Prologue
Tank
Age 17
I wasn’t even awake when the first boot hit my ribs. I gasped, my eyes shooting open as another boot smashed into my stomach, knocking the wind right out of me. I scrambled back against the wall and looked up. There were at least five of them that I could see. A fist plowed into my face as I tried to get up, knocking me the fuck back down. “Asshole!” I hissed, and pushed back at the prick who was trying to keep me on the ground. He slammed to the floor. I jumped up just in time to see one of the fuckers grab my backpack.
“Hey!” I barked. But before I could rush at him, charge the bastard for touching my things, four others flew at me. Fists and feet pounded into my body. Black dots started dancing in my eyes, then suddenly the assholes were ripped away.
I leaned against the wall, holding my ribs, catching my fucking breath, and looked up. A group of tatted-up white guys were smashing their fists into a bunch of Mexicans . . . the fuckers that had attacked me.
It was a quick fight, the new guys kicking the asses of the Mexicans in minutes. The fuckers ran away down the alley in which I’d been sleeping. Sweat and blood dripped down my face. As I wiped it away with my hand, my vision cleared to see a huge guy with a shaved head approaching, my backpack in his hands.
“They didn’t get anything?” he said. I narrowed my eyes. He had a massive skull and crossbones in the middle of his throat. I reached out and took hold of my backpack. My teeth gritted together at the immediate stab of pain in my ribs.
The fuckers had broken them. I just knew it.
The guy pulled the bag back and grabbed my arm. His hand was like a vise around my bicep. He smirked. “How old are you, kid?”
I cast my eyes around the others. They all looked the same—same haircut, clothes, tattoos. And they were all looking at me. “About to be eighteen.”
The guy shook his head. “You’re a big fucker.” I shucked off his arm and stepped back, ignoring the pain in my ribs. It wasn’t like I’d never coped with this shit before. “Football?”
“Tight end,” I said after a few moments of saying fuck all. “Varsity . . . at least I was.”
The guy looked at someone behind him, then back at me. “And now you’re sleeping in an alley?”
Every muscle in me tensed. This asshole had no fucking idea of the shit I’d been through. I couldn’t have stayed with my old man for another damn minute. My jaw clenched and my hand rolled into a fist at my side. Sudden anger lit me the fuck up as I thought of him taking one of his fists to my face after he got jacked up on whiskey . . . again. The guy must have seen it. But instead of being threatened, he just smiled wider and whispered something to the guy behind him again. He stepped closer, his height and build matching mine. “I’m Trace.”
I looked around at them all. None of them seemed like they wanted to kill me, and they’d kicked those Mexicans’ asses for me too. “Shane. Shane Rutherford.”
Trace smiled. “Good name. Pure. True American.” He pointed to my ribs. “We got someone who can fix that.”
My eyes narrowed. “Why would you do that?” I tensed. “I ain’t sucking your dick.” I’d had too many of those offers here on the streets.
Trace burst out laughing, as did the
rest of the guys behind him. “Good to know. Like fags ’bout as much as I like Mexicans.”
My shoulders lost their tension, but I still asked, “Why’re you helping me?”
Trace put his arm around my shoulder and turned so I could see all the guys with him. “When a white brother, from good American stock, US of A born and bred, is in need, his fellow white brothers come to help.”
The tattoos on the guys’ arms and necks became clear. Swastikas, Celtic crosses, “SS.” “We got a place you can stay. We can fix you with a job, get you outta this alley.” I glanced back at the blanket I’d been sleeping on for two months. My stomach growled in hunger. Trace squeezed my shoulder. “Food you can eat.”
“Johnny Landry makes insane barbeque,” one of the other guys said. Barbeque was my fucking favorite.
They all stared at me. Trace kept hold of my shoulder. I sighed, for the first time in weeks feeling something but fucking desperate. “I could eat some barbeque,” I said, and the guys smiled.
