Lead (The Brazen Bulls MC, #8)

by Susan Fanetti

  SUSAN FANETTI

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Lead (The Brazen Bulls MC, #8)

  ALSO BY SUSAN FANETTI

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  EPILOGUE | July 2007

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  THE FREAK CIRCLE PRESS

  Lead © 2018 Susan Fanetti

  All rights reserved

  Cover design © 2018 Susan Fanetti

  Images licensed from DepositPhotos and iPhoto

  Susan Fanetti has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this book under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  ALSO BY SUSAN FANETTI

  The Brazen Bulls MC:

  Crash, Book 1

  Twist, Book 2

  Slam, Book 3

  Blaze, Book 4

  Honor, Book 5

  Fight, Book 6

  Stand, Book 7

  Light, Book 7.5

  THE NIGHT HORDE MC SAGA:

  The Signal Bend Series:

  (The First Series)

  Move the Sun, Book 1

  Behold the Stars, Book 2

  Into the Storm, Book 3

  Alone on Earth, Book 4

  In Dark Woods, Book 4.5

  All the Sky, Book 5

  Show the Fire, Book 6

  Leave a Trail, Book 7

  The Night Horde SoCal:

  (The Second Series)

  Strength & Courage, Book 1

  Shadow & Soul, Book 2

  Today & Tomorrow, Book 2.5

  Fire & Dark, Book 3

  Dream & Dare, Book 3.5

  Knife & Flesh, Book 4

  Rest & Trust, Book 5

  Calm & Storm, Book 6

  Nolan: Return to Signal Bend

  Love & Friendship

  The Pagano Family:

  Footsteps, Book 1

  Touch, Book 2

  Rooted, Book 3

  Deep, Book 4

  Prayer, Book 5

  Miracle, Book 6

  The Pagano Family: The Complete Series

  The Pagano Brothers:

  Simple Faith, Book 1

  Hidden Worthiness, Book 2

  Sawtooth Mountains Stories:

  Somewhere

  Someday

  The Northwomen Sagas:

  God’s Eye

  Heart’s Ease

  Soul’s Fire

  Father’s Sun

  Standalone:

  Nothing on Earth & Nothing in Heaven

  As S.E. Fanetti:

  Aurora Terminus

  To my readers who’ve taken this long ride with me.

  To TeriLyn, who always helps me see my stories with clear eyes.

  And to the Freaks, always. For everything.

  Thank you.

  Wherever a man comes, there comes revolution.

  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The Divinity School Address”

  THE BRAZEN BULLS MOTORCYCLE CLUB

  Tulsa, Oklahoma

  2002 Roster

  Gary Becker—President

  Simon Spellman—Vice President

  Conrad “Radical” Jessup—Sergeant at Arms

  Richard “Maverick” Helm—Secretary/Treasurer

  Neil “Apollo” Armstrong—Technology Officer

  Maxwell “Gunner” Wesson—Enforcer

  Jason “Gargoyle” Rock—Enforcer

  Walter “Wally” Hansen—Soldier

  Caleb Mathews—Soldier

  Roland “Fitz” Fitzgerald—Soldier

  Edgar “Eight Ball” Johnston—Soldier

  Terry Capewell—Prospect

  Brian Delaney—Retired

  CHAPTER ONE

  There was a smell in this room that Becker would still be able to recognize and place on his deathbed, even if he somehow managed to beat the odds of his violent life and live to be an old man. He couldn’t describe it in its particulars, the mixture of odors was too various to pin down, but blended into a single smell, it was this room: the visiting room at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary.

  What the smell meant? That was easy: Hopelessness. Anxiety. Loneliness. Loss.

  It had been, hell, almost twenty years since he’d finished his own time and walked out of prison a free man, and he hadn’t spent more than a few hours behind bars since, but still, every time Becker sat in this room, at a cheap, faux-wood Formica table, in an uncomfortable orange plastic chair, his sphincter clenched so tightly his ass cheeks cramped. Just being close to the bars that had once held him in made him queasy.

  He’d done his time before he was a Brazen Bull, almost before he’d even been a man, and, because it was before their time and he never talked about it, few of his club brothers even thought of him as an ex-con. When they had questions about prison, they took them to Maverick, who’d been a patch when he’d gone inside, and who’d been out only a few years.

  Maverick hadn’t done time for the club, though, either—he’d done some extra time on club business inside, but he’d gotten himself in here on his own. The man Becker was waiting for was the only one in club history to do time for club business. Their first—and until a couple of months ago, only— president had taken a mountain of pride in the fact that no Bull had gone away because of something the club had laid on his shoulders.

  Not until Eight Ball. True, he’d gone way outside the bounds of his assignment, but he’d been in the position to kill a man that night because he’d been sent there by the club.

  Of the many things Becker thought had finally broken Brian Delaney’s spirit and driven him to give up the gavel and his kutte, too, Eight Ball breaking that twenty-six-year streak rated fairly high. It had meant something to the old man, that his patches were willing to lay their lives and freedom down for the club he’d built, and that he’d been able to prevent the need for their sacrifice. In the past few years, though, lives had been lost, on too regular a basis. And now there was a Bull inside. Delaney counted these as his personal failures.

