Lead (The Brazen Bulls MC, #8)

by Susan Fanetti

  “Sure.” He nodded at the stools at the counter under the window. “You wanna sit here, or does this need my office?”

  “We’re alone here, so this is fine.”

  They sat side by side. Kendra sipped her coffee and looked out the window at the complete lack of view. Nothing out there but a gravel parking lot and the brick wall of their nearest neighbor. Whatever she had to say, it wasn’t coming easy. Becker’s neck twitched.

  “You got a problem, Ken?” He set his hand on her thigh—just a habitual gesture, without any intent but support, but the feel of her leg under his hand brought a spasm of guilt, and he took it back.

  Her eyes followed the path of his hand back to his own lap. “I’m leaving the clubhouse, Beck.”

  “What? You’ve been here as long as I have!”

  “Yeah. And it’s long past time I moved on.”

  “Are you having trouble? Outside or in here, if you’ve got a problem, let me help.”

  She smiled and shook her head. “It’s not a problem. My life is good. I love you guys, and I’ve loved being part of this. But I’m almost forty, Beck. I own a successful business. I don’t want to be a sweetbutt anymore. And I don’t want to run a clubhouse that’s not mine.”

  A thin band of offense slid up into his concern. Was this about Sage? Why? True, she was young and not yet confident of her place here, but she’d done great at Thanksgiving. She’d been like a mini-Mo, and had the whole maternity floor involved in their celebration before Cecily had even squirted her kid out.

  “Don’t get that look, Becker. This isn’t jealousy. Your girl is sweet, and I’m glad you’re happy. I think you’re going to be a great president, too. But I miss Mo and Maddie. And there are bigger things on my horizon. So, somebody else is going to have to take over the roster.”

  “What about Christmas?” The station was set to be complete right before the holidays, so the club was having their first big party since the crash to celebrate the re-opening and the holiday. Still, it was a stupid thing to ask now. He’d inadvertently suggested that Kendra had no other significance.

  And that was obviously how she took it. Her laugh was short and sharp, and she stood up. “I don’t know what your Christmas will look like, but I’m spending mine in Bora Bora with a venture capitalist.”

  “Shit, I’m sorry, Ken. That came out wrong. I’m happy for you. I am. I’m gonna miss the hell out of you, though.”

  “No, you won’t.” She kissed his cheek and walked away.

  ~oOo~

  That afternoon, Becker came into the party room from his office and saw Simon at the bar. “Rad here yet?”

  “Yeah, he’s in the john. What’s goin’ on?”

  There was nobody in the party room but patches, but Becker didn’t want to repeat himself, so he waved at the hangaround on bartending duty and sat beside his VP. “No trouble, but we got someplace to be.” To the hangaround, who hadn’t hung around enough yet to know what Becker would want at this time of the day, he said, “Shot of Jack, kid.”

  Simon cocked an eyebrow at him. Becker ignored that and tossed back the shot and pushed the empty glass at the hangaround. “It’s D.B., right?”

  “Yessir. Or—it’s D.C. Sorry.”

  Becker scowled at the kid. “You don’t know your own name? Which is it?”

  “D.C. It’s D.C. Sir.” He broke out into a sweat. Scrub.

  Simon laughed and shook his head.

  Becker tapped his empty glass. “Another, D.C. Then check the kegs.”

  Rad came in from the bathroom and sat at Becker’s other side. “What’s up?”

  Becker tossed his second shot and waved D.C. off another. “Samms wants to meet. Today.”

  “Shit.” Simon finished his beer. “You said it’s not trouble?”

  A new alliance had taken between the Bulls and the Hounds during the summer, when Becker had brokered a solution to save Ray Abbott’s hide. Since then, the Hounds and their estranged ancestors, The Underdogs, had patched things up and made business connections. Gary Samms wanted to meet before he got specific, but Becker had an idea what he wanted.

  “I think he wants the neutral zone back.”

  “Sure he does, but fuck him,” Rad scoffed. “Spoils of war.”

