Chapter One
AK
Hades Hangmen Compound
Austin, Texas
Present Day . . .
I undid the buttons of my jacket and tried to suck in some fucking air through the thick heat. The gate slammed shut behind us. I reached up and wiped the sand and grit from my face. My entire body felt as though it were made of it.
I could barely make my legs move, I was so fucking exhausted. I glanced down at my hand and saw the fucker shaking.
“You good?” Bones asked.
I looked at my spotter and closest friend. His face was white too, but I could tell he, like me, was manning the fuck up. A weird mix of adrenaline and guilt ripped through me when I thought back to the last two days. The sound of my bullets releasing from my barrel and slicing through the fuckers’ skulls. “Direct hit!” sounding from Bones beside me as I kept my eyes on my targets.
“Three,” Bones said, his gangly arms reaching up to take off his helmet.
I nodded in acknowledgment, but didn’t say shit. Wasn’t sure my mouth would work anyhow.
Fucking three.
Each one a direct hit.
Then I saw him, coming from his tent. He rushed toward me. “X!” he called. I stopped dead, my feet crunching the sand.
Bones’s hand came down on my shoulder. “See you later, yeah? Get some sleep.”
“Yeah,” I replied. Bones walked away, and I looked up at my brother.
“I heard on the radio.” Devin put his hand on my head before lowering it to my shoulder. My hair was gone now. Shaved. Jarhead through and through. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” I said, then laughed. I had no fucking idea why I was laughing. “I’m good.” I looked around us—the tents, the Marines milling about, the trucks being loaded and unloaded. It was fucking weird—out there versus in here. Out of the gate and inside, two completely different worlds.
“Three.” I felt Devin’s hand fall away from me. “I got three of the fuckers.” I laughed again and felt a nervous smile pull on my face. But my heart was pounding. And my hand wouldn’t stop fucking shaking.
Devin put his arm around my shoulder and led me from the entrance of the base. “Come on, X. You need a drink.” I let Devin lead me to his tent. But even as he sat me down and handed me a whiskey, I didn’t let go of my gun. I could see him watching me with worry, but I didn’t care. I’d just killed three people. My first ever confirmed kills.
When my cup was empty, Devin filled it back up. “It gets easier.” He sat on the edge of his cot, right in front of me. I met his eyes. “From this moment on, it becomes second nature and don’t bother you as much. I promise.”
I took a deep breath and let his words sink in, hoping he was right . . .
The smell of bacon frying ripped me from my dream. My heart beat like crazy as I recalled that day. My hands shook as if I were back there in the dry heat. On that damn base . . . with Dev. Calm the fuck down, I told myself, trying to push the memory from my head.
It took five minutes for it to fade.
My eyelids felt like ton weights as I cracked them open and winced at the sun streaming through my window. I groaned and grabbed my head when the effects of last night’s tequila slammed into my cranium, yelling a huge fucking hello, remember me?
“Shit,” I growled as I kicked my legs over the side of my bed and waited for the room to stop tilting to the side. Once the rocking chair in the corner had stopped spinning in circles, I pushed to my feet and stretched out my stiff neck.
Something on my chest pulled tight. I looked down; I had fucking claw marks stretching from my neck to my groin. I’d slept in my jeans, clearly too fucking wasted to undress.
What the fuck had happened? I slammed into the bathroom and closed my eyes as I pissed about a quart of tequila from my system.
I moved to the sink and drenched my face with cold water, then swilled my mouth with mouthwash so it didn’t taste like something had fucking climbed inside and died. I pushed out of the door and followed the smell of bacon. Ash stood at the stove, already dressed in jeans and his Hangmen shirt. A fucking mini-Flame in my home. Tattoos, piercings, and those black-as-hell eyes.
He looked up as I entered the kitchen. The little fucker had the audacity to smirk at me. I gave him the finger and slumped down at the table. Two glasses landed in front of me: a glass of orange juice and a shot of tequila.
I groaned as I knocked back the Patrón, then downed the OJ until the glass was done. “Thanks, kid,” I said, then heard the little shit laughing.
“How the hell are you not this hungover, you little fuck? Last I remember, you and Slash were doing shots of Jameson with Vike.”
