***

“Senator f**kin’ Collins!” Viking shouted as we burst open the master bedroom door of his mansion, down in Tarrytown off Mopac—some rich-ass gated community right on Lake Austin, where folks have more money than sense.

As one, we all froze.

The good ol’ senator removed his shriveled-up c**k from deep up the ass of some Thai toy-boy and dived for cover on his bed.

Ky stepped forward and grinned. “Well, well, what do we have here, Senator Collins?”

“How the hell did y’all get in here?!” Collins snapped.

AK walked to his closet and began rooting around, pocketing a few top-grade Cuban cigars. “Your staff ain’t too loyal. Seems they value their own lives above yours.” He looked up and peered across the bed. “And that of your little underage twink, by the looks of things.”

The senator paled. The rent boy held up his hands—he was all of sixteen, seventeen maybe? Perfect ammo for us. Maybe Hades was watching after us after all.

Flame stormed to the kid and lifted him from the bed by his black hair. “You have ten seconds to get the f**k out of this room before I castrate you and feed your c**k to his dog!” Flame threw him to the floor and, in less then ten seconds, the kid was smoke, slamming the door behind him as he went.

Ky sat down on the end of the bed and leaned back, staring at Collins. I stood against the drawers just watching as the old dickhead met my hard stare. He swallowed… hard.

I smirked.

He whimpered.

Pussy.

“So? Collins? Seems you’ve been keeping secrets from the good ol’ folks of Texas, eh? What would they say if they knew their perfect family man liked to suck cock?”

“What do you want?” he asked quietly, his beady eyes constantly darting among the brothers now stationed around the room. “I got lots’a money. How much d’y’all want?”

Ky raised his eyebrow and laughed. “We got plenty of money.”

Ky jerked his chin to Flame. Flame, the constantly twitching brother, glided to the bed and lifted up Collins by his throat, pinning him high against the wall.

“NO! Don’t kill me! I’ll tell y’all anything you wanna know!” Collins screeched, his words barely audible through Flame’s iron-tight grip. When the senator’s puffy face turned purple, Flame dropped his puny naked ass to the hardwood floor.

“Who put the Neos on us?” Any blood left in the senator’s face completely drained on hearing Ky’s question.

“I don’t… I didn’t—” Flame flew at him again. Collins pushed his hands out, screaming and scrambling against the wall. “Okay, okay… just don’t hurt me!”

Flame looked to me for instruction. I called him off with a flick of my chin.

“I’ll tell you what,” Ky said, moving to confront Collins. “I’m gonna start counting down from sixty. If I get to zero, I’m gonna get Flame here to give you a lobotomy. Let’s just try and jog that memory of yours.”

Flame threw back his head and laughed hysterically, flicking open his Persian switchblade in readiness.

“Fifty,” Ky counted down.

The senator rubbed his sweaty, bald head in obvious fear.

“Forty.”

Flame began loosening up: cracking knuckles, rolling his neck, slicing along his arms, blood dripping to the cream-carpeted floor.

Collin’s face visibly reddened with fear.

“Thirty.”

“Twenty.”

“Ten.”

“Five… four… three… two… one… zer—”

“Okay! Okay! I’ll make you a deal!”

I jerked my chin, ordering the senator to speak.

“It was some suit. He came in and I put out the hit. Neos took the bid. The suit wanted the mute dead, the Hangmen took outta the gun game.” He looked up at me. “The order came from the governor’s mansion downtown. The suit carried a letter with the governor’s signature and I was told to overlook all gun trades from some new organization, Gaza-funded or such shit. To approve no-flight zones and enforce trespassing laws around some piece of abandoned land north of the city. I didn’t ask no more about it. Less I know the better.”

“What did the suit look like?” Tank asked.

Collins pinched his nose. “Tall, good suit, normal. Oh, he had a long brown beard and a scar down his cheek.”

Gabriel.

Ky turned to me for orders.

Find out the location of that land. It’s the commune. No doubt. The suit was one of the f**kers who took Mae.

Ky nodded stiffly. He was pissed.

“We’re gonna need the location,” Ky demanded.

Collins frowned. “Can’t give it.” Flame approached, licking his bloodied blade, and he screamed, “Wait! Wait!”

I held up my hand signaling Flame to halt.

“The governor has shit on me. Shit that could destroy my political career, my family. He told me he would ruin me if I ever gave that location away… especially to you… the Hangmen. Can only mean he’s getting serious bank from them.”

“You mean he knows you like to f**k little boys?” Viking queried.

Collins’s lips tightened in annoyance. Viking smiled.

“The only folks who could give a shit if that location is found will be dead within twenty-four hours. The governor only cares ’bout what comes back on him. We’re fixin’ for no one to be left talking once we’re done. They or he won’t be giving you shit.”