CHAPTER TWELVE
How do you miss someone who’s turning into a stranger before your very eyes?
Mo
ACCORDING TO THE CLOCK next to my night stand, it was nearing two am and Tex still wasn’t back. I’d texted him a dozen times and even tried calling. Ridiculous! Was I really worried about a man that knew about five hundred unique ways to kill a person? I mean seriously. It was Tex. He was the guy that smiled while he pulled the trigger. But still, he was weak. He was weak, and I’d made him that way, and when he left he was in bad shape.
I shivered.
Nixon was pissed at me too; actually it seemed everyone was pissed at me. We had a dead body, a marriage that wasn’t actually legal, and more questions than answers. The horrible part was that when Nixon asked me if I knew anything, I straight up lied to his face.
Sergio had been in there.
He’d watched me lie.
He’d let me, the bastard. But he was doing his part too, both of us were. I just wish it wasn’t so damn hard to do the right thing. I’d always believed that if you chose others over yourself, you were rewarded, never once did I understand the extraordinary sacrifice it was, when you were asked to be selfless. My chest ached.
I reached across the bed and grabbed Tex’s pillow, holding it close to my chest, inhaling his scent like he was my drug. He’d been the only constant thing in my life, and I didn’t want to live in a world where he wasn’t annoying the hell out of me, where he wasn’t trying to crack a joke in order to make me laugh when all I wanted to do was cry.
The sound of a door slamming jolted me from my pity party. Tex! He was home. I just needed to see that he was okay. I just wanted to know he wasn’t bleeding or dying.
Quietly, I padded to the bedroom door and reached for the knob, only to have it pulled open. I staggered back and gaped.
Tex stood there, shirt off, swaying on his feet.
Drunk as hell.
“Mo.” He said my name like a curse, like he reserved it for the darkest pits of Hell. “Why can’t I be done with you? Why?” He pushed past me and stumbled on to the bed. “I can’t quit…” He shuddered, his voice muffled by the pillow. “I can’t quit seeing you when I close my eyes. I hate you so much, but not as much as I love you. I could never hate you as much as I love you. It’s impossible… believe me.” Tex sighed and rolled over, his fists balling as he hit the pillow. “I try every day.”
Stunned, I could only stand and wait for him to say something else.
Instead he fell into a fitful sleep and started snoring.
With a sigh, I shut the door, walked over to the bed, and pulled the blankets over his muscled body. My heart was beating so loudly I was afraid it would wake him up. I wasn’t sure if I was upset over what he’d said or hopeful that the hate hadn’t taken over just yet, meaning there was room for forgiveness, right?
He stretched his hands above his head and then curled an arm underneath the pillow, making his bicep bulge to epic proportions. I gasped. He was too beautiful for his own good and the crazy part? He didn’t even know it. He’d always felt different than Nixon and Chase because his coloring was lighter. Instead of having dark hair he had light brown hair with pieces of red sewn through, almost like highlights. His eyes were a crazy deep blue, not a light blue but a dark blue, like an ocean storm. When he was pissed, he could seriously give Poseidon a run for his money in the angry god look.
Sighing, I pushed his hair away from his forehead and leaned down to kiss his cheek. The minute my lips graze his skin, he grabbed my hand and had me flipped on my back, pressing my hips against the mattress. Tex hovered over me, his eyes blazing.
“I don’t want to want you,” he ground out slowly “I don’t want…” His chest heaved.
“Tex…” I cupped his face, warm tears sliding down my cheeks. “You should sleep.”
“No time for sleep.” He moved off me anyways and laid his head on my shoulder. “No time for sleep when you’re about to die.”
I froze. “You’re dying?”
“Ten million.” He sighed. “Insulting.”
With that he fell asleep.
And I stayed up the rest of the night wondering if every sacrifice I’d made had been in vain, because they were still after him.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
We’re only as strong as our boss is to other bosses. Period.
Sergio
“SO?” I ASKED throwing my keys onto the table and reaching for a bottle of water.
“Ten million.” The voice said in a bored tone.
I stared down at my phone and kept staring. Ten million? It had to be a joke? How insulting, not only to the rest of the families but to Tex himself. Only ten million? Ten million did not get us results. Blood. Maybe. Death? Absolutely. But results? Ones we needed in order to move on to the next step of the plan? It wouldn’t happen and it needed to happen; otherwise, they would all die.
I would die.
There would be nothing left.
A cleansing was coming.
And I was doing everything I could to keep it from happening, but that’s the thing about not existing—about being a ghost. Interfere too much? And people start to talk.
Nixon might as well have been a detective with as many questions as he was firing at me. Why did I really go to the wedding? Why was I at his house? Why was I helping when I usually stay behind the scenes? What did I have to gain?
I sighed, feeling more ancient then my twenty-eight years and glanced at my phone. “Fine, we wait until it’s higher.”