  “Do you know why?” Simon asked.

  Becker had been asking that question since he’d picked up the phone in his office and heard Gary Samms’ voice. “I don’t even know that’s it. But why wouldn’t they want it back? We take a deep cut of any business they do there. That zone cuts into Greenwood. If I were him, I’d want it back.”

  “He can’t think we’d give that up.” Simon smoothed his hand over his beard. “Unless he’s got an offer to make.”

  “That’s what I’m thinking,” Becker agreed. “We’re not beefing, and there’s been no trouble, so I’m not worried about this meet. I’m curious, though. And I want you both with me. So let’s ride out. I told him to meet us at Hal’s.”

  ~oOo~

  Hal’s was a nondescript little diner like every city had—the space low in ambience but the food high in flavor. And grease. Its location right about halfway between the clubhouse and the Hounds’ base, and the absolutely blasé attitude of staff and patrons both, made it one of the better sites for a sit-down between Tulsa’s two strongest outlaw organizations.

  And it had been in the neutral zone, before the Bulls claimed that turf.

  Samms came with Abbott, his second. The five men shook hands and sat at a table in the corner, away from the window. A grandmotherly waitress took their order—coffee and pie all around—and then Becker took the lead.

  “You wanted to meet. What’s on your mind?”

  “I got a proposition for you.” Becker waited until Samms went on. “We need the neutral zone back. Full access, no duty to pay.”

  Rad laughed, but Becker kept his reaction steady. “That’s not a proposition. That’s a plea.”

  “The proposition is this: ten clean stacks up front, and we’ll contract with you for our steel, street less twenty.”

  Samms was speaking carefully in this public place, in a code they all understood. Ten clean stacks was a hundred thousand dollars in laundered cash. And he was agreeing to buy the Tulsa Hounds’ guns from the Bulls, at twenty percent off the street rate, which was still a profit for the club.

  But the Hounds had a patron like the Bulls had Irina Volkov, and the Abbatontuono Family was often in conflict with the Russians. Irina might not be thrilled to put Russian guns into enemy hands.

  Then again, friends and enemies shifted like sand in their world. Virtually any friend might someday be an enemy, and vice versa. In fact, there was no beef between the Volkovs and Abbatontuonos now, so far as he knew. The guns the Bulls took as part of their compensation were their own to do with as they saw fit. Goodwill in Tulsa helped everybody.

  Samms leaned forward. “I’m talkin’ about a real peace between us, Beck. It’s been more than four years since the treaty, and things’ve changed between our crews. We’re not enemies anymore. And you and me, we didn’t start that war. We can take our shit in a different direction. Make something good again in our town.”

  Becker saw it, too. But if the Italians and Russians didn’t like it, the different direction they’d take would make nothing good. “Would a deal like that clear your ups?”

  “The weather’s good back east. They’re hoping for clear skies everywhere.”

  The Italians wanted peace, too, then.

  “I got to take it to our table, and you gotta do better before I set it down. Twenty clean stacks, and street less five.”

  Abbott laughed with all the caustic contempt that Rad had choked out earlier. “Fuck off.”

  But Samms stayed steady and held up his hand to quiet his man. “Let’s cut to the end of this game and just land in the middle. Fifteen stacks and street less ten.”

  A hundred and fifty thousand dollars clean cash and a steady contract for guns. And with it, the end of o
ld resentments, and a solid new peace in Tulsa. “I can take that to the table, yeah.”

  Samms held out his hand, and Becker shook.

  ~oOo~

  Becker picked up the gavel and rapped it on the old oak table. The men sitting with him settled in at once. “Okay, we got business and pleasure to talk about tonight. Most important thing first—Fitz, you want to take this?”

  The young patch grinned and looked around at his brothers. “Got an all-clear from the doc. No more restrictions.”

  “You can ride, bro?” Gunner asked.

  “I can ride. I’m back.”