  Becker thought he was probably right. Delaney had lost his vision for the club well before he’d stepped away.

  And now, wearing the President’s flash himself, Becker could admit to himself, if to no one else, ever, that he was damn terrified he’d fail, too. He sat at the head of their table now, and ten men looked back, waiting for him to lead them.

  He’d been a Bull for more than fifteen years, but he’d never b
een a leader. He’d been a soldier, and then an enforcer, doing his thing, going where he was told, letting men on whom that kind of responsibility sat easier make the hard calls. He’d been good there, content, until the past couple of years, when suddenly he was among the most senior patches, and there hadn’t been anyone else who would, or could, take on the burden of leadership. Out of the blue, Becker had found himself at Delaney’s side. And then, only a year later, in Delaney’s seat.

  In the weeks since he’d taken the gavel, he’d hardly slept. What little rest he got was broken by restless dreams, and his first thought, every goddamn day, before he’d opened his eyes, was what the fuck was he doing. How could he lead this club out of the dark hole it was lost in, how could he keep the Bulls strong under the constant pressure from Irina Volkov and her bratva, how could he just keep everybody alive while Russian mobsters and Mexican drug cartels played chess, using the Bulls as their pieces.

  The door opened, and the room’s guard turned to pat down the entering inmate. Seeing that it was Eight Ball, Becker shook off his anxious thoughts and waited for his friend.

  Eight Ball was a prickly character, the kind of man who struck out first, before he got hit, either verbally or physically, and Becker knew full well that he was the man’s only real friend. Eight had a lot of damage in his head and his heart, and he protected himself with bluster and dickishness. Becker knew it and knew how to get under all that. There weren’t many who could, and there were fewer who bothered; Eight pissed people off too fast for them to care why. Delaney and his old lady were the only others Becker knew him to be close to. Even their brothers for the most part only tolerated Eight Ball, and no one got called into the ring more than he did.

  Perversely, Eight wore that rejection and condemnation like armor. It fed something in him to be disliked.

  Eight was finally allowed into the room, lumbering in with his uneven gait, and Becker stood. His chin was taped up with butterfly bandages, and his left eye was bruised and swollen, but he grinned and held out his hand. Becker gripped it at the wrist and slapped Eight’s bicep. “Hey, brother.”

  “Beck. Good to see you, man.” They sat at the uncomfortable table.

  “Looks like they’re not letting up on you with the fighting, even with your bad leg.” The guards here had an inmate fighting ring, and the inmates who fought were not volunteers. Maverick’s years in that brutal churn had done him a lot of lasting damage. Eight Ball was seven months into his four-year bid for manslaughter, and Becker had hardly seen him in this room without something bruised or stitched or taped.

  “I don’t mind it. I stay on my strong leg and hit hard enough that the limp don’t matter. I like having somethin’ to punch on a regular basis, and nobody stops me when I get goin’.”

  Wondering what exactly that meant, but not in a place it was safe to ask, Becker changed the subject. “And what’s goin’ on up there?” He nodded toward Eight’s head, which was shaved shiny, and that was new. He’d had a mullet for years. In fact, Eight had undergone a lot of changes in these months. A former star high school—and, very briefly, college—football player, he’d always been brawny, but now his neck was thick as a tree trunk, and his traps swelled above his shoulders.

  Becker could imagine he was doing a lot more damage in the ring than he was taking.

  Those traps rose up higher when Eight put his hands on his bald head. “Yeah, it’s just easier.”

  “You havin’ any trouble in here?”

  Eight shrugged. “It’s prison. I’m holdin’ my own.” He waved off any further inquiry and asked, “How’s it goin’ out there, Prez? I still can’t fuckin’ believe D bailed.”

  “I think it was the right call, Eight.” When his friend scoffed, Becker added, “I mean it. Things’ve been running sideways for awhile. D saw he couldn’t steer us straight anymore.”

  “And you think you can?”

  “I’ll tell you straight: I don’t know. But the club wants me at the head, so I’ll do what I can.”

  Staring at the table between them, Eight nodded but didn’t look up. Hardly a vote of confidence from his best friend.

  ~oOo~

  Back in Tulsa, Becker stopped by the service station and clubhouse and checked in on both; then, not in the mood for company, he rode home.

  A couple years ago, when the money was coming in crazy fast, he’d finally bought himself a place. He was single and had little in his life besides the club, so he didn’t do anything fancy. Just found a little fixer in a modest neighborhood, surrounded by neighbors he understood, paid cash, and settled in. After so many years of renting, it was nice to be the master of his own home, plain though it was.

  The thing that had really sold him on this place was the garage—a simple, two-car detached build, but it had an unfinished room built out on the back, planned as a sunroom, with a big, wide patio around it. It had taken only three weekends to convert that baby into his dream workshop. He’d blown out half the back garage wall and installed a roll-up door so he could get his bikes into the shop through it. Or he could ride them straight in on the patio.

