Chapter 27 Tex
TEX
The call came in while we were still sweeping the yard for stragglers.
JD was talking to Moose about regrouping when one of the younger guys jogged over, phone in hand, face pale. I knew before he even opened his mouth that whatever he had to say was bad.
“Tex,” he said quietly. “You need to hear this.”
I took the phone. “Yeah?”
The voice on the other end was shaky. “It’s the girl’s ranch. They hit it. Set it on fire.”
My stomach dropped straight through the ground.
“What?” My voice came out low and dangerous.
“It’s mostly gone, man. Fire crews are still there but there’s nothing left. House, barn, even the fucking animals. They chained the doors shut so they couldn’t get out. It was too late to do anything by the time anyone realized.”
I didn’t hear the rest. I didn’t need to.
I handed the phone back without a word.
JD stepped closer. “Tex—”
“They burned her home down,” I said, barely recognizing the sound of my own voice. “They burned the only thing she had left. They even killed her horses.”
I shook my head, my anger building. I pressed the heels of my hands against my closed eyes as I tried to regain some semblance of control.
“We’ll kill every last one of them,” Moose said. “Not just for what they did here, to us, but for her too.”
“You’re damn straight we will,” Swampy said.
His shoulder had been bandaged up after a couple of stitches, and it was still bleeding, but he refused to go to the hospital or even stand down.
When I pulled my hands away, I felt something inside me snap—not loud, not explosive. Quiet. Final. Like a bone breaking clean through. JD was pacing, a distant look on his face.
“Prez, they’re not just coming for her,” I said. “They’re trying to erase her completely—her blood, her life, her family. They’re making sure that no one else will stand in their way of buying up that land after she’s dead.”
He stopped pacing. “I know, and you know I won’t let that happen, brother.”
“I know that,” I agreed, and I did. I may not have staked a claim on her, but she was mine; JD knew it as much as I did.
JD put a hand on my shoulder. “We’ll rebuild it, okay. All of it. But first we pluck the fucking head off this weed and make sure it doesn’t grow back. Then we dig deep and find out which of our so-called brothers created this fuckin’ mess, and then we end him.”
Moose, Swampy, and I all grunted our agreement.
Ending a brother’s life shouldn’t have been such an easy decision to make, and yet it was. Especially after tonight.
“I need to go to her,” I said.
“Tex, we don’t know what’s waiting between here and the safe house.”
“I don’t care. I need to see her.”
JD stared at me for a long second before nodding. “All right. Let’s move.”
We mounted up fast, engines roaring to life. Gods joined us en route along with Bear and Confessor. The ride was chaos, with blocked roads, cartel scouts trying to regroup, debris everywhere. Every delay made my pulse spike harder.
Every minute she was away from me felt like a minute too long.
I kept seeing her face when I told her I would protect her with my own life. The shock. The fear. The way she’d looked at me like she didn’t know what to do with the truth. Like she felt undeserving. It made me want her more.
It felt like we were two halves of the same circle, neither of us feeling good enough. Neither of us feeling worthy of love.
And now this. The ranch. Her parents’ legacy. All gone.
God, what must she be feeling right now?
We pushed through the last stretch, dawn on the horizon, guns drawn, clearing the area around the safe house before we even dismounted. JD signaled the all-clear, and I didn’t waste another second.
I shoved the door open.
Rowan was standing in the middle of the room, arms wrapped around herself, eyes red and distant. The prospect, Eli, Ridge, Levi, and the two older guys I’d sent to protect her, snapped to attention when they saw us, but I barely noticed them. The only thing I saw was her.
And the second her eyes met mine, everything in me went still. She didn’t run to me. She didn’t speak. She just stared like she wasn’t sure I was real.
I crossed the room in three strides. “Rowan.”
Her breath hitched. “Tex…”
I reached for her slowly, giving her every chance to pull away. She didn’t, and then she stepped into me like she’d been holding herself together by sheer force and finally couldn’t anymore.
Her hand fisted in my shirt, her other arm pressed against her chest. Her forehead leaning against my chest. And then she broke. Not loud. Not dramatic. Just a soft, shattered sound that cut straight through me as she cried.
I wrapped my arms around her, holding her tight, one hand cradling the back of her head. “I’m here,” I murmured. “I’m right here.”
She shook against me. “The ranch, it’s all gone.”
“I know.” My voice cracked. “I’m so damn sorry.”
She pulled back just enough to look up at me, tears streaking her cheeks. “It was all I had left of them.”
I cupped her face gently. “You still have them, Rowan. And once this is all over, we’ll rebuild the ranch, and your home.”
Her breath trembled. “Tex, I don’t know how to do this.”
“You don’t have to know,” I said. “You just have to let me stand with you.”
She closed her eyes, leaning into my touch like she was exhausted down to her bones, and I couldn’t blame her. I was exhausted, and I had lived this life before.
Behind us, JD quietly ushered the others outside to give us some space.
I lowered my forehead to hers. “We’ll rebuild. Whatever you want. Whatever you need, and however you need it. I’ll help you put it all back together.”
She swallowed hard. “Why?”
Her eyes opened slowly, searching mine, raw and vulnerable.
The door shut behind JD and the others, leaving Rowan and me in a pocket of silence that felt too fragile to touch.
