Before the Executioners took over Elko, the town was run by the Marks family for going on three generations. Freddy was a mean sonovabitch. His son Tod was a weak moron. By the time I came along, the family was mostly run by three siblings—John, Steph, and Craig, who were soft, lazy, and stupid. Everything was handed to them by their daddy, just as he inherited it all from his father. They earned nothing in their entire lives.
I didn’t even inherit my father’s name. Ernie Fleck bullied his longtime common law wife into giving their three kids her maiden name. The Parrish family was trash going back generations, and Ernie believed the name suited his children.
Back then, I suffered from a hunger nothing could satisfy. Young and pissed at the world, I wanted to burn it down. Without that as an option, I decided to make a part of it bow to me. A lot of men suffer the same hunger, but they rarely feed it.
I did, though. With a five-man team, I violently stole Elko. For a time in town, funerals became common. None of my guys ended up in the ground back then.
Drugs and weapons run easily through this Ohio town, just off a major highway through the state. The Marks got rich doing nearly nothing. I’ve made more money by bleeding and killing to stake my claim. I’ll never hand the town over to anyone who doesn’t wear an Elko Executioners’ patch.
These days, I often think about nineteen-year-old me. Mean and stupid, I had nothing to lose. That made me powerful. No longer as dumb or cruel, I have a lot to lose. My greatest fear is someone like nineteen-year-old me coming along and stealing what I stole from the Marks.
Maybe that’s why I agreed to drive down to Shasta, Kentucky, to meet with the local motorcycle club’s president. When his girl Friday—Shelby Campbell—called our trucking company’s office, she refused to explain to Barbie why I ought to ride down. If anyone could wrangle info out of a person, it was my older sister. But Barbie only ended up in a screaming match with the Shasta woman. As much fun as watching my sister threaten people could be, I stepped in and agreed to the visit. Better to be cordial rather than have Barbie drive to Shasta herself and get in a catfight with Campbell.
“This feels like a mistake,” my VP said that day.
Lowell says the same thing as we get ready to ride down to Shasta. He was one of the five men to help me turn Elko’s streets red. But we’re no longer young men.
Back when I killed my way into ownership of this part of Ohio, I never imagined a future where I wouldn’t love standing at the top. Young and sporting a chip on my shoulder and not a gray hair in sight, I thought I had shit figured out. Life was more manageable when I had nothing to lose. Hasn’t been as easy in a long fucking time.
That’s why I don’t complain about the trip down to Kentucky. I’m ready to put my daily problems behind me and enjoy a ride on my hog.
The president of the Reapers Motorcycle Club in Shasta isn’t my buddy. I don’t share beers with him or talk sports. We’ve met a handful of times since he took over the town, always about business. Last summer, I came to Shasta to discuss the uptick in federal interest in both our clubs. We met at a family chicken place. I think River Majors wanted to freak out the locals in the nearby town with the sight of a dozen bikers showing up at once. The guy loves to play his games.
Nothing much came out of that meeting. I suspect he was feeling me up again. River Majors is quite the fucking flirt.
This latest invitation feels different. Shelby Campbell insisted I meet at their blue grandma mansion in the nice part of Shasta. This sure seems like an ambush situation.
“They’re going to kill you and come up here and take over Elko,” Barbie growled in her cigarette-roughened voice this morning. “I bet they’ve already bought off a few locals. The Reapers preparing for war.”
My sister’s gift is paranoia. She assumes everyone is out to get us at all times. I sometimes worry about that habit of hers. Paranoia is what killed our mother. The last thing I want is for the same shit to infect