Lead (The Brazen Bulls MC, #8)

by Susan Fanetti

  Santaveria squinted at him, still sporting that menacing smile. He was thinking about something, weighing the pros and cons—of how far to push his point, probably.

  Becker waited for him to decide. He was ready to draw if he had to, and since no one was drawn yet, he was sure he could get over on several of them—at least three, maybe a whole mag’s worth.

  At last, Santaveria’s eyes relaxed, and his smile became more authentically friendly. “A man who understands loyalty is a man of worth.” He pulled the envelope from his jacket and handed it over. “Compliments of our Russian friend.”

  Irina’s fussy little wax seal was on the damn envelope.

  Becker’s knees nearly bucked. For fuck’s sake, these people were all power-hungry maniacs playing with people’s lives like they were little plastic pieces on a board.

  He took the envelope and shoved it into his kutte without opening it. “Let’s get the cargo loaded.”

  “What the fuck was that all about?” Rad asked as Becker walked back in amongst his brothers.

  “Fucking loyalty test. We passed.”

  Simon dropped his hand on Becker’s shoulder. “You passed, you mean.”

  “No. I mean we. Let’s get this shit loaded and get out of this fucked-up place.”

  ~oOo~

  As soon as they were far enough north of Kellwood not to feel the Perros or Abregos at their backs, the Bulls stopped for the night. The next morning, they split into two crews. Becker put Simon on point with Maverick, Apollo, Wally, and Gargoyle to ride north with Terry in the truck. He led the smaller shipment west with Rad, Gunner, and Caleb. Though smaller, the western run was riskier because they didn’t have the camouflage of the truck and its dummy cargo. They carried the meth in their saddlebags, under false bottoms. Any trooper having a shitty day could get it in his head to fuck around with bikers showing colors, and that would end with either the trooper or the Bulls having a much shittier day.

  Fortunately, everything went off smoothly on both runs. The Tezcat Kings had become true friends in the course of the Russian runs, and they’d all made friends with the owners of a little motel/diner combo in New Mexico, a frequent handoff location. After they’d secured the cargo, the Bulls and Kings spent a lovely, cool desert night partying around a bonfire off the side of the motel lot. They had good food and music, and Becker sat on a plastic lounge chair and looked up at a night sky dazzled with stars. There were girls, too, called in from somewhere to party with bikers, but every Bull on this run was solidly attached.

  Even him. Sage had told him she loved him. He didn’t quite know what to make of that, or of his thought that he loved her back. Could he ask her to live a life like this with him? To give up literally her whole adult life to this?

  Rad’s craggy mug loomed suddenly over him. He clutched a beer by the bottle’s throat and waved it at him. “Need a freshy?”

  The bottle Becker was holding had been empty for a while. He set it in the dirt at his side and took the cold one from his SAA. “Thanks, bro.”

  Rad pulled a camp stool close and groaned as he sat on it. “Shit, I’m gettin’ old.

  Becker laughed. “What are you, forty-seven? If you’re old, then I’m comin’ right up on your heels.”

  “Feel like I’ve already put about three lifetimes’ worth of miles on these bones.”

  That was likely true. Rad lived hard and rode harder than just about anyone. Still, though they were the oldest men in the club, they weren’t old men. Becker, with a twenty-year-old girl at home, had damn well better not start thinking of himself as old.

  “Ox barely made fifty-one.” Great, Rad was in a buzzkill mood tonight.

  “Ox had cancer. You got cancer?” As he asked, Becker felt a quick spasm of worry—shit, he hoped the answer was going to be no. He did not want to watch another brother go through what Ox had.

  “Nah. Just a lot of weight in my head.”

  “We all got that, Sarge.” At some point, every one of them had done something that hung guilt on their backs. Some of them had done more than others and carried more weight. Rad had done more than anyone, all of it in service to the club.

  Rad gave him a quick, sharp look. “President shouldn’t call me that.”

  Becker sighed and didn’t answer. Rad had been his superior for most of his years with a patch. It spun his head to think of the twist in their positions. He took a long swig from his bottle and gazed again at the swirl of stars above their heads.

