“What horror we talking about, Charm?” I ask.
He pops the top and takes a long draw. “Dad wants to bring white power into the club and take it over.”
“Holy fuck,” Dixie Rose whispers.
“Scott and Brett?”
“Moles,” he admits, bowing his head. “They’re on a whole other level. The things I’ve seen them do, say, and preach.” Charm shudders. “It’s not for me. I never understood how fucked up and wrong Dad was until he took it to that level. I always saw it as noise. The ramblings of an old man, and I went along with it because hell, he’s my old man, doesn’t he know best? Plus, the shit about his father. I could get where he was coming from. But this—I don’t want this to touch us.”
“What happened, man?” I ask.
“Dad was pissed after the fight. He started reaching out to friends outside the club. I didn’t think anything of it. I mean, I figured it was like in high school when your best friend hurts your feelings, so you seek out those friends on the fringes while you lick your wounds.”
I sink down in the chair across from him and nod my head. “I get it.”
“But that’s not how it happened. He started attending these meetings. I noticed and asked him about it. The first few I went to seemed like exactly what I described—a group of like-minded people meeting and bitching. I went grudgingly. I wanted to stand by Dad, you know? He raised us to stick together, and he’s just lost you and some of his clout with the club. Then we came after few weeks and I saw their true faces.” He shudders.
“You all right?” I asked, disturbed by his responses.
“They showed videos of curb checking, encouraging confrontation, and talking separation like we haven’t seen since slavery. Dad starts running his mouth about the club, and how it’s just a matter of time before the N— well, a word I won’t say, take over. The leader, Ryan, starts telling him it’s a travesty and how he should step up. I saw it going down, but I couldn’t stop it. Dad didn’t want to listen to shit I said, and he fell right into Ryan’s hands. That asshole saw a chance to get his foot in the door of an established crew of soldiers.”
“Let me guess, he came up with the idea of putting his crew in as some kind of fucked up sleepers?”
“He put his own sons in, Echo,” Charm says.
“I fucking knew it,” Dixie Rose exclaims.
“Jesus. And Dad just agreed to…what? Slowly turn the tables?” I ask. It didn’t sound right.
“No, they plan on taking more drastic measures,” Charm says, swallowing hard.
“Start talking faster.”
“You cut off the head and the body falls.”
“Shit, Stone?” I say.
He nods. “They got it into their heads. Last night, I realized they weren’t just talking shit.”
“What did you see?”
“A pipe bomb. I don’t know when, where, or how, but I know he needs to watch his back.”
“Fuck, I got to call him.”
“Don’t let them know you know yet. Flush everyone out who might be involved.”
“This is deeper than those two?” I ask.
“I don’t know. I think Dad knew he was losing me, because he didn’t tell me everything. I been hanging on to try to learn everything before I came clean. KOC is coming into the modern era the way it should. I want to be someone who helps that. Not someone who hinders its natural progression.”
“Good on you, brother. We’ll let Stone know you stayed undercover and got away when you had all the information you could gather before it became dangerous.”
“You’d do that for me?” he asks.
“Brother, I been trying to save your drowning ass this whole time. Only reason I been around you and Dad the way I have recently.”
“Well, fuck,” Charm exclaims.