Tex (Hell's Ankhor #5) - Aiden Bates Page 0,57

Rebel. Rebel had a tablet in his hand, and he was flipping through something on it with Gunnar that made Gunnar’s face contort into an unhappy grimace.

“Tex,” Blade said in greeting.

Gunnar tore his eyes from the tablet and looked at me. “Hey,” he said. “Have you seen Jazz recently? In the past day and a half?”

I blinked and froze in place, snapshots of Jazz from my dream flashing across my mind. “Not since we got back from Junee,” I said. “Why?”

Blade, Gunnar, and Rebel shared a look.

“What?” I asked. My heart rabbited in my chest. “Did something happen?”

“He’s not hurt, as far as we know,” Blade said immediately, reading the panic on my face.

From Blade’s dark expression, I had a gut-churning feeling that hurt might be better than whatever Blade was about to tell me. “Then what the fuck is going on? And what do you mean, as far as we know?”

My sharp tone made Blade raise his eyebrows at me. He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back a little in his chair.

I deflated a little. At the end of the day, Blade was on my side. Whatever he had to tell me, lashing out at him because I was worried about Jazz would only make it harder.

“Sorry,” I said, a little sheepishly. “I just—I’m a little on edge today.”

“Yeah, I can tell,” Gunnar muttered.

Blade said nothing, just nodded at Rebel. With a sigh, Rebel slid the tablet across the kitchen island toward me.

I picked it up. There was a grainy photo on screen, tinged green with night vision, clearly taken from a distance.

It was Crave.

And Crave was speaking to Jazz.

I swiped across the screen, revealing more photos—zoomed in, from slightly different angles. There was no denying it. That was Jazz, leaning to the left a little bit, like he always did when he got drunk.

“When were these taken?” I asked, staring blankly at the screen as I flipped back and forth through the photos. I couldn’t fucking believe what I was seeing. After everything—the jail time, the second chance, the enforcer job, how scared he’d been after the fight at Ballast—he’d met up with Crave?

Why?

“Monterey,” Rebel said. “Late last night.”

“So what were they doing?” I asked, a little frantically. If we had photos, that meant Crave was in custody—it had to.

Rebel sighed and scrubbed his palm over his forehead. “The FBI became aware of Crave’s whereabouts about a week ago and have been following him—surveilling.”

“Why?” Crave was just out there? We knew where he was and weren’t fucking doing anything about it? “Why hasn’t he been arrested?”

“I’ve got an old buddy in the FBI,” Rebel explained. “We’re not supposed to have this information—the police, too, I mean, not just the club. It’s not the force’s jurisdiction, for one, and they don’t want to arrest him yet. The FBI wants to know who his connections are, implicate as many people as possible, or even see if they can tap him as an informant. To see if it’s worth offering him a plea deal when they make the arrest.”

“That’s fucking bullshit,” I said, low. Anger simmered low in my gut.

“My buddy thinks so, too,” Rebel said. “That’s why he sent this over. He thought we should know that one of our own had contact with Crave.”

Blade nodded in agreement. “This means the feds might be sniffing around our territory, too. We need to keep an eye out for that as well as Crave and any Viper stragglers.” He fixed me with a hard, stern look. “Did you have any idea about this?”

“No,” I said, meeting Blade’s eyes.

I hated that he even had to ask. But he did, of course he did. He knew how close we were. He knew how badly I wanted to keep Jazz out of the joint, in the club. And he knew that if Jazz had told anyone about this, he’d have told me.

“All right.” Blade sighed and leaned his elbows on the kitchen island.

Relief swept over me. At least he didn’t hesitate to believe me.

“You know how this looks, right?” Gunnar asked.

I grimaced, nodding.

“You don’t have any hunches?” Logan asked. “Any reason he might have to meet with Crave? Did he know any Vipers in San Quentin? Unfinished business?”

“He would’ve told me,” I said.

Right? He would’ve mentioned it if he owed a debt to the Vipers for some reason. The only time he’d talked about other gangs in San Quentin was in reference to being targeted, how he’d had to keep his guard