myself in that situation in the first place. I’d honked the horn outside the station and a cop had rushed out to find me in the driver’s seat, white-knuckling the steering wheel while Max had pressed the cold barrel of his handgun to my temple and screamed at me, spit flying into my face.
After that, the memory’s blurry. Shouting, handcuffs, getting shoved into a cold cell alone. The cops had given me one phone call, and I’d used it to call Ankh.
I wished I could remember what he’d said on the phone. I’d been so fucking scared. All I could remember was the low, comforting way he’d spoken to me, and the muffled sounds of Priest asking questions behind him.
And they’d shown up at the station. That was what mattered.
“No, it wasn’t the right thing.” I met Tex’s eyes. The warmth of his fingers hooked around my wrist was grounding, keeping me tethered to reality, instead of losing myself fully to the memory. “It was damage control. The right thing to do would’ve been to not let those assholes trick me into doing that job to begin with. I was so fucking stupid. So cowardly.”
“Cowardly?” Tex asked. “You think turning yourself into the cops is cowardly?”
“It was the only thing I could think to do,” I said.
“A coward would’ve gone along with their plan. Would’ve driven them wherever they wanted to go out of fear. A coward would’ve let them get away with it.”
I wanted to believe him. So badly I wanted to. But trying to do the right thing in that situation didn’t change the fact I’d been a part of the attack to begin with. Hadn’t changed the fact that it had landed me in prison.
It’d felt like hours in that cell before Ankh, Priest, and Tex had shown up at the station that night. Tex had looked like I’d never seen him—wounded. He’d looked at me like seeing me behind bars hurt more than the first time he’d been thrown from a horse. I’d been sure I was about to be removed from the club, just like Max and Brewster were sure to be. I’d broken the code.
I’d ruined my only shot at having a family.
And from the expression on Tex’s face, he’d known it.
But.
Instead, Ankh had nodded at me, his deep blue eyes shining with something that looked a little like pride. “You did the right thing, Jazz,” he’d said. “We’re not leaving you behind.”
After Ankh and Priest had left to talk to the police that night, Tex had lingered. He’d taken off his hat and leaned his forehead against the bars. I’d done the same, and even with the cold metal between us, I’d needed the closeness. Needed to know I wasn’t alone.
Now, in my bedroom, Tex ran his thumb over the pulse point in my wrist, reminding me of the exact same thing. “You remember what I said on the stand?”
I took a slow, deep breath. “Yeah. Of course I do.”
The club had dipped into its coffers and gotten me a lawyer. The convenience store owner had died from his wounds, so I’d been tried not just in a robbery, but as an accessory to murder. I’d pleaded innocent, on my lawyer’s recommendation, arguing that I hadn’t known about Max and Brewster’s plot. Tex had gone on the stand as a character witness.
He’d talked for a long time on the stand. He’d talked about our time together on the ranch, our time on the road, and how we’d both found a place to call home in Hell’s Ankhor. He’d told the judge that I was kind, and loyal, and just trying to carve out a space for myself in the world. And he’d acknowledged that I craved approval, sometimes to my own detriment.
Tex had argued that it was my actions that led to the imprisonment of Max and Brewster—I was the one who’d driven them to the station, after all.
The judge had been convinced. He’d only sentenced me to three years, while Max and Brewster were in for life. I’d accepted the sentencing. It was more lenient than I expected or deserved.
A man had died—and I’d been part of it.
Those nightmares were worse than the nightmares about solitary. The nightmares where I’m just in the car, waiting, waiting to hear that gunshot, knowing it’s coming, but unable to do anything to stop it.
I closed my eyes hard, willing the memory away, and then opened them again, meeting Tex’s gaze. “If you hadn’t gone on