Lead (The Brazen Bulls MC, #8)

by Susan Fanetti

  “Jesus,” he muttered. “Jesus.”

  “In a tortilla,” Sage added, grinning up at the place in the dark where she knew his face to be.

  He laughed; it moved his whole body, made his cock twitch and bob inside her, and they both groaned.

  She wrapped her legs around his hips. “Fuck me, Beck. Fuck me so hard.”

  His head came down, his mouth claimed hers, and he gave her what she wanted.

  This time, he was as wild with need as she, and each of her needy gasps and moans were echoed by his bestial grunts and groans. He filled her completely up, wider and deeper than she thought she could contain, and he fucked her as hard as she could stand, as hard as she could want. All she could do was hold on and let him take her where they both needed to go. Just give up and trust him.

  By the time they came, him right after her, his shouts echoing her screams, the camper rocked so hard the old shock absorbers were making more noise than they were.

  When it was over, Becker barely managed to pull out and shift to his side before collapsing. His arm dropped over her waist, and he was asleep without a word, while Sage’s heart still skittered back to its place in her chest. He hadn’t even gotten the condom off.

  Curled against him, she thought about the days and nights he’d had since she’d made him chili mac for supper. He’d been home only one night in all that time, their first night together, and he’d slept less than two hours then—if he’d slept at all.

  Poor baby. He must have been exhausted.

  Feeling a rush at the chance to return the favor and take care of him a little, Sage eased the condom from his still-hard cock, tied it off, and dropped it from the loft, aiming, she hoped, for the corner of the bench below. Then she pulled all the covers up, over Becker’s shoulder, and tucked herself into the little cove his body had made.

  As she fell asleep too, more relaxed and at peace than she could remember being in her life, she knew she wasn’t falling, not anymore. She’d landed, in his arms.

  She was in love.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Delaney finished his beer and sank more deeply into his padded redwood patio chair. Looking out over the deep green expanse of his back yard, he shook his head. “No, Beck. It’s not a good idea.”

  Becker wasn’t exactly surprised; Delaney’s attitude since he’d hung up his kutte could have best been described as ‘reluctantly helpful,’ but a sinkhole opened in his gut nonetheless. Without Delaney’s help, he didn’t know how he was going to manage what lay before him.

  After weeks of being set aside, Becker had finally heard that morning from Alexei Sokolov, Irina Volkov’s lieutenant. She wanted a meet, but not in Tulsa. She was going to be in Chicago on other business, and she wanted to see him there. Tomorrow. Becker had no time to ride to Chicago, so he’d have to fly. He’d never been on an airplane and could have lived out the rest of his life and not missed the experience.

  His real anxiety, though, was in meeting Irina Volkov as the head of the Bulls. “She doesn’t trust me, D. I need you there.”

  The former president shook his head again. “I’m the last thing you need. She’s pissed as hell at me for retiring.”

  Becker hadn’t been privy to what had transpired between the Russian mob queen and the Bulls’ first and former president, but he could feel the ice on his own back now, so he’d figured she was pissed.

  “Prez—” Delaney frowned, and Becker shook off that slip of the tongue. “D. She hardly knows me. I need you to build the bridge. I don’t even know how to talk to the woman. I’ve never sat in a meet like this with her. When I was VP, she never called in the officers.”

  As Delaney leaned over, ready to respond, the back door opened, and they both turned to Mo.

  “I’ve got roast beef sandwiches and potato salad, if I’m not interrupting too much.”

  “Thanks, sweetheart,” Delaney said. “C’mon out.”

  She brought out a tray with two plates arranged with big sandwiches of pink beef piled high on French bread with horseradish, mounds of mustardy potato salad, and two fresh beers. Becker helped her lay out the food on the low table between their chairs.

  “Thanks, Mo. Looks great.”

  “Of course, love.” She brushed a hand over Becker’s head. “I miss feeding my boys.”

  As she turned back to the door, Delaney caught her around the waist and gave her a tight squeeze. She bent and kissed him, then went back into the house.