He shrugged. “I was. Just don’t really get hangovers.”
“I hate you,” I swung a lazy punch to the side, but the fucker just moved away.
I ran a hand over my eyes. The smell of food hit my nostrils, and I dropped my hand to see a full breakfast before me. My stomach growled in appreciation. Ash was still smirking at me, so I nodded and said, “Fine. You’re forgiven.”
“For what? Being sixteen and able to hold my liquor better than you, old man?”
I stuffed my mouth with greasy eggs and bacon and swallowed. “I’ll give you a pass. Only because right now it’d take too much outta me to knock you the fuck out.”
I hoovered my food then sat back, running my hand over my stomach. I winced when my fingers passed over the fresh scratches on my abs. “You know what happened here?”
Ash lowered his fork and wiggled his eyebrows. “Sure do.” He sat back and pretended to think. “She was about five foot nothing, bright-blue hair, and had the biggest tits you’d ever seen.”
I racked my brain trying to remember the club slut, but I could only grab hold of flashes of me fucking her over my bed in the clubhouse . . . and of her ripping the shit out of my chest when I flipped her over and started again.
That and her fake-ass whining. Club sluts. Whores should learn to just lie back and be good little cum deposits without all the fucking high-pitched mewling.
“Fuck,” I groaned.
Ash went quiet, then, looking up at me through his black hair, asked, “You remember what I talked to you about last night?”
I tried to think. Eventually, I gave up and shook my head. “Sorry, kid. Gonna need you to refresh my memory.”
Ash ducked his head, and suddenly the kid he’d been when we found him in that fucking hellhole in West Virginia returned. Lil’ Ash was doing real good of late. The little shit was funny. He was trustworthy. He fitted in with the club. He loved it with the Hangmen, did everything he could to stay, desperate to please, like he thought at any minute we’d tell him to fuck off.
We wouldn’t. He was one of us now. Still, I was sure Ash never let himself believe it. Plus, the kid loved his brother. And Flame . . . well, Flame was fucking Flame. But I knew that brother better than anyone. He loved Ash, just had fuck-all capability of showing or telling him so.
“I . . . I told you I was interested in the Marines. Scout Sniper MOS, like you.”
I didn’t expect his words. So I didn’t expect the fucking iron bar that slammed into my stomach when he spoke them. I froze, staring at Ash, his head down, hands wringing together on the tabletop in nerves.
“You wanna join the Corps?” My throat was clogged, and it was a damn battle to get my sentence out. “You’re only sixteen.”
“I . . . I know, but you’ve been teaching me to shoot for months now, and you said it yourself: I’m good.”
“You are good, fucking amazing, in fact, but you’re still in school.” Ash nodded, but I could see he was upset at my reaction. I leaned forward. “You ain’t liking school?”
“It’s all right.”
I sighed, working to keep my shit together. This conversation was too familiar. My blood turned to ice in my veins, and I felt as if two massive hands were choking me the fuck out. “Ash,” I said quietly, watching his face fall. “Look at me.”
He did what I said. In all the months he’d lived with me, the kid had never done a thing wrong. Always did as I said. In that respect he’d make a fucking awesome Marine—obedient, disciplined. But I wasn’t about to let that happen on my watch.
Not a fucking a chance.
“You okay?” Ash said.
I shifted in my seat. “You’re smart, kid. Clever. But you’re still young. I know you don’t think so, or at least don’t feel it. Fuck, after what you’ve been through, I get it. You ain’t a normal teenager. Ain’t obsessed with chasing pussy and whatever the fuck other sixteen-year-olds do. But I ain’t signing off on you joining the Corps early. Ain’t happening.”
Ash looked out the window. I continued, “And I’m sure as shit that Flame ain’t gonna let you join up either.” Ash’s head whipped around to me, and a surprised look formed on his face. “Our brother wouldn’t handle you leaving, so how about we give him no reason to freak out on us, yeah?”
“Flame?” Ash said in confusion. “I . . .” His shoulders sagged. “I ain’t all that sure he’d mind.”
