Chapter 26 Rowan
ROWAN
The safe house the prospect took me to wasn’t really a house; it was more like an old storage building they had reinforced with steel doors and boarded-up windows.
It smelled like dust and motor oil, and the single overhead bulb flickered every few seconds like it was nervous about what was coming, too.
I was pacing before the door even shut behind me.
The two club members posted near the entrance stood like statues, arms crossed over their massive chests, dark eyes scanning every shadow.
The prospect who’d brought me hovered close, trying to look calm, but his knee bounced every time he shifted his weight.
It was obvious that he wanted to be back with the other men.
That he wanted to be a part of the fight.
I wondered if I should feel guilty about that, but it seemed like a ridiculous thing to feel guilty over.
This whole situation was ridiculous though, and I couldn’t understand how my life had been turned into an NC-17-rated movie, when just last month I had been shopping for new underwear and wondering what color to paint my childhood bedroom.
Now people were trying to kill me.
The cartel was trying to kill me.
It was ludicrous and terrifying.
I couldn’t stop moving. My thoughts were too loud, and too sharp. I pressed my palms to my eyes, trying to breathe around the ache in my chest. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to hold on to everything—hold it all together—without dropping everything else I’d been carrying.
My parents’ faces flashed through my mind.
My mother’s laugh, my father’s steady, calloused hands.
I missed them so much right now despite that this was a mess they had gotten me wrapped up in.
The grief felt like a bruise that had never healed.
I wondered what they would say if they could see me now.
If they’d tell me to run. If they’d tell me to fight. If they’d tell me to trust Tex.
And then the ranch. God, the ranch.
The smell of hay in the mornings. The creak of the large barn doors. The way the sun hit the fields at dusk, turning everything gold and beautiful. It was the only place that had ever felt like home to me. The only place that had ever felt safe.
It was the last of my parents.
And now my choice was give it up or die.
Or maybe it wasn’t a choice any longer. It didn’t feel like one anymore.
I wrapped my arms around myself, pacing faster. Tex had looked at me like I was the only thing in the world that mattered. Like he’d tear the sky open if it meant keeping me alive. And I didn’t know how to carry that either.
The prospect’s phone buzzed.
He jumped like he’d been shot, fumbling it out of his pocket. “Yeah?” he whispered, turning away from me. “We’re secure. She’s—”
He stopped and his shoulders tensed. I walked toward him, around him, so I could look at him. His face was drained of color and he wouldn't look me in the eye.
“Okay, yeah…” he said, nodding firmly once.
My stomach dropped. “What is it?”
He didn’t reply to me, just kept on nodding and replying to whoever was on the phone. “All right. I’ve got it.”
He hung up, his gaze finally flicking to mine. Baby blue eyes holding steady, despite the nervous tick to his jaw.
“Can you give me a minute?” he asked, and he sounded so sincere that I found myself nodding yes when really I wanted to scream no.
He turned away, going toward the other two men. They talked amongst themselves for several moments.
“Tell me,” I said, stepping toward him. “Please.”
When he looked back over at me it was with an expression I didn’t recognize. Sympathy, maybe? But something else also.
“Ma’am…” he started, voice tight. “I don’t know if I should—”
“You should,” I said, sharper than I meant to. “Tell me.”
My thoughts went to Tex and his words that he would die for me, and the bubbling of grief tightened inside.
The prospect swallowed hard, his eyes flicking to mine with something like pity. “I’m sorry,” he said, with so much pity in his tone that I felt like I was going to be sick. “It’s your ranch.”
I was already breathing out a sigh of relief before I could comprehend what he was saying. Then I gasped. “No!”
“It was set on fire.”
The room tilted. “What?” My voice came out thin, barely there.
“They said most of it is gone. I’m sorry.”
For a moment I couldn’t breathe. I couldn't think. I couldn’t move.
The ranch. My home. My parents’ legacy. The only piece of them I had left was gone.
I pressed a hand to my mouth, trying to hold in the sound clawing its way up my throat. The prospect looked like he wished he could take back the words, but it was too late. They were already inside me, tearing everything apart.
“The animals?” I asked through my fingers still covering my mouth.
The prospect shook his head. “They’re gone too. The barn doors were locked shut with chains when they lit it up.”
I stumbled back until my shoulders hit the wall, and I slid down it, knees giving out.
The ranch was gone. My beautiful animals were all gone.
And suddenly, this safe house didn’t feel safe at all.
Nowhere felt safe anymore.
I felt numb as images of the ranch flickered through my mind.
Memories of the animals, of my beautiful horses burning alive inside the barn, screaming for me to help them.
To get them out of there. But I hadn’t come.
I had been here, safe and protected. I had been hiding while they had burned alive.
I screamed against the hand over my mouth, grief and anger turning into something ugly inside me. The prospect looked uncomfortable, uncertain whether to try to comfort me or not. He took one step toward me and I held up a hand.
“Don’t,” I snapped, and he nodded his acquiescence. “How did it happen? I thought you had men there watching it.”
“We did, but when they turned up at the clubhouse we rang for backup…” His words trailed off so I filled in for him.
