Tex’s arm was still around me, one hand gripping the back of my neck, holding me close, like if he let go, I might disappear.
“Don’t move,” he muttered against my hair, pressing a kiss against my head. “Just don’t move. I’ve got you, sweetheart.”
Then there was the sound of car doors slamming outside and my stomach dropped as heavy footsteps followed.
Boots crunching on gravel, coming closer…coming inside.
A voice cut through the silence, cold and controlled. “It doesn’t have to be like this. We don’t want the club,” the man called out, almost bored. “We just want the girl. Send her out to us and this all ends tonight. Or don’t and you all die.”
My blood turned to ice and my body started shaking even harder.
Tex’s grip tightened, pulling me back against his chest. “Easy,” he whispered, so quietly I wasn’t entirely sure I heard it. “I’ve got you,” he continued, his voice different now. Lower and deadlier.
I pressed into him without thinking, my fingers clutching at his shirt, anchoring myself to the only solid thing in a world that had just shattered.
“I’m not letting them take you,” he murmured, and I could feel the tension in him. The readiness to kill or be killed. To defend my life with his own.
From the corner of my eye, I saw movement. It was Swampy—or at least I thought that was what I’d heard Tex call him. He was crouched a few feet away, his back against the wall, jaw tight as he reloaded his gun with steady hands.
There was blood soaking through his shoulder, dark and spreading fast down his arm. But he didn’t even seem to notice. Didn’t flinch or hesitate in his movements, as if he wasn’t shot at all. He just clicked another magazine into place and rolled his neck like this was nothing more than another day.
My stomach twisted.
How could he be so calm? How could any of them be so calm?
My gaze shifted from him, and that’s when I saw her—the girl that had come out of the room Tex had been in.
She was lying on the ground near the hallway. Her blonde hair fanned out across the floor, her body twisted at an unnatural angle. Her once pretty eyes were open wide, staringat nothing. A thin line of blood trailed from the corner of her mouth, dark against her pale skin.
For a second, my brain refused to process it.
Then it hit me that she wasn’t moving and she wasn’t breathing because she was dead.
A broken sound escaped me before I could stop it.
Tex’s hand came up, gripping my jaw gently but firmly, turning my face away from the other woman. “Don’t look at her, look at me,” he said, his voice rough.
I tore my gaze from her and stared up at Tex, silent tears trailing down my cheeks. I noted the soft flecks of gold within his eyes and I stared at his mouth and the way the corners of it were pulled down into a hard scowl. I noted the hard line of his jaw and the way it twitched as he clamped his teeth together.
I noted all of these things, because if I died, then something deep inside me wanted his face to be the last thing I saw. I wanted to know every inch of this man, to bring me comfort in my last moments.
“Last chance!” the voice outside called, closer now.
“Fuck off!” a voice from our side of the room called back.
Boots echoed against the floor. “Send her out and we let the rest of you live. Maybe. That is if you don’t keep us waiting too long.”
I heard laughter coming from somewhere.
My heart pounded so hard it hurt.
This was because of me.
All of it.
The blood, the bodies, that young woman. All this death and destruction was because of me. I squeezed my eyes shut, tears spilling over despite my effort to hold them back.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, the words breaking apart on my lips. “I’m so sorry.”