  There was a space already growing between him and his brothers. Not much yet, no more than the few feet Julio Santaveria had led him off the day before. He was their president, and no matter how carefully he held to thinking of the Bulls as we, it was him at the head of the line, him that faced the power players, him who had to prove his worth and, through him, the worth of the whole club.

  He understood why Delaney had retired. After only a few months with the gavel, already Becker felt a heavier weight on his back. How long would it be, how heavy would it get, before it broke him, too?

  ~oOo~

  They started early again the next morning and, now headed home, rode straight through. None of them liked to stop on the homeward leg if they could help it; there were women and children and their own soft beds to get back to. They did the five hundred miles in seven hours, plus a half for lunch, and were back at the clubhouse before four in the afternoon.

  The northern crew wasn’t back yet; they’d gotten derailed on their homeward trip by a busted timing belt in the van. So Becker sent his crew home straight off and rode home himself.

  He smiled as he pulled onto his driveway and parked his bike beside Sage’s Dodge. He had a woman waiting for him, and that felt damn good. He could just about feel her climbing onto him the way she did. He loved that.

  There were two gouges in his lawn, off the side of the driveway: tire tracks. He crouched between them for a study. It looked like she’d driven partially off the driveway; by the depth at the center, he’d guess she’d parked like this at some point while he was gone and let the car sit for several hours. She was parked fine now, though.

  Shit, had she driven drunk? She didn’t drink much, and he’d never seen her drunk. He’d sent Cecily and Leah after her, but Ciss was pregnant and Leah wasn’t much of a drinker, either. Still, those tracks looked like drunk parking to him. He went up to the house ready to deliver a lecture.

  The house was quiet, which was unusual; Sage liked music, and she liked it loud. The front door was locked, and the alarm set—also unusual. He liked to keep it locked, but she never remembered to do it. He didn’t set the alarm unless he was away from the house or headed to bed—and she ever remembered to do that, either. Inside, the house was cool and dark—and way too damn quiet. It made his neck hairs twitch.

  He set his pack on the floor. His Sig was snapped into his holster and secured in the bottom of the pack. The gun he’d just slid into the front pocket was the easiest to get to right now, so he pulled Boom Boom, his fifty-cal Desert Eagle, quietly checked the mag, and flipped off the safety. “Sage?”

  No answer. Creeping through his own house like a burglar, he checked the dining room and kitchen. Nothing.

  He found her in bed, napping, and relaxed at once. Jesus, the adrenaline cocktail he’d just knocked back had him nauseated. Resetting Boom’s safety, he put the gun on his dresser and went to her side of the bed.

  Wait, what? There was blood on the pillow. And her face—Jesus Christ, somebody had beaten the shit out of her.

  “Sage.” He flipped the bedside lamp on and shook her shoulder gently, but she didn’t wake. Normally, she was a light sleeper. Going to his knees, he brushed her hair back—oh, fuck, she was a mess. It looked like she’d tried to tend to herself but had only accomplished some halfhearted swipes that smeared the blood around. A gash across the bridge of her nose was the apparent source of most of the bleeding—and, damn, the ring through her nostril was gone, too.

  “Come on, shortcake, wake up f
or me.” He shook her shoulder again and leaned in to press his lips to her swollen cheek.

  Finally, she moaned, and her arms moved. Thank Christ. “That’s it, honey. Open your eyes.”

  “Beck?” Her mangled mouth barely moved.

  “Right here.”

  “Yourome.” He could barely make out her words.

  “Yeah, I’m home. What happened, Sage?”

  “Don’ feelood. S’harda ... I ...” she was under again. Unconscious.

  She was really fucking hurt. A concussion at least, a bad one. And her face was wrong—not just swollen and bruised but misshapen. Something was probably broken in there. “Okay, it’s okay.” Grabbing up the comforter to keep her wrapped up, he gathered her into his arms and ran out of the room.

  His truck was parked in the garage, and her Dodge and his Softail were in the driveway, so he grabbed her keys out of the bowl beside the front door.

  ~oOo~

  Becker stood against the emergency room corridor wall and tried with everything he had to keep his cool. “I didn’t fucking do this.”

