Page 68 of Monk

“Morning, VP,” Trigger said around a mouthful of eggs as I took a seat across from him.

I grunted in response, not trusting myself to speak yet. My mood was sour as hell, and the last thing I needed was to snap at one of my brothers over nothing.

Angel glanced up from his phone, his eyes flicking over my bare chest before returning to the screen. “Rough night?” he asked, his tone casual.

“Something like that,” I muttered, taking another sip of coffee as Blackjack walked in from the hallway, his hair still damp from the shower, a towel slung over his shoulder. He grabbed a plate from the counter and loaded it up with bacon and toast before dropping into the chair beside Angel.

“Monk,” he said, nodding at me.

I nodded back, my grip tightening on the coffee mug.

Blackjack took a bite of bacon, chewed slowly, then glanced at me with a knowing smirk. “Your lawyer left early this morning,” he said casually.

I stiffened. “What?”

“Lina,” Blackjack clarified, his smirk widening. “Saw her heading out around dawn. Said she was going home to your kid.”

His words hit me like a punch to the gut.

Your kid.Tatum. Our daughter. The daughter I still hadn’t officially met. The daughter Lina had been raising alone for seven years while I had been here, fucking my way through the clubhouse and convincing myself she was never coming back.That truth landed ugly every single time it hit me. Not clean guilt—the kind that could be confessed and burned off—but the heavier kind—the kind that settled in your bones and made you question what kind of man you’d been when it mattered most. I hadn’t known. I kept telling myself that. Hadn’t known where she was. Hadn’t known she was carrying my child. Hadn’t known there had been something left of us to save. But ignorance didn’t erase the outcome. It didn’t put me beside Lina when she was pregnant. It didn’t put me in the hospital room the day Tatum was born. It didn’t give me back the seven years of scraped knees, bedtime stories, fevers, birthdays, first words, first steps, an entire little life that had unfolded without me in it.

I set the coffee mug down on the table with more force than necessary; the ceramic clinked loudly against the surface. “She say anything else?” I asked, my voice tight.

Blackjack shrugged. “Nope. Just that she needed to get back before the kid woke up.”

I clenched my jaw, my hands curling into fists at my sides. Of course she left. Of course she had gone back to the farm without waking me, without giving me a chance to—to what? To stop her? To demand that she stay? To tell her I wanted to meet our daughter?

I didn’t know. All I knew was that waking up alone after last night had felt like a betrayal, even though I knew it wasn’t. Lina had a life. A daughter. Responsibilities that didn’t bend just because my world had finally cracked open. And if I were honest, part of what burned so bad wasn’t only that she left—it was that she had every right to. I hadn’t earned a place in her mornings. Hadn’t earned a place in Tatum’s life. Hell, I hadn’t even earned the right to be wounded by the reminder that they already had a rhythm, a home, a whole life that functioned without me. That was the part that cut deepest. Not just that I missed them, butthat I was the outsider looking in on something that should have been mine too.

The brothers continued eating and talking around me, but I didn’t join in. I just sat there, staring into my coffee, my mind spinning with thoughts I didn’t want to have.

She left. She went home to our daughter, and I’m still here, sitting in this fucking kitchen, drinking coffee like nothing has happened.But everything had happened. My whole goddamn life had shifted on its axis, and the world had the nerve to keep moving like it was any other morning. The brothers were eating breakfast, talking business, bitching about nothing, and I was sitting there trying to act normal while my head filled up with the shape of a little girl I had barely seen and the image of Lina driving away from me before dawn. The frustration simmered just beneath the surface, but under that was something worse—fear. Fear that I was already too late. Fear that whatever chance I had with Lina, with Tatum, had already been thinned down to something fragile enough to break if I touched it wrong.

I wanted to be angry. Wanted to storm out to the farm and demand answers, but I couldn’t because Lina had every right to leave. Every right to put Tatum first, and I had no right to expect anything different. Not after the way I treated her. Not after weeks of cruelty and accusations. Not after letting Ruby slap her in front of the entire club.

I took another sip of coffee, the bitterness matching my mood when Kansas walked into the kitchen a few minutes later, Widow trailing behind him. Kansas looked like he had actually slept—his hair was combed, his shirt clean, his expression calm. Widow, on the other hand, looked like he had been up all night. His eyes were bloodshot, his jaw tight, his hands shoved deep into his pockets.

“Whisper got another call from Benedict,” Kansas said, his voice cutting through the low hum of conversation.

The room went quiet as all eyes turned to Kansas. “Widow and Blackjack,” Kansas continued, his gaze flicking between the two of them. “Church. Now.”

Blackjack set down his fork and stood, wiping his hands on a napkin as Whisper appeared in the doorway a moment later, his expression unreadable. I drained the rest of my coffee and stood, my chair scraping against the floor.

“Monk,” Kansas said, his eyes meeting mine. “Shirt first, asshole, and don’t forget your cut.”

I nodded, quickly refilling my cup before heading to my room. My mood was still sour as hell, but at least now I had something to focus on besides the empty space in my bed.

A few minutes later, I walked into church and took my seat at the table without bothering to check who was present. I already knew Shadow would be the only officer missing, as he lived at his sister’s botanical farm with Joan, and unless it was an emergency, he didn’t make it to every meeting.

I would fill him in later.

Kansas walked in a moment later with Widow, shutting the door behind them with a heavy thud. He took his seat at the head of the table, his hands folding in front of him as he surveyed the room. Whisper sat to his right, Blackjack to his left.

I sat across from Blackjack, my coffee mug still clutched in my hand as Widow leaned against the wall near the door, his arms crossed, his expression dark.

Kansas didn’t waste time. “Whisper,” he said, nodding at him. “What did Benedict say?”

Whisper leaned back in his chair, his fingers drumming against the table. “He’s got the inventory,” Whisper said. “AR-15s, Glocks, shotguns. All untraceable. He’s asking fifteen grand for the lot.”