I kept my arms around her until her breathing steadied, until the tremble in her shoulders eased just enough that she could stand on her own.
But I didn’t want to let go of her.
I wanted to tell her how I felt, but how could I do that when I didn’t understand it myself yet?
Moose cleared his throat from the doorway. “Tex,” he said quietly. “We need you.”
Rowan’s fingers tightened in my shirt for a second before she let go. I brushed my thumb along her cheek, a silent promise to come back, and then I stepped away.
The Kings gathered around a makeshift table—an old workbench covered in maps, burner phones, and half-charged radios. JD leaned over the layout of the county, tracing routes with his finger.
“We’ve got two problems,” he said. “One: the cartel’s regrouping as we speak.
I’ve got intel that a private plane landed thirty minutes ago.
Two: they’re getting bold. Hitting the ranch wasn’t random.
I think they intended for that firefight.
They sent their men to die knowing we would pull back from protecting the ranch to help out. ”
“But why not just burn down the ranch with our guys there? Why lure them away?” I asked.
“It was a message,” Moose added. “They’re telling us they’ll burn everything she loves to the ground.”
My jaw clenched so hard it hurt. “Then we hit back harder.”
JD gave me a look. “We will. But smart. Not reckless.”
I didn’t argue, but the fire in my chest didn’t cool.
“They want us onside,” JD said, his forehead creased as he puzzled over everything. “They’re making sure they have us to heel for when their runs start back up.”
Gods looked up sharply, his eyes narrowing. “Ain’t happening.”
“Easy, brother, of course that’s not happening. The Kings ain’t ever working for no one, and definitely not the damned cartel,” JD replied with a scowl.
Moose pointed to the map. “We’ve got scouts watching the roads. They’ll radio if they see movement. But we need to assume the cartel’s already planning their next strike.”
The room fell quiet for a moment.
“They’re organized, I’ll give them that,” Gods said.
“Hey, didn’t the son just take over the cartel?” I asked, and Moose nodded. “His dad died of a sudden heart attack, right?”
“Yeah, so?” JD replied.
“What if it was only sudden because it was brought on by someone?” A thought was building—not one that I liked very much, though.
“You think his son might have had something to do with it?” JD asked.
“Maybe. Maybe not. But it would make more sense that he was trying to power play and throw his weight around after taking over. If he can bring the Kings to heel then he can bring anyone down.”
We fell momentarily silent at that thought. We had always had a good relationship with them previously. We’d worked a couple of jobs together over the years, but generally, they had their thing and we had ours.
If his son was taking over and trying to make it clear he was the new man in town, then maybe this made more sense. More and more pieces began to fall into place the longer I thought about it.
“I’m not sure,” Confessor said. “Why would they care about a little town in Colorado? They have routes all over the country. Why go to this much trouble for one woman? It doesn’t make any sense to me.”
Moose crossed his arms. “Well, whatever it is, we need to move her again. This place won’t hold for long if they find it.”
I hated the idea of uprooting her again, dragging her from one hiding spot to another like a hunted animal. But he was right.
“Where?” I asked.
JD tapped a spot on the map. “Old mill on the edge of county lines. Reinforced, isolated, and we’ve used it before. It’ll buy us some time.”
Time. That’s all we ever seemed to be buying.
I nodded. “We move at dusk.”
Moose grunted approval. JD started assigning positions, routes, and rotations. The men listened, but I could feel their nerves humming under the surface. They were tired, but mostly they were angry.
When the meeting broke, I didn’t go far. I turned back toward the small room where Rowan waited.
She was sitting on the edge of an old cot, hands clasped in her lap, staring at the floor like she was trying to hold herself together by sheer willpower alone. Her hair fell around her face, hiding her expression.
I stepped inside quietly.
She looked up the moment she sensed me, eyes red but steady. “Is everything…is everyone okay?”
“For now,” I said. “We’re moving you again soon. Somewhere safer.”
She nodded, but her shoulders sagged like the weight of the world was pressing down on her. “I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”
I crossed the room and sat beside her, close enough that our knees touched. “You don’t have to take it alone.”
Her breath hitched. “Tex, I’m so scared.”
“I know.” I reached for her hand, and she let me take it. “Come here.”
She hesitated only a second before leaning into me, her head resting against my chest. I wrapped my arms around her, holding her gently but firmly, like she might slip through my fingers if I wasn’t careful.
She let out a long, shaky breath, the kind that sounded like surrender—not to fear, but to safety.
I rested my chin on her hair. “You can sleep for a little bit. I’ve got you.”
Her fingers curled into my shirt. “I don’t want to fall apart.”
“Then don’t,” I murmured. “Just breathe. That’s more than enough right now.”
She exhaled slowly, her body softening against mine. For the first time since the firefight, since the ranch, since everything, she let herself lean fully into me, and I held her soft body steady against mine.
Minutes passed. Maybe more. I didn’t care.
I held her like she was the only thing anchoring me to the earth.
And when her breathing finally evened out, when her weight settled against me in a way that told me she’d slipped into exhausted sleep, I tightened my arms around her and whispered into her hair:
“I’m not letting anyone or anything take you from me. Not now. Not ever.”