  The skinny, squirrely, redheaded doctor looked ready to piss his pants, but he didn’t budge. “I can’t let you see her.”

  When he’d brought her into the Tulsa County ER, the nurses and this shithead of a doctor had taken one look at Sage and another at him, and suddenly, a beefy rent-a-cop had him shoved into a corner like a wild animal. Since then, he hadn’t been able to get close. They wouldn’t even tell him if she was okay.

  He shoved his hands up, into the doctor’s flinching face. “Look at my goddamn hands. Do these hands look like they just beat the shit out of a girl half my size?” Thank God he hadn’t had cause to punch anyone in a few weeks.

  Though he had plenty of cause right now.

  The doctor remained unmoved. “I’m sorry. When she wakes up, if she asks for you, then maybe.” He skittered away like the bug he was.

  Rent-A-Cop stood a couple feet off, his arms crossed, ready to rumble. The look on his face was pure disgust. Becker understood, because he felt the same thing for the son of a bitch who’d actually hurt her.

  He knew who it was, too. And as soon as he knew Sage would be okay, he was going to handle that anal boil once and for all.

  “We’re here, we’re here,” Willa came around the corner and put her arms up. Rad was right behind her. Becker accepted Willa’s hug at once. He’d called Rad and asked for both of them—Willa to help him navigate the maze of suspicious assholes in the ER at her hospital, and Rad so he’d have backup to do what he meant to do.

  “I got home and found her like this. I didn’t hurt her. It wasn’t me.”

  “Of course it wasn’t.” Willa backed off and patted his chest. “Let me see what I can find out.” She turned to the security guard. “Hi, Mike. You didn’t put a call in yet, did you?”

  “Hey, Willa.” His posture eased, but it was clear that his acquaintance with her wasn’t enough to back him off entirely. “Not yet.”

  “Good. Give me a minute to see what’s what, okay?” Mike nodded, and then Willa was gone, deeper into the ER.

  Becker drew Rad out of the guard’s earshot.

  “What the hell happened?” Rad asked as soon as they were clear.

  “She hasn’t been clear enough to make sense, but I’d bet Ox’s Chief it was her mother’s fucking boyfriend. I want that cocksucker.”

  “How much do you want him?” The SAA didn’t lose a beat at the thought of killing anyone who needed killing.

  Neither did Becker. “Completely.”

  Rad nodded. “You sure, Prez?”

  “Completely.”

  “The other crew just called in—they’re at the clubhouse. You want me to put Apollo on gettin’ this guy’s 20, or do you want to wait until you have confirmation it was him?”

  “Pin him down, keep eyes on him. I’ll wait to be sure it was him, but when I know, I want his ass on a plate.”

  “I’m on it.” With a sharp pat to Becker’s back, Rad turned and headed to the door, pulling his cellphone out as he went.

  Becker paced until Willa came out to him again. “Okay, come sit down with me.”

  He let her lead him to an empty bank of vinyl chairs. “How bad is it?”

  “It’s pretty bad, but she’ll be okay. They’re going to take her into surgery to set her cheekbone.”

  “Shit!”

  “It’s a fairly minor procedure. The fracture is complete but not severe. They’ll go in through her mouth, just a couple of small incisions to set pins and put everything back in place. She has a concussion, too, and the lacerations on her nose needed sutures. From the state of her cuts and bruises, it looks like she was hurt a day or so ago.”

  Jesus. She’d been like that a whole day? Becker scrubbed his hands over his head.

  Willa rubbed his back, making soothing circles. “She’ll probably be ready to go home tomorrow evening or the next morning.”

  “So soon after surgery?!”

  “It is a minor procedure, and she doesn’t have insurance. They won’t keep her longer than they have to—in this case, it’s not a bad thing. She’s already agitating to go home.”

  “She’s awake?”

  “Yeah. Asking for you. Everybody’s still a little twitchy about you, but I can take you back now. You need to keep calm, Beck, or you’ll end up getting tackled and spending the night in lockup. They do not fuck around with this. They look at her, and then at you, and it doesn’t matter that much that she says she wants you. We see women all the time who deny that their abusers abused them.”

