Chapter 22 Tex
TEX
Colorado always felt too damn open.
Miles of nothing in all directions. The sky so big it made a man feel small and insignificant. And today, with the cold biting through my cut and the engine humming under me, it felt like riding straight into a storm I couldn’t see yet.
Moose, Bear, and Swampy rode tight behind me, four Kings cutting through the backroads like a scythe ready to cut through some necks. We’d gotten intel—solid intel, or so we’d thought—that the cartel had holed themselves up in an old warehouse out here.
Middle of nowhere.
Perfect for hiding.
Perfect for dying.
I should’ve been back at the ranch. With her.
But after what had happened last night I couldn't bear to be around her. The hurt look on her face at my rejection had kept me awake for hours. I’d just nodded off when I’d gotten the phone call with the tip, and I’d known I had to go.
Rowan was safer with three men watching her than she’d ever be with me dragging danger right to her door.
Besides, after the way we had left things last night, I figured she was probably done looking at my dumbass face.
Didn’t stop the guilt from chewing at me the whole ride.
We rolled up just after noon, the road leading to the warehouse clearly well traveled with clear tracks, both bikes and trucks, on it.
The place looked like it had been abandoned since the eighties.
A short, squat concrete building with rust bleeding down the walls from the metal beams in the roof, windows boarded up or smashed out, and a corrugated metal roof that sagged in the middle like it was tired of holding itself up.
Weeds pushed through cracks in the asphalt and a chain-link fence hung open, the padlock cut clean through.
Moose killed his engine first. “Looks quiet.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Too quiet.”
We’d come armed to the teeth, with a handful of men further out to catch anyone we missed and tried to get away. Because sometimes, sending everyone into one spot at the same time was a recipe for disaster. Better to send in the big guns and hang a net at the back to catch the strays.
I swung off my bike, boots crunching over the dusty gravel. The air smelled like dust and old oil. No voices. No movement. No cartel.
But the second I stepped inside, my stomach dropped.
The warehouse was empty, stripped bare. No crates. No gear. No bodies. Just footprints in the dust and the faint smell of cigarette smoke and sweat.
They’d been here—recently. And they’d left in a damned hurry.
Bear whistled low. “They cleared out fast.”
“Yeah,” I muttered. “Too damned fast. Like they knew the devil was coming to their door.”
Swampy kicked an empty bottle of Blue Moon across the floor. And it smashed against the wall. “They knew we were coming.”
“Sure as shit seems that way,” Moose replied.
We looked around, silently taking everything in, looking for anything that would tell us where they had gone, or what they were planning next.
And then I saw it and my stomach dropped.
I’d hoped that we’d been wrong. That my brothers were the men I had expected them to be, the men I had pinned my own life on.
That the bond we shared was life and death and everything in between, because betrayal was a motherfucker.
But the taste of their betrayal sat like acid on my tongue because the evidence was right there now, staring me in the face.
A leather vest.
Our leather vest.
Half-buried under a pile of tarps in the corner.
I yanked it out, heart pounding. The Kings of Anarchy patch stared back at me, dirty and torn, but unmistakable.
My vision went red.
“Motherf—”
I hurled the vest across the room. It slapped against the wall and slid down, leaving a smear of dust behind. I grabbed the nearest crate and threw it. Then another. The crashes echoed through the warehouse, but it didn’t do a damn thing to cool the fury boiling in my chest.
Moose picked up the vest and stared at the patch.
The patch didn’t just mean something. It meant everything.
And there was no denying now that one of ours was involved.
They had betrayed their club and they had betrayed this city, and for what?
For money? Working with the cartel was a death sentence, we all knew that, but one of our own had willingly gone over to them.
Had willingly helped them. And whatever they were involved in, had gotten Rowan's parents killed and had now put a death sentence above her head.
“One of ours was here,” Moose said quietly, his anger and hurt distinct in his tone.
“No,” I growled. “One of ours helped them.”
The words tasted like poison on my tongue.
Someone in the club—in my club—had tipped off the cartel. Had warned them we were coming here. They had been working with them long enough to leave their shit lying around like it was nothing. Like the vest wasn’t an honor only bestowed to the best of men. A vest earned with blood and loyalty.
I slammed my fist into a metal beam and pain shot up my arm, but I welcomed it.
It was better than imagining Rowan back at the ranch while traitors moved pieces around us like we were pawns. Planning her death.
Better than closing my eyes and seeing her face going pale, and her eyes rolling back in her head as she bled out in my arms.
Better than hearing her cry out in pain as a bullet tore through her perfect flesh.
Bear stood beside Moose, jaw tight. “Inner circle’s gonna have to go even smaller, brother.”
He wasn’t wrong.
We’d already cut the circle down to the men we trusted with our lives. Now? We were talking about a handful. Maybe less. And if the men we trusted with our lives weren’t to be trusted, what did that leave us? Who did that leave us with?
The club was built on trust, and some motherfucker was out there pissing all over the heart of our club.
Putting his brothers in danger. And for what?
Money? Who in our club valued money more than respect?
More than their family? My mind scrolled through every man in our club like a Rolodex but landed on none of them.
I couldn’t imagine a single one of them doing something like this.
The Kings wanted money to live, no doubt, but the club was built on more than that. It was built for more than that. Because what good was money when you had no love and respect, and no family?
What good was all the money in the world when you ended up in an unmarked grave in the middle of Colorado, because that was exactly what was going to happen when I found the man that had betrayed us.
Swampy started unpacking the small black case he’d brought. “We setting up cameras?”
“Yeah,” I snapped. “I want eyes all over this place. If anyone shows up—cartel, Kings, I don’t care who the fuck it is—I want to know about it.”
The men got to work, placing discreet cameras in corners, behind beams, tucked into shadows. Motion-triggered. Silent. Invisible unless you knew where to look.
I stood in the middle of the warehouse, breathing hard, staring at the empty space where the cartel should’ve been.
Someone had warned them.
Someone wearing our patch.
And until I found out who, Rowan wasn’t just in danger.
We all were.
Before we left, Moose put the vest back where he had found it.
Hopefully, once they realized they had forgotten it, they would come back for it. And if they did, I would be waiting for them.