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  I was completely lost.

  As I tried to work out my next course of action, lights suddenly flared round a tight bend. They blinded me. I lifted my hand to protect my eyes from the glare, when a huge vehicle hove into view. A large, black vehicle was slowing. A large, black vehicle that stopped beside me. The window wound down from its place up high to reveal the shocked face of an older woman.

  “Hell, honey! Why you out here all alone? You need some help?”

  An outsider.

  Prophet David’s teachings bombarded my thoughts; Never speak to the outsiders. They are the devil’s people. They do the devil’s work.

  But I had no choice.

  “Help me. Please,” I croaked. I had had nothing to drink in a long while and my throat felt like I had swallowed sand.

  The outsider leaned forward and the massive door popped open. “Git’ on in, honey. This road is no place for young girls like you, especially at this time of night. Dangerous folks ’round here and you don’t want them finding y’all alone.”

  Limping forward, I gripped the long silver rails attached to the side and climbed up into the warm seat. I reminded myself to be alert; to keep up my guard.

  The lady’s brown squinted eyes widened, her gray hair a fluffy halo around her head. “Honey, your leg! You need a hospital. How’d that happen? You’re a mess!”

  “Please just take me to the nearest town. I do not need a healer,” I whispered, my head feeling light and my breathing slowing in my tight chest.

  “Nearest town, girl? That’s miles away. Y’all need help now! What happened? You look like hell.” She suddenly gasped. “Please tell me you haven’t been attacked. Tell me no man has forced himself on you.” Her eyes tracked down my body to the blood now trickling down my leg, then she searched behind her using the large mirrors attached to the door. “Oh no… have you been… taken against your will?”

  I did not meet her eyes. She could control me; I had been taught that anyone outside of The Order would tempt me. I was one of Prophet David’s chosen people, envied by all others. I had to avoid her trap.

  “I have not been attacked. Please. Just… take me to a town,” I pleaded once more.

  The large vehicle pulled onto the unlit road with a deafening blare from a horn. Wincing at the sound, I stared out of the large window, deep in prayer. Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be—

  “Where did you come from, honey?” The woman’s voice interrupted—soft and enticing. She sounded like a lullaby. Was she guising evil intent? Or was she being honest? I did not know… I just did not know! My head was a swirling fog and I could not focus.

  I kept my silence.

  “Did you come from that forest? If so, how? Where? There’s nothing in there but trees and bears. No one in their right mind goes into those woods. Too many unholy things lurking in them ol’ trees. I even heard rumors of a government testing facility in there or something.” I dared not look in her direction. She kept talking, but I managed to block out the sound.

  We traveled far and many hours passed. I did not know where we were, but with every inch of new road, I let myself relax. I was tired and, to my happiness, my leg no longer hurt. It was completely numb and I was sleepy. I fought with my eyes to remain open and when I knew I could not keep consciousness too much longer, it was time to make my move.

  “Please stop,” I urged, pressing my palms against the large pane of window glass. My eyes searched the barren outside area for a place to take refuge. I sighed in relief when I spotted a square gray building set way back off the main road. I could take shelter there… hide there… rest there, until I regained strength enough to continue on with my journey.

  The woman slowed the vehicle and shook her head. “Hell no! I’m not leaving you here! Downtown’s still quite far ahead. A girl like you don’t belong in a place like that. It’s dangerous. Filled with bad, bad folks. Do you even know what this place is?”

  My vision became blurred and tunneled, threatening to move to black. “My friend is here. She is waiting,” I said in panic, the deception coming surprisingly easy to my lips.

  The vehicle suddenly pulled onto the crunching gravel and jerked to a stop. “You have friends here?” Her voice was filled with shock.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned. Didn’t take you for one of those girls. I guess the devil comes in many forms. Kinda explains the state you’re in. S’pose they all decided to teach you a lesson, huh? Dumped you and left you to make your own way home? And here you are, crawling bloodied and bruised back into the den of evil.”

  I did not understand her meaning. Who were those girls? I pushed open the door and fell down to the hard ground without another word. I needed to hide. I just needed to muster the strength to take a few more steps.

  With a loud hiss, the large vehicle crawled away into the distance as I staggered down the long road toward the far-off building. It was vast, imposing, and fenced in. But most importantly, it was near and the heavy-looking tall gate was open just enough so I could squeeze through.

