Monk (Royal Bastards MC: Sacramento Book 3)

by Winter Travers

  Royal Bastards MC (Sacramento, CA)

  Book 3

  Wall Street Journal & USA Today Bestselling Author

  Winter Travers

  Copyright © 2021 Winter Travers

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduction, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) utilization of this work without written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  For questions or comments about this book, please contact the author at winter@wintertravers.com

  Also by Winter Travers

  Devil’s Knights Series

  Loving Lo

  Finding Cyn

  Gravel’s Road

  Battling Troy

  Gambler’s Longshot

  Keeping Meg

  Fighting Demon

  Unraveling Fayth

  Forever Lo

  Devil’s Knights 2nd Gen

  Passing the Torch

  Riding the Line

  Royal Mess

  Skid Row Kings Series

  DownShift

  PowerShift

  BangShift

  Fallen Lords MC Series

  Nickel

  Pipe

  Maniac

  Wrecker

  Boink

  Clash

  Freak

  Slayer

  Brinks

  Kings of Vengeance MC

  Drop a Gear and Disappear

  Lean Into It

  Knees in the Breeze

  Midnight Wreckage

  Thrill Seeker

  Livin’ on the Edge

  Blacktop Freedom

  Powerhouse MA Series

  Dropkick My Heart

  Love on the Mat

  Black Belt in Love

  Black Belt Knockout

  Nitro Crew Series

  Burndown

  Holeshot

  Redlight

  Shutdown

  Royal Bastards MC: Sacramento, CA

  Playboy

  Six-Gun

  Monk

  Rebel

  Sweet Love Novellas

  Sweet Burn

  Five Alarm Donuts

  Stand Alone Novellas

  Kissing the Bad Boy

  Trapped with the Bad Boy

  Daddin’ Ain’t Easy

  Silas: A Scrooged Christmas

  Wanting More

  Mama Didn’t Raise No Fool

  Tangle My Tinsel

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Coming Soon

  About the Author

  Dive into the 1st chapter of Downshift

  Fly free…

  Chapter One

  Don’t worry…

  Mitzy

  “Stop tryin’ to move.”

  A warm handed rested on my arm and pressed me into the bed.

  I moaned and managed to crack open an eye. “Let me go.” My words were weak and barely a whisper. I didn’t like being told what to do, especially by someone telling me not to move. Not like I could do much about it right now.

  “Stop moving around, and I will.”

  My eyes focused on Monk’s face. “You need to shave,” I muttered. My whole body felt like I was stuck in molasses, but it somehow still seemed essential to point out Monk’s facial hair.

  “That’s what you’re worried about right now?” he gruffed. “You overdosed three hours ago, and you’re worried about my beard.”

  I closed my eyes and sighed. “I didn’t overdose.” To overdose, I would have to actually do drugs. That was one road I only skirted along for a little bit years ago.

  The weight of Monk’s hand left my arm, and I heard a chair scrape on the floor. “Ya did, Mitzy. I don’t know what the hell you’re doing, but it needs to fucking stop.”

  “How did I overdose, Monk, if the strongest drug I take is Tylenol?” What in the hell was he talking about? I lifted my arm and felt a sharp tug.

  “You’ve got an IV in, Mitzy. Stop moving around so much. You’re gonna yank the fucking thing out.”

  I opened my eyes and stared up at the ceiling. “You’re gonna have to go into detail about what the hell is going on, Monk.” The last thing I remembered was grabbing some Tylenol from the girls' dressing room.

  “Six-Gun told me you wanted to talk, so I walked into your office, and you were face-planted on your desk, barely breathing.” He sighed and sat back in the chair he had pulled up to the side of my bed. “Six called 9-1-1 while I kept you breathing.”

  I tried to wrap my head around what he was telling me. I mean, I was lying in a hospital bed, and I didn’t think Monk would ever lie to me about something like that. I just couldn’t understand how it had happened. “It’s not an overdose.” It had to be something else. “All I did was take two Tylenol,” I insisted.

  Monk shook his head. “You may think you took Tylenol, but they fucking weren’t, Mitzy. Whatever the hell it was, it almost killed you.”

  “It’s at the club. You need to get the bottle before one of the girls takes one.” My anxiety went through the roof. This could happen to one of the girls.

  “Way ahead of you, doll. Six-Gun took every pill bottle from the dressing room and turned them over to the cops. They’re gonna test all of that shit.”

  I sighed and closed my eyes. “Thank God.”

  There had been an explanation for why I had almost overdosed. Except now, I was worried maybe one of the girls was doing some hard drugs and I had accidentally grabbed whatever the hell they were doing. I had just grabbed the bottle that said Tylenol. There was a community basket of medication that all of the girls took from. Tylenol, Motrin, Midol, Tums; you name it, we had a bottle of it.

