Vendetta (Cottonmouth MC #1)

Prologue

Oak Grove a few months ago

Stepping into the compound’s meeting room, Tank felt like a soldier entering enemy territory.

Eli Crizer sat at the head of the table, the Oak Grove chapter’s president and now the face of everything Tank had just witnessed.

Tall and broad-shouldered, Eli was built like a man who spent his entire life fighting to stay on top.

Hell, the man had killed his own son a couple of years back.

His white hair was cut close, making the dark hazel of his eyes stand out like polished brass, cold and shrewd.

A black and gray tattoo snaked up the left side of his neck, disappearing beneath his collar.

The man’s face was hard, weathered by years of violence and command, with a thin slit of a mouth that never really smiled unless someone else was bleeding.

Leaning back in his chair, his face an unreadable mask, Eli draped his arms over the sides like a king holding court.

To Eli’s left sat Trucker, Oak Grove’s enforcer.

The man sat stone-faced with his arms crossed and eyes like flint.

On Eli’s right was Grudge, who didn’t look like much because he was painfully thin and always dirty, with his fingers drumming restlessly on the table.

On the right, Creep and Eagle nursed beers, their expressions unreadable.

Then finally there was Nate, the youngest patch in their club, who wouldn’t even look up from the scarred wood of the table when someone entered the club’s space.

They weren’t there to engage in a meaningful discussion anyway.

It wasn’t even really about club business.

Tank had been asking too many questions, and they’d given him an opportunity to see for himself what they were all part of.

Maybe they wanted to watch him squirm. Or it could be that they thought seeing the truth would shut him up.

No. What he’d seen had lit a fuse they couldn’t put out. And fucking cowards that they were, not a single one of them spoke. Tank could have heard a pin drop in the room.

“I’m out,” Tank said in a low, firm voice. “I’m done being any fucking part of this.”

Tank glanced around. Half the men there wouldn’t meet his gaze. The others stared at him incredulously, like he’d lost his mind.

“You done?” Eli asked, slowly rising. “Just like that?”

“Just like that,” Tank shot back. “When you put out the word that you needed more Cottonmouths for a good opportunity, I thought it was regular club business.”

Tank had come over from Abingdon a few weeks ago.

When the Oak Grove chapter of Cottonmouth MC put out the call for backup, extra muscle for a new “opportunity,” he rode out with a couple of his brothers from the Abingdon chapter, thinking it would be business as usual.

Dealing guns, protection details, and maybe a little heat with the local law.

But now that Tank found out what was really going on, he knew he’d made a mistake. A fucking big one.

“I didn’t know you meant caging up girls barely old enough to drive and selling them to monsters.

And the drugs? I’ve seen firsthand what that shit does to neighborhoods, to families.

I didn’t fight for this country just to come back here to protect traffickers and fucking cowards.

This isn’t the Cottonmouth MC I pledged my life to.

This isn’t brotherhood. It’s a Goddamn pipeline for filth. ”

“You think you’re better than us?” Eli’s voice dropped an octave, laced with threat.

“No. But I’m above doing evil shit like that.” Tank stared him down.

He’d walked out of the warehouse that no one was supposed to talk about just before coming here.

Inside, girls, barely more than kids, were locked in back rooms like livestock.

Some of them were chained to rusty bed frames, others were kept behind reinforced doors with nothing but a dirty old mattress and a bucket.

The air there was thick with fear, sweat, and the sickening smell of the horrible things that had happened to them.

Vacant eyes, hollowed out by whatever they’d been through, acknowledging his presence without recognition.

One young woman being held in the warehouse had tried to speak to him, probably reading the outrage and empathy on his face.

But one of the guards barked a warning and she flinched so hard she fell back against the wall.

It was the kind of evil shit you couldn’t possibly unsee. Tank felt sick to realize the club was balls deep in it.

Drugs were packaged right beside crates of stolen guns.

He saw meth, heroin, fentanyl. Brick after brick of narcotics covered the tables, all organized, shrink-wrapped and tagged as inventory.

Some of it was already weighed and bagged, ready for the streets.

Some of it was boxed and ready for transport.

