For a long moment he didn’t answer. The sounds from downstairs drifted faintly up the hallway. Boots on wood. Men talking. Life going on like nothing had changed when everything had.
Tex finally spoke, his voice quiet. Yet there was something undeniably deadly in it also. “It won’t end well for them.”
A chill slid down my spine.
Tex opened the door, but before he stepped out, he looked back at me one last time. “Lock the door after me,” he said, “just in case.”
For the first time since arriving at the clubhouse, I realized something even more terrifying than the cartel coming after me.
The danger might already be inside this building.
The silence that followed felt thick and suffocating. From somewhere down the hall, someone shouted and a burst of laughter followed, but inside the room, everything felt still.
Tex straightened. “Get some sleep,” he said. “We’ll figure out the next move in the morning.”
He stepped into the hallway and pulled the door closed behind him, and the room fell quiet. I stared up at the ceiling, thinking of everything all at once.
My parents weren’t who I thought they were.
A cartel wanted my land.
And somewhere inside this building, there was a man who had betrayed my mom and dad and might be planning to betray them again…to get to me.
I closed my eyes, but sleep didn’t come easy, because the last thought that drifted through my mind before exhaustion finally pulled me under was far more frightening than anything else.
What if the rat wasn’t just someone in the club?
What if it was someone Tex trusted?
Someone close to him.
Someone who already knew I was here.
