Tex (Hell's Ankhor #5) - Aiden Bates Page 0,46

me.”

There it was, my heart in my throat again. I had to close my eyes. That was how it used to be—late nights in our shared room on the ranch, lights out, murmuring to each other from the bunks.

I took a breath. “I thought it was over.”

“What do you mean?”

“The job. The club. This life. All of it. I thought—I thought I’d fucked up again, somehow. Trying to do the right thing. That they’d throw me right back into San Quentin.” I swallowed hard, biting back tears. “Fucking scary.”

“You’re not going back,” Tex said, hard, like he could threaten the world into making that true.

“Because I thought I was doing the right thing back then,” I said. “On that night.”

Tex looked at me, his green eyes serious. “The night of the robbery?”

I hummed in the affirmative. I hadn’t known it was a robbery at the time. We’d been with the club five years at that point, but I still felt like a rookie a lot of the time—unsure of myself, unsteady on my feet. When two more established club members, Max and Brewster, asked me to come with them to the convenience store in a car, not on our bikes, I’d felt a twinge of uncertainty. Like something wasn’t quite right. But I’d pushed it down, pushed it aside—what was wrong with taking a car every now and then?

“I just did what Brewster wanted me to,” I said. “No questions asked. I just—I wanted so badly to be accepted, by everyone. I wanted to be liked. At the expense of everything else.”

When we’d arrived at the convenience store, the guys had told me to stay in the car and keep it running. I should’ve bailed then—my gut had been screaming at me to do just that. They’d been shifty, antsy and quiet the entire ride over, and nothing good ever happened when you were told to keep the car running. But I put my trust in them instead of myself.

Tex said nothing, just watched me, waiting for me to continue.

“I knew something was off,” I admitted. “I didn’t trust myself.”

As I’d waited in the idling car, a sharp gunshot had shattered the silence of the night. Seconds after, Max and Brewster had rushed out and leaped into the car, laughing wildly. “Drive!” Max had barked, waving his gun for emphasis.

“What the fuck is going on?” I’d asked, even as I’d peeled out onto the street, tires squealing.

“Fucker who ran that place wouldn’t sell booze to us,” Brewster had said with a snarl. “Thought we’d teach him not to fuck with Hell’s Ankhor. Robbed the place. Shot him.”

He’d said it so casually. My blood had turned to ice.

The memory was so powerful, suddenly vivid, like it’d been crystalized from so long of being packed away. I closed my eyes at the sudden rush of anxiety and guilt that flooded me.

“I didn’t think it’d be something like that, though,” I said to Tex. “You know? I didn’t know what to do. It wasn’t just a club matter. They killed someone. And I was a part of it.”

I pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes, like if I just pressed hard enough, built up enough pressure, I could change that.

Tex wrapped his fingers around my wrist and carefully pulled one hand away from my eye. His green eyes were warm—how could he look so warmly at me? Especially now? I’d ruined his life that night, too, apparently.

“You did the right thing, though,” Tex said. “After that. Don’t you remember?”

After Max and Brewster had climbed into the backseat laughing, I’d started panicking. They hadn’t said where to drive. I couldn’t go back to the clubhouse—who would believe my word against theirs? They’d been members longer than me. And what if the police came knocking and implicated the whole club?

Plus, I’d wanted them to pay for what they did, and not just in the eyes of the club. I’d been unable to stop imagining the man who ran the convenience store bleeding out on the tile. Had they killed him? I had no way to know at the time. But I did know that they’d used me. They’d known I’d blindly agree to be their getaway driver, no questions asked, because I was a fucking pushover. And they’d expected me to just go along with their plan.

Instead I’d driven us straight to the police station. No fucking around. If I went down with them, I deserved it for being stupid enough to find