And there it was. The reason Ash was looking to me for Marine career advice. I took Ash’s half-full cup of coffee and downed the hot liquid. “I get he don’t speak much to you. I get that he spends most of his time with Madds. But I’m telling you now, that psycho fucker loves you more than he’ll ever be able to say. Right?”
Ash swallowed, and fuck if I didn’t see his eyes starting to water up. “You think?”
I put my hand on his shoulder. “You’re one of the only people he allows near him. There’s Madds, of course, because she’s his bitch and got through to him when no other fucker could. There’s me and Vike. That history goes way back—we’ve seen and been through a lot of shit together.” I squeezed his shoulder harder. “Then there’s you.” Ash sucked in a sharp breath and exhaled slowly. “He’s a Hangman through and through, would do anything for his brothers, but he’s never let the rest of them in like he has us.” I gestured out the window, to our small cluster of cabins deep in the Hangmen compound’s land. “This, right here, is what keeps him from breaking apart. And believe it or not, you’re a huge part of that now too.”
The vise around my throat eased when I saw a flicker of a smile hit the kid’s pierced lips. “Right now, kid, you’re the fourth member of our fucked-up little trio.” I smiled. “And I ain’t gonna cope with nuclear Flame when we tell him I signed off on your enlistment. I’m kind of a fan of my cock, and I’d prefer to keep it far away from your brother’s serrated knife and more in tight, wet pussies.”
Ash laughed, and I smiled in relief, pushing my empty dish in his direction. “Now, get to it. These dishes ain’t gonna clean themselves.”
Ash got up from the table, but just as he’d gathered the dishes in his hands, I stopped him by the elbow. “I thought you liked working on bikes anyway? You spend hours working with Flame on his Harley or in the shop with Tank. Tank says you’re the shit, could be the best damn mechanic we got. You’re in the Hangmen, brother; you’re set for life.”
“I like bikes,” he said after a few silent moments. “I really like them, actually. They make sense to me.”
“Then stick with them, yeah? And once you’re a fully patched-in member of the club, you’ll get a cut of the Hangmen profits too. You’ll be fucking golden, kid.”
He clearly liked the idea of getting patched in, because he beamed with pride. “Now, get back to those dishes,” I said. “Until you’re patched in, you gotta do the grunt work.” I shrugged. “Just the way it is.”
“Yes, sir,” the shitbag said, knowing I hated his young ass making me feel old.
Fucking sir.
I reached behind me to the cabinet, took out two Advil and knocked them back dry. Just as I went to stand to shower and shit, the front door slammed open, and a fucking ginger beast strode in.
“Mornin’, cum-sluts! It’s a beautiful fuckin’ day!”
I groaned loudly as Viking’s godawful voice sliced through my skull. I looked up at him smiling at me like an ugly giant. He sniffed the air. In a flash, he was storming to the stove and checking out the food that was left over.
“I’m starting to think I should get me a fucking live-in rent boy too. He cooks, cleans . . . fuck!” He turned to Ash, who was trying his best to ignore our asshole of a brother. “You suck cock too?”
I opened my mouth to tell him to shut the hell up, but Ash said, “Even if I did, I wouldn’t be sucking yours. Heard it’s no bigger than an inch.”
Vike’s mouth dropped open, before he threw his head back and dove forward to put Ash in a tight headlock. “Fucking little shit!” he shouted, gracing us all with his thunderous, booming laugh.
Ash pushed him off. “You can have the food. It’s what’s left over anyhow.”
Vike scooped up the food, brought it to the table and sank down into a seat. He stuffed the food into his mouth like a damn wild animal. His eyes fell to my chest, and smiling through a mouthful of eggs, he winked at my scratches.
Fuck. My. Life.
Ash brought him a coffee, and Vike drained it in one go, tapping the mug on the table for more. “You get the message from Styx?” Vike said.
“No. Just got up.” I looked around for my cell, but fuck knew where it was.
“Gotta be at church in twenty. Tanner finally got us a lead.”
My pulse started slamming in my neck as my heart tried to cope with the sudden rush of adrenaline.
“Thought you’d like that.”
“He’s found her?” Phebe. A picture of the redhead rushed to my mind. Not that I hadn’t been thinking about the bitch non-stop since we’d found out she was missing.