“And they left my ranch and went to help.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you think that was the plan all along?”
The other two men stepped forward, quizzical expressions on their faces. The taller one shook his head. “No one would risk that many men.”
“You sure of that?” the other man said.
We all fell silent after that.
I sat there on the dirty floor, trying to rid myself of the images inside me. Trying to focus on breathing. On living. On staying in the present. Because I couldn’t fall apart. Not yet.
Tex was still alive, and he was still out there, fighting for me.
And if he could hold it together, then so could I.
Just like all the things I wanted to say to Tex would have their time, so would my grief for my many losses.
And there were so many that they were stacking up high now. Like a temple of bones, they wobbled but continued to grow. But what else could be taken from me? I had nothing left.
Nothing but Tex.
And losing him would be my undoing.
Time stopped meaning anything after the call about the ranch.
I sat on the cold concrete floor for what felt like hours, knees pulled to my chest, staring at nothing. The overhead bulb continued to buzz and flicker, throwing shadows across the walls that made the room feel smaller every time it dimmed.
The prospect—Eli, I found out his name was—kept glancing at me like he wasn’t sure if he should say something or leave me alone.
The two other club members stayed near the door, tense and silent, their eyes fixed on the gaps between the slats and the outside world, like they could will Tex and the others to walk through it.
No one spoke and no one moved much.
The only sound was the hum of the light and the occasional creak of the building settling, each one making my heart jump.
It felt like days, yet it couldn’t have been. But fear stretches time until it’s unrecognizable. And grief will do the same to a person, and I felt so much grief. It was like a thick ball of it, knotted together and impossible to pick apart.
Finally I stood up, because sitting still made the panic worse.
I paced the length of the room, then back again, over and over until my legs ached and the ground was clear of dust from where I had been pacing.
My thoughts chased each other in circles, concocting different scenarios of what could be happening outside.
Of what might be happening to Tex right now.
And then it spun the other way, remembering all the things that had happened.
Tex fighting.
Tex promising he’d stand in front of me every time.
I didn’t know how to hold on to that. I didn’t know how to deserve it.
Then my mind went to my parents. Their faces and their voices. The ranch. The fire. The loss was so sharp it felt like a blade lodged under my ribs.
I pressed my hand to my chest, trying to breathe around the pain of it.
I thought of all things I had inexplicably missed over the years.
Things I had been too blind to see for what they were.
Things that showed me exactly who my parents were—not perfect parents that sent me to college, insisting that they wanted me to see the world and experience everything, but parents that hid me from the men they knew would harm me and use me as leverage.
Parents that apparently hadn’t saved their entire lives to send me to college, but had funded my college through drug money they got from the cartel.
I felt sick.
Eli kept checking his phone even though it hadn’t rung since that first call. The other two men shifted restlessly, exchanging looks that made my stomach twist tighter. Eventually they sat down on old crates beside the door, their guns still clutched tightly in their grasps.
They were worried and they were trying not to show it.
Hours passed, maybe more. At least that’s what it felt like. The light flickered again, and I flinched.
“Still nothing?” one of the older men muttered.
Eli shook his head. “No calls. No updates.”
“That’s not good,” the other said under his breath.
My pacing stopped and they all stiffened, like they hadn’t meant for me to hear.
“What do you mean ‘it’s not good’?” I snapped.
Eli stepped forward quickly, one hand smoothing over his short beard. “It’s not that anything bad happened. It’s just, they should’ve checked in with us by now.”
My pulse hammered in my ears like an echo, only too loud. “So something did happen.”
“We don’t know that,” Eli said, but his voice was too thin, too careful, and my God he was so young. Too young to be so deep in this life already.
I wrapped my arms around myself, suddenly freezing. “Tex would’ve called.”
The older man closest to the door exhaled slowly. “He’s got his hands full right now. They all do. They’ll call when they can.”
His words didn’t help. Not one bit. Instead they made the room tilt again and I pressed my back to the wall, trying to steady myself. “I can’t just sit here waiting for something to happen.”
“You have to. We all do,” Eli said gently. “It’s the safest place for you right now.”
Safe. The word felt ridiculously hollow now. The ranch had been safe. My parents had been safe. The clubhouse had been safe. And look what had happened to all of them. Where were they all now? Dead or burned to the ground. Nowhere seemed safe anymore.
I slid down the wall once more, burying my face in my hands. The silence stretched, thick and suffocating to the point I couldn’t breathe.
Every time a car passed outside, every time a floorboard creaked, every time one of the men shifted their weight, my heart leapt into my throat. My body was so tense that every muscle ached from holding itself.
I kept seeing Tex’s face, smoke-streaked, determined, and so totally terrified for me.
The waiting was its own kind of torture. And the worst part was the not knowing. About Tex, about the club and the men that had sworn to protect me, about the cartel, and about what was left of my life outside these four walls.
I wrapped my arms tighter around myself and whispered into the quiet, “Please be okay. Please be okay. Please be okay.”
No one answered and the room stayed still, and the hours kept stretching on.
I wasn't sure at what point I finally fell asleep, but when I woke up it was to the feeling of sudden movement within the room and the throaty sound of engines outside the door.