  “Just rest right now, Mitzy. Doc said you’re gonna be exhausted for a bit. They pumped the fuck out of your stomach. They’re giving you fluids and shit in your IV.”

  I opened my eyes and glanced over at the tall thing-a-ma-bob that had bags of clear fluids and long hoses that hooked into my arm. “Is all of that really necessary?” I mumbled.

  “Not a doctor, doll, so I can’t say, but I’m gonna just go with whatever the doc says.” Monk crossed his leg over his knee and folded his arms across his chest. “So, go to sleep. Doctor’s orders.”

  I rolled my eyes. “What time is it?”

  “Half-past two,” he grunted.

  “You should go home.” I smothered a yawn with the back of my hand. “You ne
ed sleep.”

  “Not as much as you.”

  My eyes fluttered shut. “Everyone needs to sleep, Monk.”

  “I’ll sleep when I’m dead, doll.”

  I hmphed and settled as much as I could into the stiff hospital bed. “You don’t need to be here, Monk. I’m used to taking care of myself.” I had gotten this far in life with no one taking care of me. I didn’t need Monk sitting by my bedside watching me like a hawk.

  “Sleep, Mitzy,” he growled. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

  I hummed softly. “Then don’t worry about me, Monk. No one else does.” I drifted off, my eyes too heavy to keep open and my brain too foggy to argue with him.

  He would be gone by the time I woke up.

  They always were.

  *

  Monk

  Her chest rose and fell while she slept soundly. You wouldn’t be able to tell that Mitzy was minutes away from death earlier in the night.

  Hell, I didn’t think Mitzy even believed that she was close to death’s door.

  The doctor had been serious as fuck when he had told me Mitzy would have been good as dead if I hadn’t found her when I did.

  I sighed and slumped in the uncomfortable chair. The events of the night flooded back to me. I had walked into the back of the club expecting to talk to Mitzy about some club shit and then head to the clubhouse. When I found her slumped over her desk and barely breathing, I had frozen, but in an instant, I had sprung into action calling for Six-Gun and laying her on the floor.

  Everything had been a flurry of action and panic.

  The ambulance had arrived in five minutes, but it had felt like an eternity as I gave her mouth to mouth. I had never been a praying man, but in those five minutes, I had said more prayers and made countless promises to God that if he would just let Mitzy live.

  As the ambulance had pulled away from the strip club, I was thrown back to the day when Leona had been gunned down and was rushed to the hospital even though we all knew that it was too late. Thank God, for Mitzy, it hadn’t been.

  She was going to be okay and make a full recovery.

  Thank fuck.

  A knock sounded on the door, and a nurse stuck in her head. “Everything okay in here?” she whispered.

  I nodded and sat up in my chair. “She was just awake for a couple of minutes.”

  The nurse nodded and slipped into the room. “Good, good,” she muttered. She moved over to the computer by the counter and logged in. “I just need to take her vitals and check how she’s doing.”

  I nodded and turned my eyes back on Mitzy. I didn’t want to take them off of her.

  “She’s got quite a few friends in the waiting room,” the nurse called softly. “You might want to give them an update if you’re feeling up to it.”

  The club. And probably some of the girls from Skinz. Mitzy was a hardass with them, but they all cared about each other at the end of the day. For the most part.

  “I promised her I’d be here when she wakes up.”

  The nurse laughed lightly. “She’s gonna be out for a bit, but if she wakes up, I’ll come find you.”

  I sighed and stood. “I’ll only be a minute.” I would give everyone a quick rundown and be back.

  Playboy, Six-Gun, their ol’ ladies, and Rebel were sprawled out in the waiting room when I walked through the swinging doors. Memphis jumped up from her chair and sprinted over to me. Six-Gun was on her heels with everyone else right behind.

  “How is she?” Memphis demanded. “Can I go back and see her?”

  Six-Gun put his arm around her shoulders and tucked her into his side. “Calm down, babe,” he whispered to her.

  “What happened?” Raelyn asked.

  I held up my hand. “She’s stable. The doctor is saying she overdosed.”

  “I still can’t believe that,” Six-Gun spat. “Memphis and I talked to her before she went back to her office, and there was no possible way she was high.”

  I shrugged. “I’m just telling you what the doc is saying.”

  “What did she take?” Raelyn asked.

  I ran my fingers through my hair. “She said she grabbed some Tylenol from the dressing room, and then she woke up in the ER. She doesn’t remember anything in between.”

  “I still don’t understand how the hell this happened. Who the hell would bring drugs into the dressing room?” Playboy questioned.

  That was what I was still trying to figure out myself. “Maybe what she thought was Tylenol wasn’t really Tylenol, and instead, it was one of the girls' stash.” She had said she grabbed something for her headache, but who’s to say one of the girls hadn’t brought drugs with them to work? Putting them in a Tylenol bottle would be a pretty inconspicuous way to do it.