  Yeah, Becker knew that song. His mom had sung it from the time he was ten until he was eighteen. Sage’s mom sang it, too. Weak, stupid women, both of them.

  But that wasn’t Sage.

  “C’mon.” Willa stood and held out her hand. “Let’s go back. You can have a couple minutes while they get an OR ready.”

  Becker took her hand and followed her.

  ~oOo~

  Jesus, she looked worse, lying on an ER bed, in one of those stupid gowns. Her hair was a tangled nest, and they had tube across her face, feeding oxygen into her battered nose. Her eyes were closed. Becker shook Willa off and went to the side of the bed. “Hey there, shortcake.”

  One eye didn’t open like the other one, and neither opened wide, but he saw those big brown jewels in there nonetheless.

  “Sorry,” she slurred.

  It made him sick to hear her take the blame for this. She was not that kind of woman. She was a fighter. “Don’t you fuckin’ apologize.”

  “Want’d make’ou supper.”

  “Oh.” She liked to cook for him. He liked it, too. He chuckled and lifted her hand to his mouth. “Yeah, well, you owe me one, then.”

  “’Kay.” Her eyes sank shut again. “They were hurtinim.”

  Hurtinim? Hurting him? Her words were so thick they were barely words at all. He leaned closer and concentrated. “Who, Sage? Who was hurting who?”

  “Lemmy. Made’im cry. He’sa hosp’al. There’sa gran.”

  Becker looked over his shoulder at Willa, who shrugged. None of this made any sense.

  “Honey, who did this to you?”

  “She pick’dim. He didis, ‘n she pick’dhim.”

  That one, he understood. Sage and he had talked at length about their mothers; it was one of the key things they shared. As she put it, he’d ‘had a Denny’ in his life, too. Sage had had a whole slew of Dennys; her mom cycled through a couple a year and always had. Becker had felt comparatively lucky to have had to survive only two of his version, though surviving the last one had cost him more than eight years of his life, and more besides.

  The one thing she leaned on to be sure her mother truly loved her despite all the shitty men she’d let live with them was that she had never allowed them to do to Sage what they did to her. If they turned her daughter’s way, she sent them packing.

  In that way, Sage had been luckier than Becker. Both his stepfathers ha
d beaten him, too. Liberally.

  She picked him. He did this, and she picked him—Denny had beaten Sage, and her mom hadn’t thrown him out. That was what she’d meant.

  “Denny did this?” he asked now.

  “Yeah. He’s hurtinim.”

  He still didn’t know what that meant, but he had what he needed. He bent close and kissed her forehead. “Willa’s gonna stay with you, and I’m gonna go handle shit. I’ll be back as soon as I can, okay?”

  “Gonna killim?”

  “You feel okay about that?”

  “Yeah. Makeit hurt.”

  No, she wasn’t a weak, stupid woman. His girl was stubborn and fierce. “Don’t you worry, shortcake.” He brushed a finger lightly over the the flowers on her temple. “Hey, look at me.” She opened her eyes, and he said the words bouncing around inside him. “I love you.”

  If her face had been working, she would have smiled; he could see her try and fail. “Knewit.”

  He chuckled and kissed her forehead again. “Be nice to the doctors while I’m gone.”

  ~oOo~

  Finding Denny was no trouble at all; Apollo’s services hadn’t been necessary. Rad and Gunner had found him at home, wasted out of his gourd. Sage’s mom had been flying as well.

  “Wasn’t nothin’ to juice her up a little more and put her all the way out. She won’t know what the fuck hit her in the mornin’, but seein’ the bruises on her throat and head, she ain’t gonna think it was us.” Rad shook his head. “I don’t get women who take that shit.”

  “Yeah.” Becker leaned against the fender of his truck and took a drag from the joint Gunner offered him. He’d gone back to the house with Sage’s car, and freed his truck from the garage before driving out to his family land.

  The last time he was here, he and Sage had spent the night in that camper right there, and in the morning he’d tried to teach her how to shoot. They’d decided after a while that she’d be better off asking Jacinda for krav maga lessons. But he’d liked showing off his own marksmanship skills for her.