“No idea.” Vike leaned forward, running his hand down his beard. “But I’m getting real fucking bored lately of standard runs and all the talk of Prez’s damn wedding. Who gives a shit about that? I want Klan scum to hunt.”
My fingers twitched on the tabletop at the thought of tracking Phebe down, of taking out the fucker who had her. Too many nights I’d stayed awake, imagining cutting that fucker apart. Slitting his stomach open and watching as his blood and guts spilled at my feet. And I’d smile. I’d smile through it all with Phebe by my side, watching the asshole die a slow and painful death.
It had taken Tanner longer than he’d thought to get any kind of shit on this Meister dick. And I was restless. I agreed with Vike. Things had been too quiet. I may have been out of the Marines, but I still needed the fucking rush of the fight, of the kill, in my life.
With the Hangmen that shit came in spades.
And it looked like it was about to kick off again.
Fuckin’ A.
“I’ll get dressed.”
I got up and threw on my shirt, cut and boots. We were out of my cabin in minutes, Ash behind us. If it was church, the prospect would be pouring drinks and whatever the fuck else Styx told him to do. I leaned against my cabin and lit up a smoke as Vike hammered on Flame’s door. “Get the fuck out, Flame! Gotta go!”
Through the window of Flame’s cabin, I saw Flame head to the door, Maddie rushing behind him. He turned back to her, and the closest thing Flame had to a smile spread across his face, then he leaned down and kissed his bitch.
My chest tightened. My smoke burned away, untouched, in my hand. I couldn’t believe Flame had something like that.
“AK!” Vike’s voice cut through my thoughts. “You ready?”
I nodded, seeing Flame walk outta his door.
Flame flicked his chin at me, then his eyes tracked around the yard. I knew who he was looking for—he did this every day. Only I noticed. I was the only one trained to not miss a thing. When he saw Lil’ Ash, Flame’s shoulders relaxed.
Ash waved his hand. “Hey, Flame.”
“You good?” Flame asked curtly, running his gaze over every inch of his brother.
“Yeah,” Ash said. He was smiling a little. I knew he had recognized Flame’s attempt at affection. I winked at Ash to confirm that what he thought was true.
Maddie’s small frame appeared in the doorway. “Viking, AK.” Flame instinctively moved toward her, like they were fucking magnets or some shit.
“Madds,” I said.
Vike smiled. “Mornin’, sugar tits.”
Flame’s lip curled at our brash brother, but it was Vike. Weren’t no one stopping that car crash.
“Hello, Asher,” Maddie said to Ash. She nudged Flame’s arm, her eyes urging him to do something.
Flame’s jaw clenched, then, without looking at Ash, he said, “You’re comin’ to dinner tonight.”
Maddie shook her head in exasperation. She wasn’t pissed at the possessiveness. She knew he wasn’t being a dick, he was just . . . fuck, he was just being Flame.
“Ash, what Flame was trying to ask was would you like to have dinner with us tonight? I will cook something special.”
Ash looked to me, and I flicked my chin, urging him to accept. “Yeah. Thanks. I’d love to,” Ash replied, and Maddie smiled at him so big.
Flame backed her into the house. He came back a couple of minutes later and stood beside me.
“You good?” I asked. Flame nodded without meeting my eyes. We did this every day, hell, several times a day. You good? was more than just a passing question. It was Flame telling me that his head wasn’t full of fucked-up shit. Shit from his past.
“Good.” I threw my smoke to the ground and pushed off the wall. I led the way up the hill to the compound.
To church.
Where Tanner better have some fucking good news.
’Cause I was motherfucking itching to hunt.
*****
“Well?” Ky asked.
Tanner ran his hand over his head. The brother hadn’t attended one of our cookouts or slutfests in weeks. Not that he ever entertained himself with sluts—still too hard for his spic pussy down in Mexico. He’d been busy trying to track down Meister. Unlike most of the white-power shit Tanner and Tank grew up with, this Meister was untraceable and off the grid. As much of a computer whizz kid as Tanner was, Meister was proving to be one slippery fucking snake to pin down.
