The VP was pacing back and forth across The Barn’s floor. His body stiff and his hands jerking as he took long, agitated strides.
Trip had gathered everyone for an emergency meeting. Of fucking course, it was about the Shirleys. Whip wondered if they would even need to have church meetings after they dealt with Hillbilly Hill for the last time.
For patching in prospects? Maybe. But other than that?
The president ripped his black baseball cap off his head and held it crushed within his fingers as he used them to scratch the back of his neck.
Both half-brothers had trigger tempers and right now, their tempers were flaring.
Of course they would be. All of them standing inside The Barn were tired of the Shirley bullshit.
Bone. Fucking. Tired.
The Fury needed to deal with them one final time to end this shit. For good.
Now that winter had passed and the snow was gone, those redneck roaches were repopulating that mountain. As well as beefing up the numbers in their clan. That had to be the reason they were bringing in “breeders” and “snot monkeys” from clans located elsewhere. Like from Ohio.
Red’s mom had been living with the Ohio branch of the Guardians of Freedom with her second husband and, apparently, a bunch of kids. Not just the three she gave birth to, either. Probably more, since the man she married already had kids of his own. The reason he married Red’s mom in the first place.
To raise the widower’s litter of children and to breed more.
The members of the militia wannabes or sovereign nation—whatever the fuck they were—believed the more children they had, the closer they’d be to God. They figured their way into Heaven was guaranteed by producing tons of snot monkeys.
If that was a requirement to get through the pearly gates, Whip would be shit out of luck.
The problem was, the Shirley gene pool had been so small, the offspring tended to be inbred. Whip wasn’t sure about the Ohio group or the rest of them.
It turns out, Red’s mother had been persuaded into following those cult beliefs after Red’s father died. The woman had been dealing with grief, depression and, at the time, had been extremely vulnerable. As well as lonely.
The perfect target for gaslighting.
However, now the woman was no longer in Ohio, but in Pennsylvania. Apparently to join the same clan she had a hand in sending Red to as a “breeder” against Sig’s ol’ lady’s will.
Kidnapped, restrained, confined and raped.
Red had been so traumatized, she called the baby inside her a “seed.” She didn’t see it as anything other than that. Proof the mind did its best to cope with what it had been dealt.
But, seriously, what fucking mother did that to her own damn daughter? Someone who wasn’t playing with a full deck, that was who.
No surprise, seeing her mother had put Red, aka Autumn, in a tailspin. And of course, that had put Sig in a tailspin. If the Shirleys tried to grab Red again, the whole world would burn. Nothing but scorched earth would remain.
It would be Sig lighting that damn match, even if he burned along with it. If he had to stop breathing to make sure Red continued, he would do it. No one doubted that. All of them feared it.
His love for Red was so damn intense, it was scary.
The fact that he might sacrifice himself to do so worried his brother Trip.
With Red, Trip, his sister Syn, his niece Maya and now his newborn nephew Rush, Sig had too much to live for. Unfortunately, he was so zeroed in on and in sync with his ol’ lady that he sometimes forgot there were other people around him who cared for and loved him, too.
The other day in the Walmart parking lot, Red noticed her mother had three young children with her. She also had no doubt they were her half-siblings because they all had bright red hair like Red, who got it from her mother.
Red knew about Ezrah, now about five, but not about the younger two, who appeared to be around three and one. She had no idea what their names were because they had been born after she’d been kidnapped and traded to the Pennsylvania clan to become a sister-wife for one of the Shirley men.
Red only spotted her mother and her children in the group unloading from the van and didn’t see her “stepfather” among them. That didn’t mean he hadn’t come along. It could simply mean that the women were tasked with doing the shopping.
The Shirley clan believed women had their “place.” Bear and raise the children, and, of course, take care of their men. Most of the men had more than one wife, too.
Red didn’t understand why her mother, Alice, would be brought to Pennsylvania. Because by now, she had to be getting to the age where she shouldn’t have any more babies. She had to be in her late-forties.
But Alice Haas’s age wasn’t Whip’s problem. Or even where her husband Jeb Haas or his other children were.
None of them gave a shit about that.
What Sig cared about was what Red cared about. First, to make sure they weren’t there to force Red into reliving her nightmare. Especially after she’d been kidnapped twice by the Shirleys already. Second, her three half-siblings.
Understandably, Red did not want them growing up in that fucked-up environment. She did not want them becoming just like the Shirleys. Even though she didn’t know those kids, she still cared about them.
And because Red cared about them, and everyone in The Barn cared about Red, that meant they all cared about those three vulnerable kids, too.
Now the pressure was on Trip to finally make a move. They couldn’t wait any longer to see if the feds stepped in or even if they were still keeping their eyes on the clan. They also couldn’t wait to see if Manning Grove PD would get involved.
The Fury had no choice but to stomp up that mountain wearing their boots and take action.
Now it wouldn’t only be a war to end the Shirleys so they were no longer a threat against the club and Fury family. It would be a “rescue” effort first, then a complete annihilation after.
Where Whip stood in the middle of his restless brothers, nobody surrounding him disagreed with that.
It was time. No more fucking around. The stakes were so high now, they’d hit the fucking moon.
But Trip and Judge were all about doing it right and not doing it recklessly. That was always the fucking sticky part. It would be difficult to decimate the Shirley clan when their numbers were quickly growing and the Fury’s were not.
They also were back to the dilemma of what the fuck to do with the women and children. Could everyone in that damn clubhouse live with women and children being collateral damage?
Sig, maybe. The rest? Probably not.
Before the feds had stepped in and cleared out that mountain, the Fury had been slowly taking out their men. But that method had only been a temporary fix since they bred like redneck rabbits. There seemed to be an endless source. Maybe not on that mountain, but elsewhere. Pockets of them. And those pockets were deep.
This was no longer a “wait and see” situation.
Whip was willing to go along with whatever was decided. He might not have an ol’ lady or kids to protect but the sisterhood and the Fury kids belonged to the club as a whole. It was the Fury’s responsibility to protect them all.
Once he earned his colors, he did not hesitate to get them tattooed onto his back. That meant protecting Fury property also fell on his shoulders, just as much as it did Trip, Judge or Deacon. Anyone who had their own family to protect.