“Governor Ayers’s little brother is Johnny Landry… Landry is Tanner’s uncle. A real fuckin’ family affair.”
The brothers split into disbelieving rants and bouts of cussing, but tired of this shit, I pushed past Styx and faced Tank. “Enough of this bullshit! Get this fascist brother here… now! We get the info we need. Then we strike the bastards. We get Lilah back, protect Mae and Madds, then deal with the fallout later. We got more connections than that fuck will have. The Hangmen are not only nationwide; we’re fuckin’ international. We got thousands of connections that Wizard could only dream of. That cunt needs to fear us. We’re the mother fuckin’ Hangmen!”
The brothers around me rocked from side to side, muttering their agreement, clenching their fists—they were pissed and they were with me.
I glanced over my shoulder at Styx. “Prez? You in?”
Styx’s eyes burned with fire, and he nodded. I went around each of my brothers, who all nodded their heads in agreement. Flame was at the back, the brother having just walked out into the yard from guarding Maddie. He was already pacing, thirsting for revenge, every stacked muscle in his body tight with fury. The blood-curdling smile—his gums reading PAIN—that spread on his face when I looked to him for an answer told me what I needed to know. But then I caught someone behind Flame, someone with black hair and a pair of wolf eyes… a tiny bitch whose heart was fuckin’ breaking.
“Mae,” I said in exasperation. “Can’t be out here. You know this. Club business.”
Styx, having heard me say Mae’s name, plowed through the brothers to take his bitch in his arms. Her huge, tearful eyes looked up at him. “Someone has taken Lilah?” she asked, devastation in her voice.
I felt my heart crack right along with hers, right down the middle. Shit. This was why old ladies were kept away. They didn’t need to know shit until there was shit for them to know.
Styx nodded his head at his old lady apprehensively, and I watched him sign, “We’re gonna get her back, and we’ll kill the cunts responsible. Babe, I swear, we’re gonna get your sister back.”
Mae swallowed fearfully at seeing her man so pissed. She glanced away. Then her gaze met mine. More tears fell down her cheeks, and she held out her hand, gesturing for me to go to her.
Styx watched on with a scowl and sharply jerked his chin for me to move closer. Clearing my throat from a huge fuckin’ lump clogging up my windpipe, I slowly edged forward and took Mae’s shaking hand, licking my lips as I worked up the nerve to meet her eyes. All the brothers fell silent… even Flame.
Ky, keep it the fuck together, I told myself. Keep it the fuck together for your woman. You’re gonna get her back. Nothing bad has happened to her.
“Ky?” Mae said quietly as I waited for her to rip me a new one. “Bring her back to us. To me, Maddie… to you…” She trailed off, and I thought hell must have frozen over or some shit. Mae had warned me off Lilah more times than I could count, but here she was giving me her blessing?
What the—
A fuckin’ crushingly sad smile played on Mae’s trembling lips. “You love her.”
It wasn’t a question, and we all knew it was the fuckin’ truth. Yeah, I’d given club slut * for that woman. Hell, she just fuckin’ got me, got under my skin… a woman pinning me down and really getting me for more than just my cock.
“Yeah, I fuckin’ do,” I rasped. “More than my goddamned life. That bitch is everything. Every-fuckin’-thing.”
Mae’s hand squeezed mine and she breathed a shaky sigh of relief. “She loves you too.”