  I made it through, my sight fading fast. I knew I could not go on anymore. My energies exhausted, I lay down on the rough, hard ground behind a row of large, wide containers and I submitted to the urgings of my eyelids for sleep. The last image I saw as I glanced up was… Satan… painted on the wall of the building opposite. He sat on a grand throne with a blue-eyed female by his side.

  Startled awake, I shook in panic at the image, echoing the words of the lady who drove the large vehicle. Where the hell am I?

  Soon after, no longer able to fight sleep, one final thought filtered into my mind as I slid into unconsciousness: There is nothing on the outside but deceit, sin and death…

  Chapter Two

  Styx

  Crashing through the doors of the compound, I was seething. Several club sluts scattered outta my way—wise move.

  Bursting through the door of my office I paused at the nearest wall, my hands slapping against the cement. I closed my eyes and breathed slowly, carefully thinking over my words. I couldn’t lose it in front of the brothers.

  My VP and best friend, Ky, quietly closed the door behind me, his boots heavy on the hardwood floor. Turning to face him, he nodded his head to signal we were alone. I expelled a long, frustrated breath.

  “F-fuckin’ Di… Di… Di-Diablo s-s-s-scum!” I manage to push out of my damn defective mouth.

  Ky stared at me, no expression in his eyes. He walked to the bar and poured me a bourbon—he knew the routine. Holding out a full glass of source, Ky supplied my kinda medicine. I knocked the liquor back in one practiced action… then another… and another still. At last, I felt it loosen, the ever-present rope choking the fuck out of my throat.

  “More?” Ky stood ready at the bar, Jim Beam bottle in hand.

  Clearing my throat, I tested that shit out. “I… I… I… I—”

  Shit! Waving my hand, I signaled my VP for another shot… and another… and just one more to be sure.

  His blond eyebrows rose, silently asking if I needed more.

  “It… it… it’s better,” I said, expelling a sigh of relief. The room was kinda spinning, but at least the fuckin’ python wrapped around my vocal cords had decided to catch forty.

  “K-Ky you better get to the b-bottom of this… sh… sh… shit or we go… to war, you hear? I-I’m ’bout done with the whole lot… lot… lotta ’em!”

  Ky’s expression changed. He went as white as a damned ghost and lifted his hands for emphasis. “Styx, man. I swear we had it all worked out. Some fucker cut the deal behind our backs.” This fucked-up run had been his deal and it was clear he had no idea what the hell’d gone wrong.

  Rubbing one hand across my forehead, I pointed with the other to church. Ky nodded his head, getting my instruction.

  Reaching for the half bottle of Jim, I drank directly from it, feeling the burn of its fiery liquid down my throat.

  Ky took off to gather the brothers, givi
ng me time to pull it together. As I paced the floor of my office, I knew Ky was telling the truth. The fuckin’ Diablos. It had to be the Diablos! How can a deal made with the Russians after months of talk just turn to shit in a few days?

  Someone sold us out; it was the only explanation. And some asshole will die for it!

  I left my office and entered church, still pouring the hard brown liquor down my throat. It helped the words flow more easily. Those fuckin’ just-out-of-reach words that stuck in my throat, never wanting to play ball.

  The brothers quickly filled the room, tension leaking from their pores as they stared at me, in fear. They should. I was ’bout ready to tear someone a new asshole. I smelled a rat. A rat in my own fuckin’ brotherhood. My old man would be turning in his stone-cold grave. No one turns coat on a brother. Well, no one who wants to live a long and pain-free life.

  I smiled to myself as the brothers almost pissed themselves watching me. The one thing that stops people ripping on you for being a mute pussy is being a cold-blooded killer with fists of iron. Funny how no one openly says a damn thing ’bout choking on vocab when one smack in the mouth can paralyze from the neck down.

  Ky shut the door, which signaled that all of the Hangmen were present. I grabbed another swig of bourbon and sat at top seat, gavel in hand. My VP was to my right, eyes tight as he studied my rigid face, waiting for me to begin.

  I pulled my favorite KM2000 German Bundeswehr knife from my boot and stabbed it into the wood of the table before me, the blade cutting through the thick oak like flesh.

