That was how I had lived my life since.
Now I had someone trying to mess with me, but the problem was, I didn’t know who to raise my finger and say “fuck you” to.
Hopefully, Monk and the rest of the guys were figuring it out in church right now. I needed answers before I could know how to proceed.
The sound of the TV lulled me to sleep, and I was out like a light.
On Monk’s bed.
*
Chapter Ten
Uh, just a second…
Monk
I scanned around the common room, but I didn’t see Mitzy.
Where the hell is she?
I moved to the front door, opened it, and peeked out. My bike sat parked where I had left it. For all I knew, Mitzy knew how to hotwire and was halfway home already.
She warned she was going to leave if we were here more than an hour, but I had figured she was just joking. She seemed pretty happy to see Raelyn and Memphis when we had walked in, and I thought she was good to stay for a while.
Maybe I was wrong.
“What’s wrong?” Playboy asked.
I stepped back into the clubhouse and shut the door. “Uh, I think I misplaced…Mitzy.”
Playboy chuckled. “Maybe she’s just in the bathroom, brother. Raelyn,” Playboy called. “Is Mitzy in the can?”
Raelyn rolled her eyes. “You sure do have a way with words.” She fanned her face with her hand. “I don’t know how I could have resisted you.”
Playboy brushed off his shoulders. “I was known for having a way with the ladies before you, babe.”
Raelyn pretended to gag. “Please, let’s not talk about the Playboy days.”
“Mitzy,” I interrupted. “Where is Mitzy?”
Raelyn shrugged. “She got impatient that you were still in your meeting, and she said she was going home.”
“What?” I roared. “And you just let her walk out the door?”
What in the hell was going on? Raelyn and Memphis both knew that shit was fucking crazy with the club and that neither of them were allowed to be alone. Why in the hell would they think that it was okay for Mitzy just to waltz out the front door and walk home?
“Have you met Mitzy?” Memphis asked. She shook her head and folded her arms over her chest. “You do not tell that woman what she is going to do.”
“At least you don’t if you don’t want her to bite your head off,” Raelyn mumbled.
I pointed at Raelyn and Memphis. “You two are permanently on my shit list. If anything happened to Mitzy, it’s going to be your men’s asses on the line.”
“What?” Playboy growled. “How the hell did you come to the conclusion that I was going to take the fall for this?”
“They’re your ol’ ladies.” Playboy and Six-Gun needed to get a handle on their women, so they didn’t start running all over the club. This shit was not going to fly as long as I was in charge.
Raelyn waved her hand at me. “I’m sure Mitzy is fine. She probably called an Uber or something.”
The mention of Uber infuriated me. That would be exactly what Mitzy would do. Hell, she called a fucking Uber before she had even been discharged from the hospital. “Everyone, get your asses on your bikes and find Mitzy,” I yelled.
With the club behind me, I made it halfway to the door when Memphis let out a shrill whistle.
I spun around and glared at her.
She had her hands clasped in front of her, and she nibbled on her bottom lip. “I, uh, don’t think getting on your bike is going to be necessary.” She elbowed Raelyn, who was frantically typing on her phone.
“You mind explaining just what the hell that means?” I demanded. Here I thought bringing Mitzy to the clubhouse would make it easy for me to keep an eye on her. I was fucking wrong about that.
“She’s not answering,” Raelyn whispered to Memphis. “What should I do?”
“Call her,” Memphis whispered out of the side of her mouth. “Just give us one minute, and everything will make sense.”
“Babe,” Six-Gun called. “What in the hell shit do you three have going on right now? Mitzy gonna jump out of the garbage can or something?”
Raelyn put the phone to her ear and pasted a huge smile on her face. “Technical difficulties,” she gulped.
“Once we find Mitzy, I am never letting her hang out with your ol’ ladies,” I growled. Raelyn and Memphis obviously couldn’t stay out of trouble. First, they get picked up by Leo Banachi when they were out for a “drive,” and now, they had somehow misplaced Mitzy.
“She’s in your room!” Memphis shouted. “We were trying to play a prank on you, but it’s not really a prank because, for some reason, she isn’t coming strutting down the hallway like we had imagined,” she rambled.
“Raelyn,” Playboy groaned. “You gotta be fucking kidding me, babe.”
Raelyn shrugged and shoved the phone at Memphis. “It was all Memphis’ idea. Mitzy and I just went along with it.”
“It was not,” Memphis insisted. “It was a joint effort.”
“Well, it was,” Raelyn admitted. “Though, to be fair, Mitzy was sort of dragged into it.”
I turned and pushed past Jinx and Playboy.
“Be nice to her,” Memphis called. “She really was just going along with Raelyn and me to be nice.”
I didn’t fucking care what Memphis and Raelyn said. I was going to have Mitzy’s ass for trying to play some joke on me. Now was not the fucking time to pretend to disappear. I already lost two members of the fucking club; I didn’t need to add Mitzy to that number. I prowled down the hallway to my room and flung open the door.
Mitzy was curled around my pillow, sound asleep in my bed. She hadn’t even moved when I had opened the door.
“Be nice!” Memphis called from down the hallway.
I stepped out into the hallway and pointed at Memphis, who was standing about twenty feet away. “You better thank your lucky stars that the reason she didn’t answer your call was because she’s asleep.”
Memphis sagged into Six-Gun. “Thank God,” she gasped.
I stepped back into my room and shut the door.
My breathing was labored, and it took me a bit to squelch the panic and rage that had been pumping through my body. I moved to the bed and looked down at Mitzy. Her hands were folded under her cheek, and her dark blond hair was fanned out on the pillow.
My pillow.
Seeing her safe brought a sudden calm to me.
I understood that Memphis and Raelyn were just messing around with me, but they hadn’t known the protective possession I felt for Mitzy.
Hell, I didn’t even know I had it until they had told me she walked out the front door of the clubhouse.
I brushed her hair back from her cheek and felt her soft skin under my fingertip. She flinched in her sleep, and I moved my hand back.
Something had shifted inside me when I had found Mitzy faceplanted on her desk. It was a shift that made me want to protect her with my dying breath.
I grabbed a folding chair from next to the dresser and moved it beside the bed. Two times in the past seventy-two hours, I sat and just watched Mitzy breathe.
The simple act brought something I had never felt before.