Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 118333 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 592(@200wpm)___ 473(@250wpm)___ 394(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 118333 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 592(@200wpm)___ 473(@250wpm)___ 394(@300wpm)
“Yeah.” I did. Wade Roberts. His old man was one of Landry’s closest friends until he died a few years back. Wade was inner circle and wanted out but, unlike me, lacked the incentive to leave. He’d decided it was better to bring the Klan down from the inside than to leave and have no fucking life, a target forever on his head for deserting the cause. Didn’t know if I could trust him at first. But he’d come through time and time again.
“He didn’t warn me about today though.” And I was gonna find out the fuck why.
The bottle was almost done when Zane came over to Tank and said that Ky was calling for the brothers in church. “Church!” Tank shouted when Zane cut the music. I waited until the brothers had left, then followed in last. The room was crammed. But everyone had a seat. Styx sat at the front, quiet as always, but his eyes blazing with fire.
He had just lifted his hands to speak when Arizona and Gull’s prez burst through the door. “They’d hung them from trees. Like they’d been lynched,” he said. His eyes were red and bulging with rage.
I closed my eyes briefly. “String them up,” I said. I smiled as the bodies of our old Klan brothers started to swing from the trees, the heavy wind moving them back and forth like pendulums. Charles took out a can of spray paint and drew on the cross and circle—our white-power symbol. That would teach the fuckers to try and leave us, to try and get the feds on our asses. “Leave them,” I ordered. “Let people find them. Let them know the Klan is not to be fucked with.”
When I opened my eyes, it was to see Tank watching me. He must have known I was remembering what we used to do . . . because he’d been there for a lot of them. He’d been standing right beside me.
When the room came back into focus, the brothers were all talking over one another, fucking pissed. A loud whistle cut through the room. Styx stood. His eyes bored into every one of us, telling us all to shut the fuck up or he’d do it for us. When everyone calmed and took their seats, Styx stayed standing.
His eyes fixed on me. He raised his hands, and Ky spoke for him. “We need to know all about them. We need to know how they’re organized. The training they’ve had. What they believe. Fucking everything. We need to know these fuckers inside and out.”
The room was deadly silent, and one by one every brother looked my way. “Styx—” Tank went to speak, but I shook my head at my best friend. I had to do this. I’d seen the looks I’d gotten from the brothers over these past few weeks. They suspected me. Not so much my own chapter, but the others. Every time there was an attack, I was asked how they would’ve known where we’d be. How many would’ve been there. Everything. Tank never got those looks. He’d paid his dues. Wasn’t coated in Nazi tattoos anymore, unlike me. As involved as Tank was, he hadn’t been born for the sole purpose of being the Ku Klux Klan’s heir. Raised to only champion the white race. In the Ayers household, the air we breathed was Klan and Klan alone.
I wanted to just cut tail and fucking leave all this shit behind, but I wasn’t gonna back down. All this? It was my fault. I’d created this. I had to fucking end it. Least I could do right now was try to save these men.
And I wouldn’t let them see me weak. I’d never fucking do that.
“It’s called the invisible empire,” I said, and could almost smell the lingering smell of smoke from a burning cross beside me. Could feel the air charged with the cause, the need for the race war to start. Like my old brotherhood had once looked to me, dressed in green robes and standing before the fiery cross, these brothers were looking at me too. But none like I was a fucking messiah. More like a suspect.
“Invisible because we exist where no one sees. No one knows who we are. We assimilate into society. We exist among you.”
“Y’all have flags outside your houses and giant swastikas tattooed on your skin.” Some of the brothers smirked. “Hardly invisible,” Smiler said.
“And they’re the ones you need to worry about the least.” I leaned on the table. My knuckles cracked from all the tension on my body. “As I’ve said before to my chapter, the rednecks and the skinheads who fight for fun and protest outside of town halls aren’t the ones you need to fear. They’re the show ponies, the distraction. They’re the waving hand, making you look one way while the real soldiers, the true army of the invisible empire, tear you down with the other.”