I glanced up at Ky, lifted my hands, then clumsily signed, R-I-D-E-R.

All the brothers who could understand sign froze in disbelief, including Flame. That was a first. The brother could never stand still, too many demons rattling around inside.

“R-I-D-E-R?” Ky spelled out loudly and slowly. “Rider took Mae? Strung you up on the gate like you were being f**kin’ crucified?” He confirmed for all to hear.

The room fell deathly quiet.

He was the rat all along. He set up Pit. Rider’s been getting our intel for years. He wanted our turf for guns.

“Who did? Who did the f**ker work for?” Viking snapped.

I exhaled and fought the nausea at losing Mae. I felt like my stomach had been shredded. What the hell was she going through right now? What if they…? Shit! I couldn’t even think it. I wanted to crush skulls, cult skulls, and grind them into dust.

“Prez!” Ky bit out.

I refocused. Mae’s cult. Motherfucker’s the goddamn heir or some shit.

Beauty’s hand slapped over her mouth. “Rider’s in Mae’s cult? No…”

I nodded stiffly.

“Did he take Mae?” she asked, tears brimming in her eyes.

The room seemed to vibrate with tension as they waited for my response. I nodded again.

“No!” Beauty gasped. “They’ll punish her for running away. She told me herself.” Tank grabbed Beauty by the arm and turned her into his chest to keep her quiet.

Shaking with impatience, I turned to Ky, signing, You call on every chapter within the state, f**k, within an eight-hour ride. Call Oklahoma, Louisiana, Florida, New Mexico, and Alabama. Get them here. I’m calling war on the commune.

Me, you, Tank, Bull, and the trio are gonna pay the senator a visit. That f**ker has something to do with this shit. He’s the key to getting Mae back. Hit the ammo hangers and move the guns. We’re gonna need everything we got.

“Then what?” Bull asked, the rest of the brothers readying to action.

I stood, held my f**ked-up shoulder, and crunched it back into its socket, working out the cracks in my neck. Then we go get my old lady back. I’m fixin’ to bring the wrath of Hades on the whole damn lotta the brainwashed, abusive cunts.”

***

“Senator f**kin’ Collins!” Viking shouted as we burst open the master bedroom door of his mansion, down in Tarrytown off Mopac—some rich-ass gated community right on Lake Austin, where folks have more money than sense.

As one, we all froze.

The good ol’ senator removed his shriveled-up c**k from deep up the ass of some Thai toy-boy and dived for cover on his bed.

Ky stepped forward and grinned. “Well, well, what do we have here, Senator Collins?”

“How the hell did y’all get in here?!” Collins snapped.

AK walked to his closet and began rooting around, pocketing a few top-grade Cuban cigars. “Your staff ain’t too loyal. Seems they value their own lives above yours.” He looked up and peered across the bed. “And that of your little underage twink, by the looks of things.”

The senator paled. The rent boy held up his hands—he was all of sixteen, seventeen maybe? Perfect ammo for us. Maybe Hades was watching after us after all.

Flame stormed to the kid and lifted him from the bed by his black hair. “You have ten seconds to get the f**k out of this room before I castrate you and feed your c**k to his dog!” Flame threw him to the floor and, in less then ten seconds, the kid was smoke, slamming the door behind him as he went.

Ky sat down on the end of the bed and leaned back, staring at Collins. I stood against the drawers just watching as the old dickhead met my hard stare. He swallowed… hard.

I smirked.

He whimpered.

Pussy.

“So? Collins? Seems you’ve been keeping secrets from the good ol’ folks of Texas, eh? What would they say if they knew their perfect family man liked to suck cock?”

“What do you want?” he asked quietly, his beady eyes constantly darting among the brothers now stationed around the room. “I got lots’a money. How much d’y’all want?”

Ky raised his eyebrow and laughed. “We got plenty of money.”

Ky jerked his chin to Flame. Flame, the constantly twitching brother, glided to the bed and lifted up Collins by his throat, pinning him high against the wall.

“NO! Don’t kill me! I’ll tell y’all anything you wanna know!” Collins screeched, his words barely audible through Flame’s iron-tight grip. When the senator’s puffy face turned purple, Flame dropped his puny naked ass to the hardwood floor.

“Who put the Neos on us?” Any blood left in the senator’s face completely drained on hearing Ky’s question.

“I don’t… I didn’t—” Flame flew at him again. Collins pushed his hands out, screaming and scrambling against the wall. “Okay, okay… just don’t hurt me!”

Flame looked to me for instruction. I called him off with a flick of my chin.

“I’ll tell you what,” Ky said, moving to confront Collins. “I’m gonna start counting down from sixty. If I get to zero, I’m gonna get Flame here to give you a lobotomy. Let’s just try and jog that memory of yours.”

Flame threw back his head and laughed hysterically, flicking open his Persian switchblade in readiness.

“Fifty,” Ky counted down.

The senator rubbed his sweaty, bald head in obvious fear.

“Forty.”

Flame began loosening up: cracking knuckles, rolling his neck, slicing along his arms, blood dripping to the cream-carpeted floor.

Collin’s face visibly reddened with fear.

“Thirty.”

“Twenty.”

“Ten.”

“Five… four… three… two… one… zer—”

“Okay! Okay! I’ll make you a deal!”

I jerked my chin, ordering the senator to speak.

“It was some suit. He came in and I put out the hit. Neos took the bid. The suit wanted the mute dead, the Hangmen took outta the gun game.” He looked up at me. “The order came from the governor’s mansion downtown. The suit carried a letter with the governor’s signature and I was told to overlook all gun trades from some new organization, Gaza-funded or such shit. To approve no-flight zones and enforce trespassing laws around some piece of abandoned land north of the city. I didn’t ask no more about it. Less I know the better.”