabbing the pillow, I put it over my face and scream into it loud and long.

My voice is hoarse by the time I’m doing screaming, and tears are spilling from the corners of my eyes. Forcing myself to my feet, I trudge to the bathroom, hoping a long, hot shower will rejuvenate me.

***

Wearing a pair of boy shorts and a t-shirt, I’m sitting on my bed, my back against the headboard, after an unscheduled nap. Now, I’m just waiting for my dad to go to bed. I’m starving and I want to go raid the fridge. But I prefer not to run into him right now and will wait until he goes to sleep.

My stomach grumbles, reminding me that other than a bunch of pretzels, I haven’t eaten all day. Cutting a glance at the clock, I see it’s closing in on eight. If things are all the same—and I have no reason to believe otherwise—my dad will be working super early. He always goes to bed early and wakes up at some ungodly hour. That’s just always been his way.

My body stiffens and my heart falls into my stomach when I hear the hollow thump of his boot steps on the wooden floor outside. The steps stop just outside my door and I can see the shadow of his feet in the gap between the floor to the bottom of the door. He’s just standing there, and I have the idea he’s trying to decide between coming in and smoothing things out or coming in here to renew the fight.

And when the knock comes, I feel my heart sink into my stomach. Part of me is tempted to pretend I’m asleep, but I know how immature that sounds.

“Yes?” I say.

The door opens and my father sticks his head in. “Can you come downstairs, please?”

“I don’t want to fight with you anymore, Dad. I don’t have the energy for it right now.”

He frowns. “Just come downstairs. Please.”

He shuts the door before I can answer, and I listen to the sound of his footsteps retreating as he obviously expects me to follow him. I hesitate for a second, but I do just that. Just as I’ve always done. Throwing open my door in frustration, I pound my way down the stairs to show my irritation. Yeah, I can be a passive-aggressive bitch sometimes.

“In the kitchen, honey,” he calls.

Ever the obedient daughter, I walk into the kitchen and freeze, my blood suddenly colder than the Arctic Ocean. Spencer is sitting at the island, cup of coffee in front of him, and he smiles at me like it’s the most natural thing in the world. I stand rooted to my spot, my anger giving way to a wild, unbridled fear.

My dad is standing on the other side of the island, closest to me, and looks at me with a thoughtful expression on his face. Turning back to Spencer, I try to bottle up the fear that’s rampaging through me and channel the anger.

“What in the hell are you doing here?” I say, my voice quavering.

“Now, honey, before you go gettin’ upset, just know that I called Spencer,” my dad says.

I round on him, fury flowing from every pore in my body. “Why in the hell would you do that?”

“I just think you’re makin’ some bad decisions, honey. And I think you should talk to your husband. See if you can work things out,” he replies.

There are literally a thousand things I want to scream at him right now, but I manage to hold myself in check. My entire body is shaking as the fear and anger fill me to capacity.

“Dad. I’d like to talk to you privately,” I seethe.

“Honey, I—”

“Now, Dad.”

I turn and walk out of the house, staring out at the darkened forest around the house as I wait for him on the front porch. The clouds overhead are thick and patchy, casting a silvery dappled light over the world, and a cool breeze rushes past carrying the scent of the forest and the sea. It would be calming if I wasn’t so pissed off.

I finally hear the door closing behind me and I round on my father. He stands there, his thumbs hooked into his uniform pants, looking back at me with a condescending expression on his face. It takes everything in me to not smack him right then and there.

“How fucking dare you,” I hiss. “This is my life. Not yours. I’m a grown woman and the decisions are mine to make.”

“First, I don’t appreciate that kinda language in my house—”

“Sorry, but I don’t give a shit about your delicate fucking sensibilities right now,” I fire back.

“Second,” he continues as if I haven’t just interrupted him, “I think you’re makin’ a big mistake here.”

“Then it’s my mistake to make, Dad. This is my life you’re fucking with. What are you not understanding about that?”

“Your mistake brought you to my door, honey. I think I get some say in—”

“No, you don’t. This is my life, Dad. My life,” I cry out. “And don’t worry, I’ll be gone tomorrow.”

His sigh is long, pained, and dramatic. He looks at me with genuine disappointment in his eyes. Unlike when I was a child, I don’t let it hurt me this time. And I don’t let it guilt me into doing as he wants. I’m not that same, stupid little girl begging for her father’s attention and approval. I’m a grown woman and I’m taking control of my life.

“I thought this was a safe place for me to come. I thought I could spend a little time licking my wounds without fear of judgment or you doing something like… this,” I say, gesturing to the house.

“I’ve never hidden how I feel about marriage and the importance of workin’ through the hard times. If you thought I’d be any different, then that mistake’s on you, honey.”

“Yeah, the mistakes here are just piling up.”

“When I knew you spent the night with that… with him,” he manages to catch himself rather than risk inflaming me further. “I saw you headin’ down a dark path. I saw you gettin’ involved in bad things, Kasey. And I wouldn’t be doin’ my job as your father if I didn’t do somethin’ to help stop that.”

Crossing my arms over my chest, I shake my head and turn away from him, staring out at the forest again.

“Jake Tulowisky is a bad person. Always has been. The guys he rides with are dangerous people,” he says evenly. “What kind of father would I be if I let you get involved with that mess again.”