The guns were military-grade assault rifles and semi-automatics, not the handguns they usually ran.

They were still oiled and gleaming, packed carefully in crates using fake serial numbers and counterfeit shipping tags.

The entire operation, efficient and organized, felt like hell’s supply chain.

Every last bit of it was protected under the Cottonmouth patch. His patch.

A long, tense moment passed. Eli didn’t move. No one else in the room said or did anything else either.

Finally, Eli said, “Then go. If you’re done, walk. Ain’t nobody stopping you.”

Nodding, Tank turned to leave. He’d faced some fucked-up shit before, but this took the cake. For a moment, he told himself it was over. Maybe, just maybe, Eli would let him walk. He kept his stride even, his back straight, refusing to show an ounce of doubt.

But something gnawed at him. A flash of instinct from his Marine days. Just walking out was too quiet, too easy. Tank elected to ignore it. He chose to believe he’d be leaving with his honor intact.

* * *

Bones, the VP of the Oak Grove chapter, called him later that evening and said they wanted to talk, to part ways like brothers.

He gave Tank a time and a meeting place.

It was just outside of town, tucked back in the trees off an old service road no one really used anymore.

It wasn’t the place where you patched things up. It was where you went to end them.

Tank stared at his phone for a while after the call ended.

A gut instinct fired a warning shot like it had back in the sandbox right before the convoy got hit.

Did they think he was stupid? This wasn’t a peace talk.

It was a death sentence. No way he was going.

He was getting the hell out of Oak Grove. Tonight.

He was halfway to the garage when the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. The air had shifted, and it was too quiet. No crickets. No dogs barking. Just that uneasy stillness that meant eyes were on him.

Tank froze in the shadow of the side door, one hand on his keys, the other hovering near the grip of the Glock tucked into the waist of his jeans. His mind raced through every step. Bike fueled, gear packed, back route planned.

Someone knew.

That thought dropped hard into his gut as he locked the door behind him and stepped onto the porch, duffel slung over his shoulder. The night was too still, the air too heavy, like the world was holding its breath.

Tank scanned the street. He saw nothing. His bike was parked at the edge of the gravel drive, just beyond the reach of the porch light. He took a step forward.

A crunch of gravel behind him made him spin around, but it was too late.

A blunt object slammed into his ribs from the side, driving the breath out of him. He stumbled off the porch, hit the ground hard, and rolled, just in time to avoid a second strike.

They were waiting. Five of them, moving out of the shadows like wolves. Bandanas up, no colors. No names. But he recognized the size of one. The stance of another.

Cottonmouths.

Tank scrambled to his feet, reached for the Glock, but a boot caught his jaw, sending him reeling back into the side of his truck. They didn’t shoot him. That would be too loud, too messy. Eli didn’t want a corpse. He wanted silence.

“What’s this?” one of them said, yanking the duffel away and tossing it aside. “Planning a little trip?”

Another one spotted his gun and grabbed it as Tank wiped the blood from his mouth, bracing against the wheel well.

“Fuck you,” Tank muttered.

The biggest one cracked his knuckles. “Heard you were thinking about running. Can’t have that.”

A fist drove into his gut, punching the air from his lungs.

Tank doubled over as another blow caught him in the jaw, another fist split his lip.

The assault was fast and brutal, all boots, fists, and elbows.

They didn’t speak or shout. They beat him down with cold, mechanical violence like they were taking out the trash.

Tank tried to fight back, but he was outnumbered, and their betrayal cut deeper than any blow or knife.

Their silence was the worst part. No one called him brother or tried to warn him.

It was like he’d never been one of them.

The beating continued mercilessly. Someone ripped his cut right off his back. Spit hit the ground beside his head. “Piece of shit don’t deserve to wear it.”

His arms were yanked viciously behind him and bound with chain, cold metal biting deep into raw skin. Then gravel, the scuff of boots. A grunt of effort as they dragged him by the arms toward a waiting truck. Creep’s truck.

They threw him into the bed like dead weight, the ridged metal slamming against his ribs. One of them hopped up beside him, boot planted on his spine as the engine turned over and they rolled out slowly into the dark.