10
TEX
The couch in the clubhouse had about as much comfort as a concrete slab with nails sticking out of it. At one point I’d rolled over only to discover an empty bottle and a thong sticking out from under the cushion I had my head on.
I’d slept on worse in my life, but not by much.
The room was relatively dark except for the red glow of the neon beer sign above the long wooden bar, casting everything in a dull red haze. The clubhouse had been wild earlier, but it had died down around 2 a.m. Now almost everyone was asleep. A couple of the guys had drifted off in the main room—one passed out in a chair, another slumped over the table with a bottle still in his hand.
Now the place was quiet.
Mostly.
I lay there staring at the ceiling, one arm thrown out above my head, listening to the familiar nighttime sounds of the clubhouse. The hum of the old refrigerator. The occasional creak of the building settling. Wind brushing against the siding outside.
But my mind wasn’t quiet.
Not even close.
Rowan’s face from earlier kept flashing through my head.
The way she’d looked when JD had dropped the truth about her parents. Like the ground had disappeared from under her feet.
I’d seen that look before. Usually right before someone’s world changed forever.
I dragged a hand over my face and sat up, rubbing the back of my stiff neck. Sleep wasn’t coming anytime soon, despite how exhausted I felt.
Down the hallway, a door creaked open and soft footsteps followed. I froze, listening with the trained ear of a man who was used to seeking out danger in the dark. The footsteps were light and hesitant as they crossed the floor above—Rowan.
I didn’t know how, but I recognized the rhythm of her footsteps already. Like my body had tuned itself into her radio frequency.
A moment later the bathroom door upstairs opened and closed.
I exhaled slowly and leaned back again, staring at the ceiling.
She was probably overwhelmed. Anyone would be after hearing what she’d heard tonight. And not just the stuff with her parents. The clubhouse was not the place for a woman like her, and I was looking forward to taking her back to the ranch tomorrow.
Hell, I was overwhelmed, and this was my world. A world I’d grown into a man in.
It was the women and the whiskey, the crudeness of jokes and the undressing with eyes. The club was wild—always had been—but Saturday nights when the girls from the strip club came around were always worse. Or better, depending on what you were looking for. And the men in this club, unless they were chained to a woman, were always looking for something.
I switched my thoughts from the memory of one of the girls, Candy, writhing around in her pink thong and sheer bra on my lap earlier. Thoughts like that weren’t going to help me get to sleep anytime soon.
Instead, my thoughts went to much darker places.
A rat in the club. In my goddamned club.
I had trusted these men with my life, and now I find out that one of them wasn’t who he was supposed to be. It was unnerving.
The thought made my jaw tighten and my teeth grind.
Someone had possibly been feeding information to the cartel all these years. Certainly for the last few months. And if that someone had gotten Rowan’s mother and father killed…my fists clenched. That man wouldn’t leave this building alive once we figured out who he was.
I hated the thought that one of my brothers would do something like that. That they would turn their backs on the men and the club they had sworn themselves to.
A faint sound drifted down from upstairs.
Then another.
