Page 18 of Monk

Reaper let the silence stretch for a beat. Two. Then he leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table, and spoke the words that would seal Pence’s fate. “But just to be clear here, Kansas. As head of the Biker Federation, my word is final.”

Montana’s eyes flicked to him, a flash of something that might have been approval.

Reaper ignored him. Kept his focus on Kansas.

“You go against me,” he continued, his voice dropping into something darker, something that carried the weight of consequences I could already see barreling toward us, “you go against the Federation.”

Kansas’ face went pale.

“Unless you are intending for the Diamondbacks to go rogue,” Reaper said, each word deliberate, “which would put you in the same league with the Death Dogs and Satan’s Angels. Is that what you are telling me?”

The room went dead silent.

“Because you standing up for him in court looked bad,” Reaper added, his tone flat. “Real bad.”

A chorus of snarls and growls erupted from the brothers lining the walls. Trigger. Whisper. Even Widow, who rarely spoke unless he had something worth saying, was glaring at Kansas with barely restrained fury.

They weren’t with Prez on this one.

Good. Because if Kansas tried to protect Pence, the club would fracture. And a fractured club was a dead club.

Montana sighed, the sound heavy with the kind of exhaustion that came from making impossible decisions over and over again. “Kansas,” he said, his voice softer now, almost gentle. “Listen to me. No matter how you play this, it’s bad.”

Kansas’ hands clenched into fists.

“You have a child rapist as your VP,” Montana continued, his words cutting like a blade. “As soon as the biker world learns what Pence did, they will come for your club. Say what you want about bikers, but the majority of them don’t play when it comes to kids, and you fucking know that. Think reasonably here. He can’t stay.”

“I KNOW!” Kansas’ roar echoed off the walls, raw and desperate and so full of anguish it made something twist in my chest.

He was caught. Trapped between his loyalty to his best friend and the brutal reality of what Pence had done. Between the man he once respected and the monster that man had become.

I knew that feeling. I had been caught between impossible choices my whole goddamn life.

“But what will you have me do?” Kansas choked out, his voice cracking. “Put a fucking bullet in my best friend’s head?”

“That’s one way,” Malice said, his voice a low rasp. He was leaning against the wall, arms crossed, a cold smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

Sandman huffed in agreement.

“Told you this would come to bite the club in the ass,” Shadow grumbled from his seat. “Told you all that the sins of this club would eventually come to light. Bad timing it was Pence first.”

“Bad timing?” Montana rounded on Shadow, his eyes blazing. “It’s fuckingsick. You should have killed him the second you learned the truth!”

Shadow’s expression didn’t change. “We all learned the same time as Kansas. We knew he had a kid, and that the mother was a club whore. We didn’t know her fucking age.”

I watched the exchange, my mind racing.

Shadow had known that Pence was cheating and had a secret kid, but we didn’t do shit because that wasn’t a killing offense.

Now the truth was out, and the consequences were crashing down on all of us.

I thought about the U.S. Marshals. About James Roberts and his endless calls and those thinly veiled threats he liked to dress up as concern. About the intel I’d been feeding them about the club, and the careful balancing act I’d been walking for years to keep Abigail safe. If this turned into a war—if the Federation came down on the Diamondbacks, if other clubs piled in, if bodies started stacking up—the Marshals would swarm all over it. They’d start pulling threads. And if they pulled hard enough, sooner or later they’d get to me.

My jaw clenched.

I couldn’t let that happen.

I sure as hell wasn’t going to.