“You don’t know the first thing about Jacob or any of his friends,” I reply. “You just sit there all high and mighty, judging them because of the way they look without ever having had a single conversation with them, Dad. That makes you ignorant at best, a bigot at worst.”

“Careful, Kasey. I know you’re upset, but you don’t want to say something you can’t take back later.”

I turn to him, my eyes narrow and my jaw clenched. “I know exactly what I’m saying. And just so you know, Spencer may dress well and have an education, but he’s a much worse person than Jacob or any of the Pharaohs.”

“I think you need to talk to your husband. I think you need to work things out with him,” he tells me. “He’s a solid and stable man. He’s built you a good life.”

I snort. “You know as little about Spencer as you do about Jacob. And you’re dead wrong about both of them.”

“Kasey—”

“Dad, you don’t really know what I need. You never have. And I don’t appreciate you meddling in my life. You have absolutely no idea what you’ve done by calling him here,” I tell him. “But don’t worry, I’ll be gone in the morning and you won’t have to worry about my mistakes bringing me to your doorstep anymore.”

“Kasey—”

He reaches for me as I walk around him, but I shrug his hand off and walk into the house. Spencer is in the kitchen, right where I left him. He flashes me a triumphant smirk as I stand on the other side of the island from him. With my arms still crossed over my chest, I wait until I hear my dad’s bedroom door upstairs close before I speak.

“I’ll be filing a restraining order first thing in the morning,” I say.

“On what basis? I’ve never laid my hands you. I’ve never done anything to you. I’m afraid you will never actually get that order,” he says.

“Maybe not, but you of all people know how much people love to talk inside the law community. If word were to get out that I even filed a petition for an order, what do you think people would say?” I ask.

He shrugs. “Like I care.”

“You do. I know better than anybody just how much what other people think matters to you,” I respond. “It’s why we had to have the nicest of everything, isn’t it? The house, the cars, the jewelry. It’s why you wear those three thousand-dollar suits, isn’t it?”

His expression darkens, but conscious of my father upstairs, he manages to reel his temper back in. Spencer lets out a slow breath, his eyes locked onto mine.

“Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to go get that bag of money. After that, you’re getting into my car, and I’m taking you home. And you will forget this divorce nonsense. Am I clear?”

A rueful laugh slips from my mouth. “Oh, you’re clear. But let me tell what’s actually going to happen. You’re going to stand up, you’re going to get the fuck out of my father’s house, you’re going to sign those papers and send them to my attorney, and then we are never going to see each other again. Is that in any way unclear?”

“Or what? Are you going to tell your daddy about me?”

“I’m sure that as a lawman, he’d be very interested in that bag of cartel money.”

“One, you have no proof of the money’s provenance. Even as a law school dropout, you should know that.”

My hands clench into fists as the rage begins to burn. Spencer has always known where my soft spots are, and he’s always been ruthless about attacking them. He knows exactly how much not finishing my education or becoming a lawyer hurts me.

“Besides, you’re not going to tell your dad anything. You and I both know that,” he remarks.

“Don’t think so?”

“If you were going to do it, you would have already, and I wouldn’t be sitting in here. By the way, you weren’t kidding when you said you grew up in the sticks. Yikes.”

“Fuck you, Spencer.”

“If you’re lucky.”

“Get out of this house.”

He stares at me for a long moment, a smirk on his lips, malevolence radiating from him like heat from the sun. He gets to his feet and puts on his coat.

“I’m going to give you until tomorrow to come to your senses. You and that bag of cash are coming home with me,” he says. “If I don’t hear from you tomorrow before the day ends, I’m going to have no choice but to contact Mr. Zavala and let him know what’s been happening. I really don’t think you want me to do that if for no other reason, than for your daddy’s sake.”

“You leave him out of this, you miserable piece of shit.”

“Oh, it’s too late for that, honey. You involved him by coming here.”

“Get out of here, Spencer.”

He stares at me for a moment, his eyes full of malice. “Oh, and just in case you think of cutting and running with the cash, let me just say, Mr. Zavala would be very disappointed. And I have no doubt, he would take that disappointment out on your daddy.”

“You’re a fucking monster.”

He gives me a wicked smile, then he nods, his point made. Spencer passes by me, closing the front door harder than necessary, leaving me standing in the kitchen, my stomach twisting itself into knots and tears welling up in my eyes.

The fear is suffocating, and I suddenly need to get out of there. I dash up the stairs and go to my room, closing the door behind me. My eyes go to the closet and I think about the bag of cash under the floorboards. I’m tempted to grab it and go. But then, his threat echoes in my mind and I know that I can’t. No matter how pissed I am at my dad right now, I can’t leave him to those animals.

After throwing on some yoga pants, a baggy sweatshirt, and my tennis shoes, I head out. I may not be able to leave town, but the walls here feel like they’re closing in on me and I need to get out of here just to clear my head for a while. Grabbing my bag and my car keys, I head out. My dad’s bedroom door opens as I hit the stairs.

“Where you goin’?”

“Out. I need some air.”

“Kasey—”

I stop at the bottom of the stairs and look back at my dad, who’s standing at the second-floor railing outside his bedroom door. The thought of something happening to him because of me sends a shot of pain through my heart and it nearly drives me to my knees. But I can’t think of that right now. My anger is still too fresh and too raw.

“Dad, I’m a twenty-seven-year-old woman. I don’t actually need your permission to go out,” I snap.

Without waiting for his reply, I walk out and slam the door behind me.