  Delaney picked up their discussion as he picked up his sandwich. “There’s no bridge I can build. Leaving like I did, without talking to her first, she considers it a betrayal—and that’s why I had to go. I was too wrapped around the Volkov business. I said it at the table when I left, and it’s true—I gave up too much to her. I don’t know where it happened, but somewhere, we stopped being partners, and I’m the one who let that happen.”

  Delaney was right, but it was too fucking late to change that now. “That genie’s long gone, D. We’re not her partners. We’re her contractors. And right now, she’s not giving us work, and we’re starving. The station’s gonna be out of commission for months. We need work. We need Russian work.” They’d all built lives on that income. Lives that running security and protection jobs could not possibly sustain.

  “Listen to me, Beck. I’ve known Irina Volkov goin’ on ten years. I know how the woman thinks. She respects only strength and confidence. Everything else, she has contempt for. You are the president of the Brazen Bulls now. She needs to see you as the one and only leader of the club, and she has to see that you see yourself that way. That’s the only way she’ll respect you. If I go to this meet with you, you will never earn her respect. You have to go in as the one in charge. And if you play it right, you can take back some of the power I gave up. Don’t go in and tell her you’re starving. Go in with the confidence of someone who can walk away from her and eat a big meal.”

  “But we can’t.”

  “Yeah, you can. It would hurt, but if you had to, you’d find a way to keep the club on its feet. You won’t have to—she does need us, if only because it would be too much of a pain in her ass to replace us. Over ten years, she’s built her whole western infrastructure through Tulsa. That’s leverage.”

  “Then why didn’t you stick around and use the leverage yourself? Take back some power?”

  Delaney sighed and set his half-eaten sandwich back on his plate. “Because I’m tired, Beck. I sat at that table and looked at all those young faces, and I didn’t see my club anymore. All my old friends are dead. Rad is the last one who remembers the first years. What happened at the Panhandle—losing Slick, Caleb getting hurt, taking lead myself—and then Ox dying after the holidays, it’s all too goddamn much. I don’t have love for the life anymore. I’ve been at war since I was twenty-five years old, and I can’t face any more fire. I’m old, and I’m tired.”

  He stopped and put his Bud bottle to his lips.

  Becker studied the man. Delaney was sixty-one, which didn’t seem so ancient. But it was true that he looked older than his years—and that had happened over the past few years. His dark hair had gone grey and thinned out, the skin under his eyes newly sagged, and the lines on his forehead had deepened. He did look old and tired.

  “I’ll tell you something else,” Delaney said and set the bottle down. “I don’t think I could have used the same leverage you can. My history with Irina worked against me at the end. She knew all my buttons and when to push them, and she knew what I’d do or say before I did or said it. She doesn’t know you yet. It’s good you’ve never met with her like this before, Beck. You can be the president you want to be and shape your own relationship with her. But if you go hat in hand, then that’s the shape you’ll make.”

  He’d called his contact number—Alexei—twice in the days right after Mrs. Greeley crashed into the station. He hadn’t called again, but not because he was making a power play. Frankly, he’d been nervous. He knew very well that Alexei hadn’t forgo
tten to call him. It hadn’t slipped his mind. He was choosing not to return the call—and in that refusal, Becker had understood Russian displeasure.

  And he was intimidated.

  Maybe, though, he could turn that into something else. Neither Alexei nor Irina knew that it was insecurity that had kept Becker from trying again. For all they knew, he’d decided to move on. Practically speaking, he had. Worried that the Volkov work had dried completely and permanently up, he’d spent the past couple of weeks cobbling together work for his brothers. Delaney was right—they could make it work. It would hurt bad, it was already hurting the patches without much savings, but nobody would truly starve. He’d do whatever he had to to make sure of it.

  “Okay. I’ll bring Simon with me.”

  Delaney nodded. “Yeah, good. A wise leader keeps wise counsel. She’ll respect that. Take Apollo, too.”

  “Apollo? Not Rad?” Rad was third in command. Apollo was the officer with the least pull.

  “She sees Rad as muscle. If you were at a war council, she’d expect to see Rad. But for this meet, she’ll like brains better. Apollo is smart, and she knows it. She likes that boy. Even more since the brazing. Nobody’s loyalty’s been tested as hard as his. Take Apollo.”

