Page 134 of Monk

I leaned back against the couch and rubbed my hands down my face, the exhaustion settling into my bones like lead. My eyes burned from staring at files and computer screens for hours on end. The coffee had gone cold in my cup hours ago, but I couldn’t bring myself to get up and make more.

“Jesus Christ, Kole,” I muttered into the empty room, my voice barely above a whisper. “What the fuck did you get me into here?”

The silence that followed was oppressive, suffocating even. I sat up and reached for the files scattered across my coffee table, my fingers brushing over the edges of manila folders and loose papers until I found the one I was looking for. My hand trembled slightly as I pulled it free from the stack.

John “Monk” Smith. I picked it up and placed it on top of Kansas’ file, staring at the photo clipped to the inside cover. Monk’s mugshot from his previous arrest stared back at me. Cold eyes that had seen violence up close. Hard jaw clenched tight, like he was still bracing for impact. The look of a man who’d seen too much, survived it all, and come out the other side with nothing left to lose.

I’d missed it. Missed the evidence that would have exonerated him from the rape charge. Evidence that had been sitting right there in front of me the whole damn time, and I’d been too blind, too trusting, too caught up in the momentum of the case to see it.

Lina Wilcox had handed me that folder at the precinct, her expression unreadable, and the second I’d opened it back here in my apartment, I’d known. The truth had hit me like a freight train.

Roberts had orchestrated the whole thing from start to finish. Paid Ruby Cooper to lie under oath. Hired a sex offender to assault her so the rape kit would show trauma, making her story more convincing to a jury. Manipulated the system, pulled strings, called in favors to frame an innocent man. And I’d almost let it happen. Hell, I’d been helping it happen.

I should have seen it sooner. Should have dug deeper, asked more questions, connected the dots that were right there in front of me the whole time. But I’d been so focused on the club—on proving they were guilty ofsomething, anything that would stick—that I’d missed the bigger picture. I’d been so fixated on taking down the Diamondback MC that I’d become blind to what was really happening here.

I tossed Monk’s file back onto the table with more force than necessary and stared at the others spread out before me like a game of solitaire I couldn’t win.

Whisper. Blackjack. Widow. Shadow. I found myself wondering who would be next on the list. Who would wake up tomorrow to find their life turned upside down? Because someone out there had a massive hard-on for the Diamondback Motorcycle Club. Someone with resources, patience, and a serious grudge was systematically targeting them, trying to destroy them one brother at a time, picking them off like it was open season. And I had no idea who was behind it. Or why they wanted the club destroyed so badly.

I took another long pull from my beer, draining half the bottle in one go, and closed my eyes. The cool liquid did nothing to wash away the bitter taste of my own failure.

Three Years Ago, New York City

The phone rang at 2:47 AM.

I knew because I’d been staring at the clock on my nightstand for what felt like hours, unable to sleep, my mind running through the details of a case that had gone cold weeks ago. The red digital numbers seemed to mock me with each passing minute, reminding me of every lead that had dried up, every witness who’d suddenly developed amnesia, every piece of evidence that led nowhere.

I grabbed the phone without looking at the screen, expecting it to be dispatch with another late-night call.

“O’Rourke.”

“Sean.”

The voice on the other end was familiar, but different somehow. Rough. Strained. Panicked in a way I’d never heard before.

“Kole?” I sat up in bed, suddenly wide awake, my heart rate picking up. “What’s wrong?”

Kole Vanderveer had been my best friend since we were kids. We’d grown up together in the Big Apple, gotten into trouble together, learned how to fight together in the back alleys and playgrounds of our neighborhood. We’d shared scraped knees, black eyes, and dreams of what we’d become when we grew up. When I’d joined the NYPD straight out of college, Kole had gone a different route—a much different route. He’d joined a motorcycle club, one with a reputation that made my colleagues raise eyebrows whenever his name came up. We’d stayed in touch over the years, meeting up for beers when we could, catching the occasional Knicks game, but the calls had become less frequent as our lives diverged down very different paths.

Hearing his voice now—at this ungodly hour, with that desperate tone—sent a chill down my spine.

“I need your help,” Kole said, his voice low and urgent, barely above a whisper. “Something’s wrong, Sean. Something’s seriously fucking wrong, and I don’t know who else to call.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The club,” he said, his voice dropping to barely above a whisper. “The Diamondbacks. There’s something going on here. Something bad. Something really bad.”

I frowned, swinging my legs out of bed and standing up, my bare feet hitting the cold hardwood floor. The chill helped wake me up. “What kind of something? Kole, you’re being cryptic as hell right now.”

“I don’t know yet,” Kole said, and I could hear the frustration bleeding through his words. “But I’ve been digging. Asking questions around town. Talking to people who used to be involved. And the more I dig, the more I realize how deep this goes. It’s not just some small-time operation.”

“Kole—”

“I’m sending you a file,” he interrupted, talking faster now, like he was running out of time. “A zip file. It’s got everything I’ve found so far. Bank records. Communications. Names. Photos. Documents. I need you to look into it. See what you can find. You’re better at this stuff than I am.”

“Why me?” I asked, walking to my kitchen and flipping on the light. The fluorescent bulb flickered twice before flooding the small space with harsh white light. “Why not go to the cops in Oklahoma? If something illegal is happening, they need to know.”

Kole laughed, but there was no humor in it—just a hollow, bitter sound that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. “Because I don’t know who I can trust anymore,” he said, his voice dropping lower. “Everyone in the club is a suspect. Everyone’s got something to hide, some angle they’re playing. And because you’re the only person I know who’ll actually look at this shit without bias. You’re outside of it. You don’t have skin in the game.”