“Waiting out the Volkshalberd won’t work,” he says once the girls are gone, and the room is locked down.
Twenty men watch him speak. Some were around from the beginning, like Lowell and Drummer. Others, like me, are newer. Then there are the club’s sons like Rooster’s hot-tempered boy, Wyatt. Conor’s father was a founding member too. Ambushing Wheels meant the end of the Killing Joes.
Likely, Conor will be the man I follow one day. Not because I necessarily believe he has what it takes to run the club. Bronco believes that, though, and I do what Bronco wants. Well, except for when he warned me off Pixie.
“Starving them didn’t work, huh?” Wyatt asks, giving Bronco trouble as usual.
Bronco ignores his nephew, which probably pisses off the shithead more. I like how our president doesn’t feel the need to freak out on people all the time. He’s unpredictable. Bronco can stay real calm or lash out suddenly. People never know what to expect. Except Bronco isn’t a hothead. Years ago, I learned that he might act unpredictable, but he’s always in control.
I doubt Wyatt sees his uncle so clearly. Conor does, which is probably why he’ll be president one day.
“Thanks to Topanga’s ability to chat with anyone,” Bronco says, smirking at Lowell, “we’ll have inside info about the Village soon.”
A few men look at me as if I’m to blame. I don’t react to their accusing stares. I’ve always assumed they view me as a traitor to my original club and part of the reason their friend died.
“Anders’s woman is named Pixie. Her mother is Fairuza. A few of you might remember her from the day we went out to the Village and held their bus in town. This woman has iron balls,” Bronco says and then crosses his arms. “But she wasn’t planning a revolt. Her children were starving, yet she was sitting around waiting for the Village’s leadership to fix things. If a woman like her wasn’t plotting, then who will rise up?”
Bronco lowers his arms. “Today, when I told Gunther the deal about the guns, he didn’t react. The man doesn’t own a poker face. He knows the Village is fucked. John Marks is willing for them all to die, and they’re willing to let it happen.”
“Why?” Rooster asks, scratching at his thick gray beard. “That woman was feisty. There are tough people in the Village. Why not take on that rich bitch Marks and end this thing?”
“Cults are built on the idea of submission to a higher purpose,” Conor says, and I notice Wyatt narrow his eyes at his cousin’s words. “They trust in the message, whatever it might be. The Village has always been about living by their own rules and viewing outsiders as the enemy. Even if we show up with food and offer to feed them if they’ll turn their backs on Marks, they won’t do it.”
“But you had that great gun idea,” Wyatt says loudly and nudges his buddy, Evan “Farts” Jones.
The rest of the men don’t smile at Wyatt’s shit. They’re aware of Bronco’s dark mood even if Wyatt can’t feel it.
Stretching out his long legs, Conor shrugs. “I hoped the Volkshalberd might be inspired to take matters in their own hands. It’s possible a few still might when things get worse. Better for them to rise against Marks than for us to massacre dozens of people and risk bringing state and federal law into Elko. Not to mention the press. But you do you, Wyatt.”
“Or we can do me,” Bronco grumbles. “And I’ve been thinking about what we’ve learned in the last forty-eight hours. Thanks to Anders’s hippie girlfriend, we now know the asshole behind all this trouble is John Marks. Understanding how that family works, Steph Marks must be involved too. Possibly, the druggie youngest brother too, but I’d heard rumors that he OD’d years ago.”
“Then, we kill Marks and his sister. Problem solved,” Wyatt announces.
“Hey, hotshot, have you ever asked your old man why we didn’t just pop the Marks family when we took over Elko decades ago?” Bronco growls at his nephew. “This was back before we went soft and kept your ass from murdering everyone. So why do you think we didn’t take those rich fucks out?”
Wyatt always has the same move. He starts trouble, pushes it as far as it’ll go, and then backtracks once shit gets dangerous for himself. Then he plays the victim as if everyone else is the asshole, and he’s just trying to help. I’ve seen him do this move since I first arrived here. He gets away with his bullshit since he’s the nephew of the top guy and his daddy helped found the Executioners. Anyone else would have been buried by now.
“Let me help you out, son,” Rooster says in his deep, twangy voice. “The Marks family are sneaky cowards. If they feel threatened, they’ll use an entire children’s cancer ward as a shield. When shit went south for the Marks family in Elko, they fucking vanished and left their allies paying the price.”
“And if we storm the Village, we might find they’re not even there,” Lowell says, eyeballing Wyatt. “We had no idea they were in Elko until Pixie ratted them out.”
“So, what’s the plan?” asks another founding member, Akron.
Bronco nods at his longtime friend. “We’ll hit up Pixie and Fairuza for info on the Village’s layout, who is close to Marks, where they keep their weapons. Some of that info might be fluid, but we’ll get an idea of what we face. After that, we attack.”
“The goal is as few deaths as possible,” Lowell adds before Wyatt can start trouble. “A bunch of dead kids won’t fly, even in Elko. That shit gets press attention.”
I scan the men’s faces and spot Conor. His heavy-lidded eyes tell me he’s working up an idea. Bronco sees the same thing, but they