  ~oOo~

  As Becker rounded the hospital corridor, looking for the new room Fitz had been moved to, he saw Kari down the hall, near a nurses’ station. She stood with a man who was several inches shorter than she. Her arms jerked up, down, and out as she spoke—she was clearly upset. The little man wore a light green, short-sleeved dress shirt and a plaid tie. He carried a clipboard. Nobody with anything good to say carried a clipboard around in a hospital.

  He didn’t need to go over there to know she was fighting with a hospital administrator. But maybe he should go anyway, just to help Kari out. The door right ahead of him was Fitz’s room, though. After a beat to consider, he decided to go to his brother first, and see what, if anything, Fitz knew about what was going on. He pushed the door open.

  “What the hell?” It was a ward room, with six beds, all occupied. Three of the beds were enclosed by hospital curtains. Two others held sleeping or unconscious old men. Fitz was in the last, in the center of the room, against the far wall. Still bolted into that nasty halo contraption, but his head unbandaged now, he was partly sitting up, but his eyes were closed.

  After five days in the ICU, he’d spent a week in a private room, where he’d been just yesterday. Why the fuck was he in this damn warehouse now?

  Becker went over and set his hand on Fitz’s shoulder. Fitz opened his eyes and smiled. The terrible swelling was gone, as was most of the bruising, but he still looked weak and wrong. It had more to do with the lack of long beard and hair than anything else, certainly. But he’d also dropped probably twenty pounds in these two weeks.

  “Hey, Prez.” His speech was still much slower than it had been, but he didn’t sound drunk anymore.

  “Hey, brother. I saw Kari in the hall, talking to some jerk in a bad tie. You know what that’s about?”

  Though he couldn’t move his head, Fitz still somehow managed to convey without words that he did know.

  “Talk to me, Fitz.”

  “They want to ship me over to St. Dominic’s. They say I’m stable enough to move.”

  The man couldn’t even move his head. His skull had been fractured in two fucking places, and there was some kind of trauma in his neck. “What? Why?” But he knew why—St. Dominic’s was the indigent hospital, where patients were dumped when they couldn’t pay.

  That explained this ward room, too.

  Fitz made a kind of dry cough, almost a laugh, and told Becker what he already knew. “Money. The bill’s into six figures already, and ... well, I never got around to gettin’ insurance for myself.”

  “You got hurt on the job. The station’s insurance should cover your bills.”

  He coughed that unhappy laugh again, but it changed intent in the middle and became a sob. “They’ll reimburse, when all the bills are in and paid. The hospital guy says that takes a long time to sort out. They want a big partial payment to keep me here, but it’ll tap us out completely. Kari and me, we got so many people leanin’ on us. My grandma, my mom, her mom.” Tears welled and pooled in the corner of his eyes. “She wants a nice wedding, and I want to give it to her. We want babies. We’ve been trying ...” Squeezing his eyes shut, Fitz faded out. The tears that had pooled slipped down his cheeks. “We’re gonna lose everything. Fuck, I wish it’d just killed me.”

  “Shut the fuck up, kid. That’s no way to talk.” He gave Fitz’s shoulder a careful shake. “Look at me, Fitz.” Fitz opened his eyes. Jesus, the kid was terrified. “I will handle this. You’re not going anywhere, except back to a goddamn private room. You hear?”

  He didn’t answer, but the fear in his eyes quieted. “I’m sorry.”

  “Stop that shit. You got nothin’ to be sorry for. You focus on gettin’ strong again, and the club will keep you and your family whole. I promise. I’m gonna handle shit right now. I’ll check in again before I go, and when I do, I will ease your mind about all this. Got it?”

  “Thanks, Prez.”

  He hated hearing people call him that. The name didn’t fit right. He was Becker. He’d never wanted to be anything more.

  ~oOo~

  As he stepped into the hallway, he nearly ran into Kari, who had also been crying. Becker grabbed her by the arms. “Hey, hon. Don’t you worry. He’s not goin’ anywhere but back to a good room. I’m handlin’ this shit, whatever it takes.”