“Gotta be honest, I didn’t think I was anywhere close to finding anything on this prick.” Tanner nodded toward Tank. “We knew of him, of course. I knew he had dealings with my father and uncle, just never met him myself. He’s Aryan Brotherhood, but works closely with the Klan. And there’s nothing on him. No email traces, no invoices, no texts. Nothing.”
I gritted my teeth and glanced at Styx, who was listening closely. Ky wasn’t originally gonna tell the prez about the plan to get Phebe, because of his fucking wedding, but that didn’t last long. Styx knew something was up with his VP. He read him like I read Flame and Vike. So Ky fessed up, and Styx was all for the plan. He’d had to push his wedding back by a month anyhow to get the pastor Mae wanted to conduct the ceremony, so he had time to kill.
“But you found something?” Ky translated as Styx signed.
Tanner sighed, the black circles around his eyes showing how hard the brother had been working. “I got something.” He shook his head, and my blood ran cold. I knew whatever he had found wasn’t good.
Tanner opened the file in front of him and threw a photograph toward the prez. Styx looked at it, then gave it to Ky. “Some middle-of-nowhere ghost town?”
Ky passed the picture around. Vike handed it to me, and I studied it. It was an aerial shot, and the picture was grainy, but from what I could make out, it was just a huge piece of land scattered with decrepit old buildings.
I passed the picture along. “Fucker owns this?”
Tanner faced me. “Yeah, or at least his father did. He’s dead now, but the deeds are still in his father’s name. Been in the family for decades. Took me a while to trace it.” He shook his head. “Meister is notorious among the Klan. Right, Tank?”
“Yeah,” Tank agreed. “Never met him either, but we’d all heard of him. Prick has been mobilizing for years for the race war they think is coming. Real serious, Oklahoma-City-bomb shit. From what we’ve heard, the guy has a one-track mind when it comes to advancing the white race. You think Hitler was fucked up? Well, imagine if he had a kid who was one built motherfucker, with a fucking carbon copy of his psycho mind; and you’ve got Meister. Fucker ain’t even German. Just wishes he was, spouting German phrases around like he was born and bred in Berlin. Delusional asshole.”
“This ain’t gonna be easy,” Tanner finished, looking at me, Vike, Flame, Hush and Cowboy. It was the five of us who had agreed to go looking for Phebe. Hush and Cowboy nodded at me to let me know they were still in.
“So he’s in this ghost town?” Ky asked, translating Styx’s sign language again. “If so, we’ll all just go in and get him, make the fucker talk and tell us where he’s got Phebe.”
Tanner sat forward. “He ain’t just living in the ghost town or hiding out. That’s where he has his enterprise.”
“Enterprise?” Ky echoed. It was his own question this time.
Tanner nodded. “From what I can tell, it’s a fucking brothel. Members of the Aryan Brotherhood, Klan, or Klan sympathizers, can go there for a night or a few days at a time.” Tank shifted uncomfortably next to him. “Ain’t sure, but I’m thinking it ain’t just getting your dick sucked and fucked. It’ll be real fucked-up shit. If Meister’s reputation is anything to go by, we would be walking into an organized, armed hellhole.” Tanner’s eyes darkened. “I get the Klan has a reputation for being full of backward rednecks. I ain’t gonna lie—growing up, most of my father’s cronies were that way. Thick as fuck and couldn’t do shit without screwing it up. Skinheads, lower-ranked soldiers, you know?”
“But there were some members that weren’t,” Tank continued. He cast an embarrassed glance at Tanner. “We weren’t, for starters.”
Tanner nodded. “It’s not the norm, but some of us were good. Smart, strong fighters, or just outright fucking psychos. The skinheads and rednecks are the foot soldiers. The likes of us, the likes of Meister, are the fucking SS. The planners, leaders, the generals—the ones who believe in the cause so much that they’re fucking lethal with what they’ll do, what they’re capable of. Meister is true Aryan Brotherhood; he’s preparing for war. He’s the real fucking deal.”
“And now he’s in our neck of the woods to stir up shit?” I asked.