“Then let’s get the fuck on.” Trace led me to a truck. I took a deep breath as we left downtown Austin and continued out toward Spicewood. We turned and drove down a dirt road until a house came into view. Dozens of people sat outside, drinking and talking.
“The brotherhood,” Trace said. I looked at him. He must have been about twenty-four, twenty-five? Trace took me into the house. A group of guys were in the massive kitchen. They looked different to Trace and his friends. They looked smarter in their fancier clothes. Spoke different. Sounded like they did more than fight gangs on the street.
An older guy with suspicious eyes got to his feet. “Who’s this?” he asked as he flicked his chin.
“Shane Rutherford,” Trace said. “Found him getting mugged by spics. Couldn’t leave a brother to get beaten down that way.”
The older guy nodded. “Jay’s in the back room. He’ll fix him up.” I followed Trace down a hallway to a back room. The place was mostly wood paneled, American and Nazi flags pinned on most of the walls. Then, at the end, was a huge fuck-off painting of Hitler.
Motherfucking Adolf Hitler.
I stopped dead, just staring at that picture. I wasn’t stupid. In fact, I’d been pretty fucking smart throughout school. Good with mechanics. Engineering, that kind of shit. And I’d paid attention in European History class. I was fully fucking aware of Hitler. Knew some about white power and the KKK. Never given them much thought. They’d never been part of my life. But as Hitler’s fierce eyes bored into mine from the painting, some kind of new pounding settled in my chest.
Laughter came from down the hallway. A window sat to the right of me, and I looked out at the men in the yard. They were drinking American beer and Scottish fucking whiskey and having the time of their lives. My gut pulled as I realized I’d never really had a group of friends like that. I’d had football. But when your old man was an alcoholic whose favorite hobby was smashing his fist into his son’s face, it made you close in. None of those guys knew what it was to be me. I’d played football because I was a huge fucker who needed to hit people. To get out this rage. My old man was even bigger than me. No matter how much I fought back, that bastard always won.
One of the guys turned up the volume on a stereo, and some rock song blared from the speaker. He screamed the lyrics. About brotherhood and being a white American. I felt the beats from the song travel through my veins like crack.
I wanted to be out there with them. Fucking drinking and not giving a shit about anything but the men around me.
“You good?” Trace spoke from behind me. I turned and gave him a nod. He took hold of my arm and pulled me into a smaller room off the hallway. A tall, thin guy with brown hair stood beside a bed made up with white sheets.
The guy held out his hand. “Jay.” I introduced myself.
“Ex-Army,” Trace said, pointing at Jay. “Medic.” Trace slapped Jay on the back. “Served for this fucking country. Taking down cunts that try to take away our freedom.” Trace smiled. “Fucking white hero.”
“Thank you for your service.”
Jay nodded, and I could tell by the glint in his eyes that I’d just done something right. “Sit on the bed.” Jay sent Trace away, then stitched up my cuts and strapped up my ribs. The whole time he told me about how he’d had a similar background to me. Found his home here with Johnny Landry. Then he joined the army. Wanted to fight for his country. Told me most of the brothers at this ranch did. They were American soldiers, not thugs. Landry had a bigger mission than just street fights with Mexicans and blacks. With every word spoken, my heart beat faster and faster, hanging off everything he said. Family . . . brothers . . . a cause . . . a reason for living . . . Those words lit me up like the fourth of July.
When he was done, Jay put his hand on my shoulder. “You need to talk to Landry, kid. You’re the kind of solider he’s looking for. I can tell.” He tapped his head. “You got something up here”—he laughed—“As well as all that fucking muscle.” Then he left, leaving me alone.
I couldn’t get his words from my head. I was what Landry was looking for. A smirk pulled at the corner of my mouth.
I knocked back the pain meds Jay had handed me along with the can of beer he’d given me to take them with.
I ran my hand down my face, suddenly dead tired, but my mind racing with what had happened. With that picture of Hitler looking at me like he could see through me. With Landry’s eyes staring at me as I’d walked in. When I opened my eyes, someone was in the doorway. The guy looked my age, maybe a bit younger. My gaze narrowed on him.
