“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.”

“They’re tunics, not dresses,” Hush informed Viking dryly.

“Yeah?” Viking turned on his seat toward Hush. “Tunics, eh? Well we don’t see your tight pretty-boy ass struttin’ about in a dress, do we, blue eyes?” Viking smiled and winked suggestively. “Then again, you and Cowboy are fuckin’ each other, aren’t ya? Boyfriends, bumfuckers and all that shit? If you’re the designated cumbucket outta the two of y’all, the tunic might make things easier. Quicker access for the pink cue to sink the black hole, so to speak.”

“For fuck’s sakes, we ain’t fuckin’ each other! I’ve ‘bout had enough of your fuckin’ loud mouth!” Hush roared back.

“I wanna kill,” Flame growled, his outburst just about stopping Hush from launching off his chair to kick Viking’s stupid pale ass. Flame was running his knife along his arms. But the blade never drew blood. He just made the action, in fuckin’ sets of eleven. He looked up at me, and his eyes seemed even darker than usual. “I wanna kill ‘em, Prez, for what they did to my Maddie. I wanna feel their hearts stop in my hands.”

“You will,” I signed. “We all will.” Flame smiled. A fuckin’ psychopathic grin.

“Then we’re goin’?” Ky asked.

“Aye,” said each brother in turn.

“Then we’re fuckin’ goin’.”

“Tomorrow,” AK announced. “I’ll get a better plan together tonight. But we go tomorrow. I ain’t takin’ no chances. If we wanna take the fight to the cult, we gotta go tomorrow before someone finds his brother in those cells and changes the whole fuckin’ game.”

“Then we go in tomorrow,” I signed. “AK, tell the brothers what we need from the armory. Guns and all that shit. We go all night gettin’ ready if we need to.”

“And Rider?” I followed the sound of the voice. Smiler was looking at me. Again, the brother fucking spoke. Twice in a night. A new fucking record.

“What about him?” Ky asked.

“He goin’ in first?”

I looked to AK for him to answer. “I’ll scope out the plans of the commune. I still got them in my room. I’ll look into it. But I say we give him three or four hours to get there, do his prophet shit and get the innocent the fuck out.”

“Then what?” Smiler asked.

Ky smiled. “Then we bring the hounds of Hades to their door.” The brothers grunted in a mix of excitement and bloodlust. I slammed the gavel down on the table to end church. AK led the brothers outside to assign roles.

Ky didn’t move; neither did I.

Once the door was closed, he said, “You believe this shit, man? With Rider and Bella . . . their fuckin’ father?”

I shook my head and ran my hand down my face.

“You gonna tell ‘em?” he asked.

“N-not y-y-yet,” I stuttered out. “A-a-ain’t no r-reason in t-t-tellin’ ‘em if h-he doesn’t m-m-make it out a-alive.”

“Yeah,” Ky said. He sighed and, sitting back in his chair, said, “I can’t believe that after tomorrow all this shit with the cult could be done. They’ll all finally be dead. I never knew how much those cunts still bein’ alive bothered me until tonight. I need to fuckin’ breathe again, Styx. That’ll only happen when we’ve burned that place to the ground.”