  If the club had to front what he owed, it would hurt like hell. Becker was trying to guard the reserves to get them through this dead phase, and they’d already lent Mrs. Greeley’s family a chunk so they could bury her right.

  Kari nodded—and burst at once into racking sobs. Becker barely knew her yet, but he knew Fitz, he loved that kid, so he took care of his old lady with the same affection. He pulled her into his arms and let her soak his shoulder.

  But he wanted to find the clipboard asshole and strangle him with his bad tie if he had to, so as soon as he felt Kari begin to calm down, he pushed her gently back. “Go see to your man. I’ll see to the hospital. Okay?”

  “Thank you, Becker.” She sniffed and wiped her cheeks. With one more quick hug, Kari went into the ward room, and Becker turned toward the nurses’ station, where he’d last seen his target.

  At the desk, he smiled at the nurse sitting before a computer screen. “Hey, hon. Can you help me with somethin’?”

  He didn’t have Apollo’s obnoxiously perfect looks or his slick prowess with the ladies, but he wasn’t without charm of his own, and he’d always done okay. The kutte usually added some extra oomph as well—if it didn’t scare them off. This woman, cute in a suburban-mom way, seemed sufficiently charmed.

  “Sure. What do you need?”

  “There’s a guy in a green shirt. I think he’s an administrator.”

  “Yeah—Jimmy. He’s talking to a patient.”

  Goddamn bill collector tormenting sick people. Becker kept that to himself, and kept the smile on his face. “What room?”

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  “I’m not gonna bother the patient, hon. I just want to wait for Jimmy, so I can talk to him before he moves on.”

  The nurse frowned up at him. Her lips twisted like she was thinking hard, and Becker kept his smile going. He had a whole new appreciation for Apollo’s slickness. Being charming was hard damn work.

  “You really can’t go into the room.”

  “I’ll stay in the hall. Scout’s honor.” He’d never been a Scout.

  “Okay.” She pointed at the corner to her left. “310. Just around the corner.” She smiled. “Behave.”

  He gave her a wink and went around the corner. Installing himself against the wall opposite room 310, Becker waited for Jimmy and his clipboard. By the time he was done, Fitz would have the time, and the care, he needed to get well. Right here.
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  He didn’t have to wait long. Jimmy’s clipboard came through the door after just a few minutes, and, seeing Becker standing there, the asshole stopped short.

  “Can I help you?”

  “Yeah, you can. My friend is on the other side of the wing, stuck in a big ward room. He’s got a broken head, bolted into some kind of Middle-Ages torture device, and you’re gonna dump him at St. Dominic’s because it’s better for your bottom line?”

  He’d intended to start with civility and work up to anger, but being charming took too much effort. By the time he stopped talking, Jimmy was white as a fish’s belly and looking wildly up and down the corridor for help.

  Becker took a breath and leveled his tone. “I just want to know what I need to do to get him back to a good room in this hospital, with good care.”

  Clearing his throat nervously, Jimmy tried to be a hospital number-cruncher. “I can’t talk to you about a patient. It’s a violation of federal privacy laws.”

  Becker simply stared until Jimmy wised up.

  “You’re talking about Mr. Fitzgerald, right?”

  “Right.”

  “He has no insurance, and his balance has become sizable. The hospital needs some assurance that he has the capacity to pay.”

  “He was hurt at work. The business is insured.”

  “Insurance claims of this nature are notoriously slow to settle—and the insurance in question will reimburse the patient, not the hospital.” As he settled into his spiel, he forgot to be afraid of the Bull before him. Becker decided it was time to remind him.

  This was Willa’s hospital, and he didn’t want to make trouble for her, so he tried to maintain some level of calm. He set his hand on Jimmy’s thin shoulder and pushed him—firmly, but not forcefully—to the wall. “Here is what I’m saying to you, Jimmy. I’m telling you that the bills will be paid. I am giving you the assurance about his capacity to pay. What you’re going to tell me now is this, and only this: you’re going to tell me that you will push whatever paper you have to push to make it so my friend stays here, in a private room, and gets the care he needs. Are we clear?”