Tanner nodded. “Comes from northern Texas. Never moved our way before. But the Klan are building day by day, joining forces with other white supremacist gangs—like the Brotherhood—and with the shit that’s on the news twenty-four-seven, blacks and whites at each other’s throats, he’s moved to the headquarters.” The brother’s jaw clenched. “To my father and uncle, who’ll be protecting him from being found out by the feds.” He sighed and ran his hand down his face. “From what I can figure out, this ghost-town brothel of his has only existed in the last year or so. He’s looking to fund something.”
“They ain’t dealing guns?” Cowboy drawled. “I thought that’s what Rider said the contract with the cult was for?”
“Rider was sure it was guns. At least it was when he was dealing with the Klan—it was all about arms. The Klan was selling them on and taking a cut.”
“His fucking twin,” Hush spat. “He changed the arrangement, didn’t he? When Rider was locked up in cult prison?”
“Think so,” Tanner said after a few seconds of silence.
“Then what the fuck are they dealing? What was Judah giving them if not Israeli guns?”
“Women,” Tanner replied. “Women from the cult, I think. That ain’t one hundred percent. But it’s the only link I can make.”
“Women?” Ky said. Suddenly Styx sat straighter. Ky’s fist ground on the table, and Flame had started twitching beside me. The three brothers who had cult bitches were quickly realizing that it could have been their old ladies had they not got out.
“Making them whores?” Cowboy asked.
“That’s what I’d guess,” Tanner said. “That aerial shot is all I could get, and that’s from years ago. Ain’t no new pictures. No idea how full the town gets or how busy. Has a no-fly-zone code appointed to it, no doubt a deal from my old man. No idea on the number of women there or what they have them doing. Took me weeks just to get this info.”
“He has Phebe there as a whore?” Ky snarled. “Fuck!” He picked up his glass and threw it against the wall. It shattered into a million pieces.
“She was one before.”
I tensed as a voice spoke from the bottom of the table. I turned to see who had spoken—Smiler. The normally silent brother looked around at us all.
“Speak,” I ordered.
Smiler didn’t flinch at my cold command. “I was talking to Rider.” The brother didn’t even give a shit that the rest of us couldn’t believe he still talked to the ex-prophet. “He told me some about the cult setup.” He looked at Ky, then me, and said, “About Phebe.”
Ky stayed silent. By his clenched jaw, I realized he already knew whatever Smiler was gonna say.
“Most of her life she was a whore for the cult. Would go out into the outside world and entice men back to the commune by fucking them. Once they were there they joined, of course. All the free pussy they wanted, any age pussy they wanted. He said Lilah’s sister was the main commune whore, the head honcho. All these sluts believed they were doing ‘God’s work’ or some shit. The old prophet started the practice years ago when he wanted to expand.”
My stomach turned. My fingers had curled into a tight fist. I felt my blood boil, fucking murderous venom sailing through me. I thought of Phebe, thought of that fucking red hair and face of freckles. Thought of her fucking man after man, those damn blue eyes that had stared at me looking at them, luring them the fuck in. It made me wanna slit some throats.
It made me wanna kill.
“Fuck. So Judah had been selling Meister the cult prostitutes for his brothel?” Hush said. “That’s why Meister stayed at the cult sometimes. He’ll have been choosing his whores.”
“Shit. And I thought we were fucked up,” Vike exclaimed.
“So what’s the plan?” I asked Styx. He met my eyes, but before he could sign, Tanner spoke.
“It ain’t as simple as us storming in and taking these cunts out. They’ll have top-quality guns and militarized soldiers. This ain’t no redneck sex ring. If this is Meister, this is more. Much fucking more.”
“So?” I asked.
“So we need a plan,” Tank said.
“Then let’s get a fucking plan!” Ky shouted. Styx whistled for the prospects to come in. Lil’ Ash and Slash entered the room, and Ky flicked his chin. “We need food, liquor, and keep that shit coming. We’re gonna be here a while.”
Lil’ Ash and Slash left. Then we got down to planning. Trying to figure out how the fuck to get into this ghost-town whorehouse.
And all the time, all I could see in my head was red. Red for blood, red for the mist that had descended over my eyes. And above it all, I saw the longest red hair. Long red hair and pale skin tied to a motherfucking tree.
Freckles.
Blue eyes.
Phebe.
Cult bitch turned Meister’s whore.