Darkness washed over Rider’s face. “He’s gone too fucking far this time. He’s hurting everyone. He hurt Harmony. He’s letting Phebe be beaten half to death without a care. But worse than that, he’s letting kids get assaulted. In fact, he’s pushing it. He’s keeping the people who want to leave trapped behind the fences against their will. If they try to escape, he’s killing them.” Rider’s entire body tightened. “He may be my brother, but he needs to be stopped.” Rider went silent. He closed his eyes like he’d just taken a dagger to the heart. “He needs to be . . . killed. It’s the only way to stop him. It’s the only way to stop the pain he’s inflicting on others . . . and I’ve kept him alive for you. He’ll be there for you to kill.”
None of us spoke after that confession, but we all met each other’s eyes. We couldn’t have these fuckers rolling up on our doorstep. There was no time to get the other states’ Hangmen here. We had to do this shit ourselves. There was no time. No fucking time at all.
“Your call,” Ky said to me, reading my damn mind as always.
“Brother Stephen and the other defectors are still in there, Phebe too. I need to get them out. We swapped my place with Judah. He is being kept in the cells. If everything has gone to plan, he’ll still be there. I—as the prophet—am supposed to be in my celestial cleansing with Harmony for four days. Four days of undisturbed seclusion—no one would dare disturb the prophet’s cleansing of a Cursed. The guards will believe Judah is me, he has been dressed as I was. But there will be a pause in the daily beatings for the wedding festivities, so no one should suspect anything. It has bought us time.”
My head was full as I tried to think of what the fuck to do. “Styx,” Rider said. My eyes snapped to him. “Go in before he can bring the fight to you. You’re outnumbered. Judah’s target is you, but worse, it’s also your women . . . my woman too. He wants them to pay for fucking everything up. He truly believes they are the devil’s servants. If we don’t go in, what we’ve done will be discovered. My friends will die and Judah will attack.”
I took two steps forward and looked down at the prick that had been the cause of so much fucking shit for my club. I had to fight my hand from forming into a fist. I had to resist the urge to plow it right into his face.
“Do this. Let me help you do this . . . then . . . then just do whatever the fuck you want to me. I won’t resist. I . . . know I deserve it.” He swallowed, then schooled his features. “There are innocent women and children in that commune, and some innocent men too. They need help. They don’t want to fight, they’re shit-scared, but have no way out.” His gaze got more intense. He looked at every brother in the room. “I know I fucked you all over.” He looked at Ky. “I know I allowed shit to happen to the women that I should have stopped. But the only way to stop Judah is to get him first . . . and for that you’re gonna need me.”
“Why, when we can just go in and blow everyone apart?” AK asked, his eyes narrowed.
“I have people on the inside that have Judah for you. Then I—as Prophet Cain—can get the innocent people out safely. And I can gather the guards and elders for you to take out. Then there’ll be no one left to continue the faith.”
“I get your brother,” Ky snarled, never moving his blue eyes from Rider’s. I read the pain on Rider’s face over signing his brother’s death warrant, but he would agree.
We all knew that cunt had to be stopped.
Rider nodded his head once, unable to fucking speak those words.
Tanner burst through the door. He gave me a single nod of confirmation. Rider slumped back down to the ground.Turning to my men, I signed, “Church. Now.”
“What are we doin’ with the proph’?” Viking asked, pointing at Rider.
I stared down at him on the floor, broken and shackled in heavy chains. “Leave the fucker here. He ain’t goin’ nowhere . . . not until we decide if he gets to help us end this cult shit once and for all. Or if we decide to sink a machete through his heart. Whatever the fuck comes first.”
I led the way out of the barn and across the yard to the clubhouse. The brothers filed in behind me and we took our usual seats in church.
Ky leaned forward on the table and put his head in his hands. “Can you believe this fuckin’ shit?”
I tapped the gavel on the wooden table; all the brothers looked my way. “So,” I signed, “How the fuck do we play this?”
Ky translated, then a silence fell on the brothers. It was AK who spoke first. The brother always took the lead in these kinda things. “We go in. For once—and I can’t believe I’m gonna fuckin’ say this—I think Rider is tellin’ the truth. I say we go with what he said. There’s people in there I ain’t down with killin’—kids, women . . . ” He cleared his throat. “The people who brought Bella back need to be got the fuck out—especially the dad. Then we’ll take the rest of the fuckers down. Anyone that gets in our way dies. Man, woman or child. We go in thinkin’ anyone Rider hasn’t got out is an enemy, and we fuckin’ stick to that shit.”
“The ammo they have is serious. If they’ve been gearin’ up to attack like that asswipe said, we gotta go in when they don’t expect us,” Tanner said.
“Offense is the best defense,” Cowboy drawled in his thick Cajun twang, sitting back in his chair like he had no fucking care in the world.
I roved my eyes around the table. All of the brothers nodded their heads in agreement.
“And afterwards?” Ky asked. I knew what he was asking. So I responded with my own fucking plan for when we returned to the compound. All the brothers were in agreement with that too.
“Shit,” Bull said and poured himself a shot of tequila. “Can’t believe we’re goin’ in to that fucked-up hell again.” He knocked back the shot and slammed the glass onto the table.
Viking took the tequila and knocked back a shot directly from the bottle. “Well, I for one have a huge fuckin’ boner right now. Things have been too fuckin’ quiet ‘round here lately. Ain’t the same if we don’t got some delusional fucker to take down. It’s just the fuckin’ cherry on the fuckin’ sundae that it gets to be the cult pricks. I love watchin’ those cunts run from us in their long white dresses. Most of ‘em die ‘cause they can’t move their legs fast enough under all that long fabric. Fuckin’. Hilarious.”