  “But how would that happen? I really doubt Mitzy would just grab some random bottle and down a few pills,” Memphis snapped.

  I held up my hands. “I don’t know what the hell happened. I’m just telling you what I know. Mitzy was shocked as fuck when I told her she overdosed. I may not know her extremely well, but I don’t think she’s into drugs, either.” I nodded to Playboy. “I want you to go to the club and look around. Six-Gun gave all the pill bottles to the cops, but I want you to see if there is anything different.”

  “Different how?” Playboy asked. “I can go, but I don’t know what I’m looking for.”

  I sighed and glanced over my shoulder at the swinging doors to the ER. I closed my eyes for a second and then turned back to Playboy. “I don’t know what you’re looking for either, but just look.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Memphis volunteered. “I’ve been back in the dressing room more than any of you guys.”

  “Tank might actually be the one who’s been back there the most,” Rebel muttered.

  Memphis rolled her eyes. “I’m pretty sure he wasn’t really paying attention to anything other than Rain.”

  “And I think you’ve been back there just as much as he has been,” Playboy jested.

  I nodded to Rebel. “I want you to talk to all of the girls. If one of them brought the pills, we need to know.” Since we had turned over all of the pills in the dressing room to the cops, we might be dealing with some trouble if they find drugs that shouldn’t be in the bottles. If we were able to find out what happened before the cops did, we might be able to head off the bullshit at the pass.

  Rebel nodded. “I’ll get Mace to help.”

  “You and Tank used to be connected at the fucking hip. You let Rain come between the two of you?” Six-Gun asked.

  Rebel grunted but didn’t say anything.

  Right now, I didn’t have the energy to care about what happened between Tank, Rebel, and Rain. “All right by me that Mace helps. The sooner we figure out what the hell happened in the dressing room, the sooner we can get back to finding Barracuda.”

  “Can we see Mitzy?” Memphis asked again.

  I shook my head. “She’s sleeping right now. I’m going to stay with her through the night. I’m hoping by morning she’ll be able to be discharged, and we’ll get the hell out of here.”

  Memphis’s face fell, but she nodded. “I guess if she is out by morning, I can wait to see her.” She laid her head on Six-Gun’s shoulder. “Just make sure she’s okay, Monk.”

  “I plan on it.” I nodded to them and slipped back through the swinging door.

  When I stepped back into the room, the nurse logged out of her computer and looked up at me. “You’re back.”

  “She wake up?” I stepped to the side of the bed and looked down at Mitzy. She normally had an air of badass confidence about her, but now she laid in the bed, asleep and looking fragile as fuck. Even when she had woken for a couple of minutes, she didn’t seem like her normal self.

  “She slept the whole time. Even when I put the blood pressure cuff on her.” She stepped to the door and smiled. “I won’t be in a for a bit unless you need me. She really just needs to sleep right now.”

&nb
sp; I nodded and sank in the chair I had pulled next to the bed. “I’ll hit the call button if she needs you.”

  She opened the door. “You should try to get some sleep, too. You can’t take care of someone else when you aren’t taking care of yourself,” she called softly. She stepped out and closed the door quietly behind her.

  I sat back in the chair and kicked out my feet in front of me. I wasn’t going to get much sleep in this hard as fuck chair, that was for sure. I grabbed the remote to the TV and turned it on.

  Some late-night infomercial played, and I turned down the volume. Mindless TV would be my company for the next couple of hours while Mitzy slept.

  Mitzy needed sleep. And I needed to figure out what the hell had happened to her.

  I wasn’t going to rest until I did.

  *

  Chapter Two

  You did what…

  Mitzy

  “I called an Uber.”

  Monk stared at me. “Come again?” he growled.

  “I called an Uber to take me home. You don’t need to be watching over me. I’m fine.” I shoved my foot into my boot and stood. “Well, I actually texted for an Uber.”

  I had been discharged ten minutes ago, and I was ready to get the hell out of here.

  “I don’t give a fuck if you sent some fucking smoke signals to get an Uber, Mitzy. I wanna know what the fuck you need an Uber for.”

  I picked at the stickiness left on my arm from the IV tape. “I need it to go home, Monk. As much as I enjoyed the gourmet cooking this morning, I think I’m gonna duck out of here.”

  “Yeah, you’re going home, but it sure as fuck isn’t going to be in the back of an Uber.” He stood and stepped toward me. The toes of his boots bumped against mine.

  I tipped my head back, and my eyes connected with his. “You mind telling me why you’re standing so close?”

  “Trying to figure out where the hell you keep all of this attitude in your small body.”

  I rolled my eyes and planted my hand on his chest. I pushed, but he didn’t move. “You think you can get out of my space?”