Hell Breaks Loose: A Devil's Rock Novel Read Online Free Page A

would.
    Eleven years had passed since he’d been out, but he expected to find Zane in the usual place. His brother was simple that
     way. He liked his routines. Reid would bet that the cabinet was full of the same cereal they ate as kids.
    The cabin sat several miles behind the main house on 530 acres located outside Odessa. The land had been in his family for
     almost two hundred years, granted to them after the Texas War of Independence.
    The authorities didn’t know about the cabin . . . or the hidden dirt road that veered off the county farm road you had to
     take to get there. The old Explorer bumped along the unpaved lane. It was so overgrown with shrubs and cacti that it couldn’t
     rightly be called a road, which was the point.
    After an hour the road suddenly opened up to a clearing. The cabin stood there. Three trucks and a few motorcycles were parked
     out front, confirming that the cabin was still in use and far from forgotten.
    The front door opened as he emerged from the Explorer. Several men stepped out onto the porch, wielding guns. He spotted Zane
     at the center of them. His chest squeezed. His brother had visited him a couple times his first year at the Rock. Nothing
     since then.
    Time had not been kind to his younger brother. He was stockier, the baby roundness gone from his face. He was shirtless, too,
     and Reid marked the dozens of tats covering him that had not been there eleven years ago. Most notable was the eagle sitting
     atop a vicious looking skull. Most of the guys staring Reid down had the same symbol inked on their necks or faces. Once upon
     a time he would have been the one standing there wearing that eagle and skull. If fate hadn’t intervened . . . if his eyes
     hadn’t been opened.
    If he hadn’t gone to prison.
    He swallowed against the acid rising up in his throat and fixed a smile on his face. “Hey, little brother.”
    It was a bitter pill. This was his baby brother. The reason he hadn’t taken off for parts unknown when he graduated from high
     school was because of this guy right here. He hadn’t wanted to leave Zane alone with their crackhead mother and a deadbeat
     dad who showed up every few months. Fat lot of good sticking around did his brother. He’d ended up in jail, and his brother
     was running with a bunch of low-life thugs. His brother was a low-life thug now .
    “Holy shit,” Zane declared, hopping down from the porch, still holding onto his rifle. “Son of a bitch! What are you doing
     here?” He slapped his thigh as if he’d just seen something amazing. Something like his older brother who went away for a life
     sentence standing in front of him.
    Reid lifted his chin and tried not to stare too hard at the emblems of hate riddling his brother. He nodded at the rifle.
     “Is that any way to welcome me home?”
    Zane hesitated a moment and then flung his arms wide. As if the past were forgotten. As if bad shit never went down. As if
     Reid could still be one of them again. “Welcome home, brother.”
    Zane embraced him, clapping him hard with his free hand. Reid pulled back and eyed the other men, meeting their dilated gazes
     head-on. Not a single one was sober. They were all high on something. Even so, several looked at him with distrust. Evidently
     not everyone had forgotten that before he went to prison not everything had been copasetic. They clearly remembered that he
     and Sullivan had grown contentious with each other.
    Rowdy, his brother’s second-in-command, wore a grin for him, though. Even if that grin did not quite reach his eyes, Rowdy
     reached out and clapped hands with him.
    “Good to have you back.” Rowdy looked him over. “Looking fierce, man. Guessing they didn’t release you for good behavior.”
    “Nah. Thought I’d just go ahead and let myself out.”
    Zane and Rowdy laughed. “Same ol’ Reid.”
    “You couldn’t have come back at a better time.” His brother’s eyes glinted with excitement, reminding him of the