“Trace said the spics got you.”
“Tried,” I said after a few seconds of silence. “Your boys chased them off.”
“You play football.” It wasn’t a question. “Trace said.” Looked like Trace had given everyone the rundown while Jay had been fixing me up.
“Tight end,” I said. “In high school. Just left. Graduated early, then got the fuck out.”
The guy nodded. “I’m a quarterback.” He stepped further into the room. He had no tattoos. But the kid was built and tall too. “A freshman.” He seemed more upmarket than me and the others here. Spoke better than Trace. Sure spoke better than my redneck ass. Didn’t seem like the rest of the folks here. And the kid sure as shit didn’t look like a freshman.
“I’m Tanner.” He put his hand out for me to shake.
Holding my ribs with one hand, I gave him my other. “Shane.”
“Tank, more like,” Trace said from behind Tanner. “You haven’t eaten in weeks yet you’re still that big? Fuck Shane—you’re Tank to us now.”
“And who is us?” I asked, my eyes going from Tanner to Trace. I knew they were white power or some shit. But I had no idea just who they were.
“Your new family.” Trace hooked his arm around Tanner’s shoulders, pulling him close like he’d done to me. “Brothers, Tank. Fucking brothers-in-arms.”
Chapter One
Tank
Five years later . . .
I grabbed the bag holding my stuff and moved to the back of the room to get dressed. The prison uniform fell to the floor, and I slipped on my jeans, shirt, and leather jacket—all of which were now too tight. Years of lifting weights in prison would do that to a guy.
“Sign here and here,” the guard instructed. After two signatures and a long walk down a hallway, I came to the door that promised my freedom. I rocked from side to side, my hands clenching. Because walking outta this fucking door after what Landry had ordered meant I was probably walking out only to get a bullet in my skull. I touched the scar on my head. The ridges were still rough and the fucker still stung.
Only the fact that I was a hard bastard who most didn’t dare fuck with had kept me from leaving this shithole in a wooden box.
The door creaked open, and I stepped out into the world.
Three years. Three years without freedom. Should have been a fuck-ton more, but all of us who went down that day knew we’d only be in there a few years max.
Had to play the game so our Wizards could stay under the radar.
We should’ve all been serving twenty-five to life. But here I was, out in the fucking burning Texas sun after three years.
My boots crunched on the gravel as I made my way to the outer gate. The guard waited at his post, ready to release me back into the wild. My heart beat faster with every step. My hands curled into fists as I prepped for whatever would meet me on the other side of that iron. The brotherhood that had saved me and given me a life was no doubt about to take it away.
The bolt of the gate clanged, the handle turned, and the Texas heat smashed over my face to greet me. I stepped out of the gate, breath held for the gunshot, the knife, whatever the fuck it was that was waiting.
But I stopped dead when I saw a familiar truck parked up on the side of the road. My breath came out real fucking stuttered when I saw my best friend waiting beside it, arms crossed over his chest.
Tanner. Tanner fucking Ayers was the one who would be taking me out. I’d assumed he was still on tour. Was he back just for this?
I walked across the road. All the time Tanner didn’t move. His eyes were on me, right up until I stopped a few feet away. The only time they moved was to glance at the shank scar on my head. He was my best friend. My brother. My fucking family. But Tanner Ayers was the White Prince, the knight of the Ku Klux fucking Klan.
And, to him, I was a traitor.
“Didn’t expect you.” My voice sounded as though I’d swallowed a ton of gravel.
Tanner moved around the truck and got in without a word. I took a deep breath in then got in the passenger side. Tanner burned rubber away from the prison, leaving dust in our wake. White-power rock spewed from the sound system, talking about fucking over anyone who wasn’t white.
Tanner drove faster and faster until the prison was a dot in the background. He turned left down a deserted dirt road, then screeched his truck to a stop, turning the radio off. We skidded a few yards before the truck stopped and the cabin was filled with nothing but thick silence.