Tex (Hell's Ankhor #5) - Aiden Bates Page 0,55

he just leave me alone? Couldn’t I get just one fucking night to get drunk and maybe, eventually, pick someone up, without having to think about Tex?

In a sudden fit of frustration I chucked my phone deep into the darkness of the alley. Like that’d somehow get Tex to leave me alone, or undo what I’d done this morning.

Immediately I regretted it. The booze churned in my gut, mixing with my regret, despair, and anger into one stomach-turning knot of nausea. I was behaving like a fucking teenager again.

Hell’s Ankhor had given me a second chance to be an enforcer. And that phone was my only way of communicating with them when I was off duty and out of town. Just because I was angry with myself didn’t mean I could just throw my phone away and pretend that would solve my problems.

With a heavy sigh, I pushed myself off the wall and started to pick my way into the darkness of the alley, scanning the ground for my phone.

Ugh. I really had a good arm, even when I was drunk. I was almost all the way down the alley, back by the dumpsters near the parking lot and still hadn’t found my phone. Noise from Stallions’ fenced-in backyard filtered through the air, but the gravel parking lot was nearly empty. Hopefully I hadn’t chucked it into one of these rancid dumpsters by accident.

“This what you’re looking for?” a familiar cold, sneering voice asked. One I hadn’t heard in more than three years—but one I remembered well. Even before Ankh’s death, before San Quentin, the Vipers had been a thorn in Hell’s Ankhor’s side.

The disgust that shot through me straightened my spine like a physical blow. Crave stepped out of the shadows, emerging from the edge of the parking lot, sallow-skinned and a little wild-eyed. He tossed my cell phone casually from hand to hand. It was ringing again.

Crave glanced at the screen and almost laughed. “Still attached at the hip to the ginger, huh?”

I gritted my teeth. I was still buzzing with alcohol, unarmed, and now without a way to communicate to the other enforcers. Fuck. Would I ever stop fucking up my life by not thinking things through?

Crave laughed. “Couldn’t believe my luck when I saw you lurking outside this shithole. Shoulda known you’d be right back to your old haunts, though. You Hell’s Ankhor guys are all the same.”

I crossed my arms over my chest and still said nothing. All I could think about was the look on Tex’s face when he found out this happened. He’d be so fucking ashamed. He’d think I hadn’t changed at all. And maybe I hadn’t, if I’d been out of the joint for barely a blink of an eye and I was already eye-to-eye with Crave.

God. How could I have fucked up my friendship so badly with Tex? How would I be able to explain this to him? Oh, I was just hanging out in Monterey by myself because I was too angsty about you rejecting me after I fucked up and kissed you to stay at the clubhouse, and I happened to stumble into Crave without a weapon, backup, or even my goddamned phone.

What kind of fucking bullshit enforcer was I? What kind of friend?

And how was I going to get myself out of this?

“Heard you just got out of the joint,” Crave said with a grin. “I’ve got a proposition for you.”

If I learned anything in the joint, it was this: if an enemy offered you a deal, listen to it. Even if you already knew you’d turn it down, you’d gain a little bit of insight. And in places like San Quentin, sometimes that little bit of information could save your life.

I looked down my nose at Crave. “All right. I’m listening.”

14

Tex

I dreamed of the beach.

I dreamed of Monterey in the early evening. It wasn’t cold, but it was chilly enough that goosebumps pebbled the broad expanse of Jazz’s shoulders when he emerged from beneath a slow-breaking wave. He smiled at me, one of those big unselfconscious smiles he wore when it was just the two of us. He shook the saltwater from his hair like a happy dog and nodded toward the beach. I nodded back and led the way, moving slowly through the water until we were in the shallows with the waves lapping at our feet.

“Hey, Clint,” Jazz said.

I turned around. He was smiling still, and the dim evening light was sparkled in his