  There was nothing he loved better than coming home while it was still light out, pulling a beer out of the little fridge he had back here, and working on a bike while the sun set. On this evening, warm with fresh April spring, he had the Cardinals game on the radio, and all the sliding doors open, and he was up to his elbows in the engine of a 1950 Indian Chief. A couple of neighbors were cutting their lawns, and the scent of freshly mown grass wafted on a tepid breeze. Kids were playing, dogs barking. The sounds of a good spring evening. Soon, crickets would begin to chirp.

  It reminded him of when he was a little kid, helping his dad work on an engine, listening to the stories he had to tell. They’d been out in the country, and the sounds were a bit different, but it was still spring and calm and peace.

  The Chief had been Ox Sanchez’s; Becker had bought it when Ox retired from the club and moved to Mexico to live out his last days before cancer killed him. That retirement had been the catalyst for Becker’s rise in the club; he’d been tapped for Ox’s VP seat. The next retirement had put him in the president’s place. All within less than eighteen months.

  Becker had let the Chief sit for about a year, unable to think about working on it, making it his, while Ox lived. But the big man had died in January, and this spring, around the same time that the club had voted him president, Becker had finally begun the work to bring this wrecked classic back to its true glory.

  He was finding that working on this bike—this bike specifically—gave him particular calm when his doubts and anxieties about the club and himself got too big. As he worked, he reminisced about Ox, and the way the club had been, and he didn’t think so much about where it was.

  After a couple of hours lost in the work, the light changed sharply. It was twilight, and the sensors had kicked on his yard lights. He flipped on the shop lights and used the break in his focus to take a break himself and get a fresh beer.

  As he swallowed it down, the gentle sounds of evening falling into night exploded with shouts.

  “YOU FUCKING BITCH! YOU LAZY WHORE! YOU DO WHAT I FUCKING TELL YOU!”

  Under all that, the frantic screams of a woman.

  Becker’s first reaction was a disgusted sigh. For the most part, his neighbors, working-class folks like himself, were good people who kept their places up and didn’t get in other people’s business. But his neighbor behind him, sharing a back fence, was another story. There was always some drama with those two. Shouting, slamming, crashing around. They’d moved in around Christmas, and already he’d been over there six separate times, making sure the woman didn’t need help. She always did, but it was always her who told him to get his nose out of their fucking business.

  But he kept sticking his nose in; he couldn’t deal with a woman getting hurt. Even one who didn’t know enough to be grateful for the rescue.

  There was a girl, too, a teenager, but from what Becke
r noticed, she stayed out of the fray, and they seemed to keep her clear as well. He’d only seen her driving by in her beater Dodge, never at the house when all this shit was going on.

  Girding himself to yet again have his rescuing rejected on the tip of a middle finger, Becker finished his beer and stepped onto his patio and into his yard.

  And then a gun went off—twice—and the woman’s shrieks became superhuman. Then they choked off oddly.

  Becker spun back and grabbed his Sig out of the holster lying on a worktable and checked the mag as he ran, hunched, to the back of his yard. A four-foot pine fence separated their properties, and he kept himself low enough to use it as a shield and a blind. He lifted up and made a quick scan of the scene, then ducked low again to process it. The guy was back there, holding the woman on the ground, under a rickety clothes-drying gizmo. He had the gun in her mouth, or just about, and she’d clearly been knocked around before the firearms portion of tonight’s program, but she was conscious, and Becker hadn’t seen any blood.

  There was a rusty old shed in their yard. He could jump the fence, go around the shed, and get a bead on the guy. Disabling shot, not a kill. Becker did not need the kind of grief killing this guy would bring. Nor did the Bulls.

  As he crabbed toward the side of the fence nearest the shed, he heard something else that made him close his eyes and sigh.

  “GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM HER, DENNY, OR I WILL BLOW YOUR FUCKING HEAD OFF!”

  The teenager was in this mix. This time, Punch and Judy hadn’t bothered to wait till she was clear.

  “YOU THINK YOU CAN GET THAT SHOT OFF BEFORE I DO HER, GO AHEAD AND FUCKING TRY, YOU LITTLE CUNT!”

  The woman on the ground screamed, the sound muffled by the gun. But Becker was sure what he’d heard was “NO!”

  All that shouting was the stuff of two people bluffing, but it wouldn’t take much to shift a bluff into an act. Becker peered over the fence again, but he’d positioned himself to jump it and use the shed for cover, and now he’d blocked his view of the scene. He jumped the fence and hustled to the corner of the shed.

  Now he could see again. Man and woman on the ground, same as before, but now the woman’s daughter, a skinny little thing covered in tats, stood a few steps off the back porch, aiming a shotgun at her mom and her mom’s real catch of a boyfriend. That gun was sawed-off. Shit, she could make a real fucking mess if she pulled the trigger.