  Eyes widened around me.

  Point made.

  I sat back and signed Ky to start translation.

  If someone knows what the fuck went on tonight, they’d better start talking… Now.

  No talking and no meeting of eyes. I felt a tick of annoyance in my jaw.

  Elbows on the table, I further signed, That deal’d been on the table for four months. Drop off, transport—the whole fuckin’ nine yards. Every minute detail was planned to perfection. Then we get to location, hauling truckloads of gear, only to be told we’d been undercut by some other supplier, someone trading on our turf. Commi bastards! Question is… Ky sat back in his seat, watching my hands move furiously the more irate I became. Who’s stealing our business? More important, how the fuck did they know ’ bout the deal? That info’s been locked down tight.

  Taking advantage of Ky’s pause in breath, I picked up my knife, pointing it along every brother at the table, meeting them eye to eye, before placing the blade between my teeth, signing, Fifty crates of AK47s, ten crates of M82A1 sniper rifles, and ten crates of top-grade semiautomatics—all now without a buyer. The Colombians ain’t gonna take that shit back. So this is what’s gonna happen, Ky said with rising anger, waiting for me to finish.

  Licking along the tip of the blade, I smelled the sick stench of betrayal in the room. Intimidation always flushed out a rat. I was a shittin’ goddamn expert in intimidation—my old man taught me well. I ain’t got a soundproofed shed out back for carpentry, that’s for fuckin’ sure.

  I slowly slid the sharp blade back into the table before me, then signed, We’re gonna find a new buyer soon as… so our friends the ATF don’t come a’knockin’. Then we find out who dared fuck with this club. My—Styx’s—suspicions are firmly on the Diablos, but right now anyone’s a goddamn possibility. Fuck knows our enemy list is as long as fuckin’ Pennsylvania Avenue.

  Ky cleared his throat. “Am I okay to speak freely, Prez?”

  A sharp nod gave him permission.

  “I know you got beef with the Diablos, brother. Hell, I want ’em gone to Hades as much as you, but they’re into snow. Never known ’em to trade guns. Just sayin’. My opinion, it don’t smell like Mexican to me.”

  He had a point. Mexicans ’round this part of Texas shifted for the cartel—narcs through and through. Traded easily ’cross the border.

  Cracking my knuckles while in thought, the leather from my cut creaked at the movement. Suddenly, I launched the KM2000 across the room. I watched as it slipped like butter into the back wall, right into the center of the club patch.

  Flicking my chin at Ky, he watched me sign and translated. Who else could be a possibility? We good with the Austin Crew?

  Viking—Secretary, mid-thirties, red hair, pale skin, long red beard, fuckin’ giant of a man—nodded his head. “We’re good. Pay good coin to cross their turf. No beef with ’em.”

  “Irish?” Ky asked.

  “Laying low after the drug bust. Tommy O’Keefe shipped back to the Emerald Isle. Six brothers doing time,” drawled Tank—Treasurer, ex-white power, built, thirty-one, inked to all hell. He ran his hand along the prison shank scar on his closely shaved head.

  I blew a long, drawn-out breath, took one huge swig of my liquor, and signed, Any idea who’ll want the guns? Ky shared my question.

  AK—Sergeant-at-Arms, high-tower, long brown hair, goatee, late twenties, could hit any mark perfect, ex-marine sniper—lifted his chin.

  “Got a contact within the Chechens. They may be interested. They’re at war with the Reds. Could be perfect revenge. We tell ’em what the Russians are packing. They’ll wanna match it. We supply it, sends a message to the red fuckers never to undercut us again.”

  I nodded, a sliver of relief settling in my bones.

  Set it up, I ordered in ASL, and the brothers all around the table seemed to relax.

  Flame—crazy faux-hawked motherfucker, twenty-five, orange flame tattoos up his neck, with scars and piercings covering half his body—got to his feet, snarling, pacing the room, slapping his arms one after the other. He’d spent most of his life in and out of the nut house, total anger issues, then got out and went killing scum for kicks. Some real messed-up shit. Couple’a years later, he found us. We recruited him. He helped us in the Mexican war, proved a hundred percent club loyalty. We patched him in. Now we let him loose on those who deserve a completely fucked-up way to die. Crazy bastard gets real inventive.

  Flame grabbed my knife from the wall, lifted it to cut a slice on the underside of his arm, then groaned like some slut was sucking on his dick. Blood ran to the floor. He hissed in pleasure, wired eyes closing. Shit, the dude was built. He’d be pretty damn good-looking if he didn’t have death permanently in his eyes. Bitches were right to stay the fuck away from the psycho. If any of them touched him, he’d fuckin’ rip out their hearts with one hand.

  Ky rolled his eyes at me. I got what he was saying. Flame needed a release. He’d get one soon enough. We all would. War was coming. I could fuckin’ feel it in my bones.

  “You good, brother?” Ky asked Flame. We all just stared at him, fuckin’ bloodletting, his hard dick straining in his leathers.

  Flame walked toward me, presenting me with my bloodied knife. His black eyes blazed. “Need blood spilt. Snitch needs teaching a lesson. I got revenge burning in me, Styx. Got venom stirring my veins.”

  “Brother, when we get a lead, you’re up,” Ky assured Flame as I nodded in agreement.

  Flame smiled, his white teeth shining, his black, tattooed scripted gums reading Pain silhouetted against pink flesh. “Fuck yeah!”

  Facing the rest of the brothers, I scanned for twitches or signs of fear.

  Still nothing.

  Not one. Fuckin’. Thing.

  As I shifted in my chair, I signed. My VP read out loud, “Any other business?”

  A wave of shaking heads answered the question. I grabbed the gavel, slamming it down on the hard wood.

  Turning to the brothers, Ky flashed his winning smile. “Now, don’t know ’bout y’all, but I’m getting me some pussy.”

  I rose from my chair and the brothers fled to pick their slut-for-the-night, each one silent and clearly pissed. Ky stayed behind.

  Fuckin’ Kyler Willis; twenty-seven, model-perfect looks, tall, lean, straight blond hair that had bitch pussy creamin’. My oldest friend. His old man was VP to my old man. After they both met the boatman in the M
exican war last year, I was voted Prez, Ky VP—only the best for the mother chapter Hangmen. We lived, breathed, and bled for Hades. When our old men died, I tried to shake the vote. Who the hell wanted a stammering, fuckin’ mute as a leader? But the brothers voted unanimous. Hades Hangmen would stay with the rightful historic line. At the age of twenty-six, I found myself Prez of the most notoriously lethal MC in all the States.

  No fuckin’ pressure.

  Yeah fuckin’ right!

  Ky put his hand on my shoulder. “We’ll get ’em. No one crosses us, Styx. Everyone knows how we run things ’round Texas. Fuckers just signed their own death warrant.”

  I huffed a laugh and ran my hand over my unshaven cheeks. “M-me and y-you gonna sort this quick. R-right?” I winced as my stutter came into full effect, the liquor only able to give me a fuckin’ few moments before the python’s vise took back its hold. I’d grown to fuckin’ hate signing, but for some messed-up reason, I could only talk to Ky. Now my old man had gone to Hades, I could only talk to one person.

  He smiled that damn cheesy smile. “Right.”

  Sighing, I said, “F-F-F-FUCK! Y-you… you sh-should be P-P-Prez, K-Ky.”

  Ky went nose-to-nose with me. “Should I fuck! You can’t speak for shit; I get that. But you use your hands as your words. You lead by example, brother. You’re always there at the front line, taking and delivering the first round of fire. You are the Hangmen’s Prez, so shut the fuck up! Your old man always meant for you to follow him, just like his old man before him. Yeah, it may have come a few years early, but you’ve been taking names ’round these parts for years. Age ain’t nothing but a damn number in this life. It’s all about fuckin’ guts and you got that shit in spades! Christ, Styx, you’re the infamous Hangmen Mute!”

  Stepping back, Ky rubbed his hands together, smiling wide. “Plus, I’m too damn pretty to be in charge. I get on just fine with being your mouthpiece. Don’t y’all know I fuckin’ love the sound of my own voice!”

  Hell, he had that right. Sometimes I wondered what the hell he was doing wasting his life in this club. His looks, his personality giving him what he needed to succeed elsewhere. But like me, it’s all we know. We’re lifers—born and bred to wear a cut.