  The Bulls chapel erupted in cheers. Becker had heard the news a bit earlier, but he cheered, too. Fitz’s return to full health, and all the other news on the agenda for this meeting, was like a gaping, painful hole finally closing.

  “Okay, okay,” he rapped the gavel again. “Okay. We’ll really party when we’re done here. But there’s more good news and something to talk about, too.”

  “More good news?” Wally asked.

  “Yeah. Tomorrow’s the final clean and walkthrough on the station. The day after that, we stock the store and the bays. And then we’re back in business. Grand opening in time for right after Christmas. Mav’s already making up the schedule, so get with him right away if you got times you can’t work. Since we got the store now, we’re gonna push the open hours out a few hours later, to midnight. That’ll get anyone who wants it more time on the clock, too.”

  Another round of cheers, this one quieter but no less enthusiastic, rolled over the table.

  “And now, straighten up boys, ‘cuz we gotta talk seriously. Rad, Simon and I met with Gary Samms and Ray Abbott today. They want us to back off and reinstate the neutral zone.” He held his hand up to stop the grumbling that immediately rose up. “He’s made us an offer—a hundred-fifty grand up front, washed through a dummy transaction, and a contract to supply their guns at ten percent under street.”

  “Only ten under on a contact?” Gunner asked. “That’s better profit than we do with just about anybody but the one-offs.”

  “Yep.”

  Wally wore the frown of a man trying to work out numbers and not having much success. “Does that make up what we’d lose in their duty payments?”

  Maverick answered. “No. Their need for steel isn’t that much, frankly. And we make one-fifty in less than a year off their rent. But it’s cash on hand, and it’s ready to use.”

  “There’s the plus of what it does for Tulsa to have the Hounds and the Bulls done with their bullshit,” Becker said. “We agree to this and go back to the way things were for years, and there’s no more conflict. Maybe we can get with the Hounds the way we were with Dyson most of the time.”

  “Neighbors,” Maverick added, nodding. “Real peace on the streets.”

  Fitz looked down the table at Becker. “What’s your read, Prez?”

  Becker pushed the gavel aside and leaned on the table. “I don’t want to push anybody to my way of thinking, but I’ll tell you what it is. “A good peace is worth more than cash. I don’t think the Bulls and the Hounds will ever be friends, but we all love this city and call it home. Maybe there can be some trust between us for that. If we get our hands outta their pockets and let them earn.”

  “Beck went a way to makin’ this work when he brokered that deal over the summer,” Rad explained. “Things’re different now.”

  “How’s that one-fifty get split?” Wally asked.

  Becker shot a look at Simon and let him take the answer. “Officers met this afternoon and decided that it’ll split five ways—evenly across the five of you who don’t wear an officer flash. The officers are all okay, but you took the hardest hit this year, when work was hard to come by. So it’s thirty each to Gun, Gargo, Wally, Caleb, and Fitz. If we take this deal and put the neutral zone back in play.”

  “Any other downsides for the club if we take this deal?” Gunner asked. He was the oldest among the non-officers and more experienced in the challenges the club had faced over the years. He also made the biggest cut of the five.

  “None that we can see now,” Becker answered. “You all know shit comes up outta nowhere, but from what we know right now, from where I stand now, the ups outweigh the downs.” He looked around at his brothers and thought he saw that they were in agreement. “Ready for a vote?”

  They were. They voted. Unanimously. For peace.

  ~oOo~

  Her success at Thanksgiving had shown Sage that she could manage a lot of people and throw a decent party. She didn’t want to deal with—or even think too much about—the sweetbutts, but Mo had suggested she delegate that and recommended, once Kendra left, Janine for the task. Then his little woman, suddenly all full of herself, had come to him and told him the club needed to pay Janine for the work she did. Not asked—told.

  Pay a sweetbutt. Delaney would have laughed her out of the clubhouse.

  But when she decided something was right, she got selective deafness. And shit, she was just so damn cute, with seventeen different arguments all supported by thirty different points. Finally, he told her it was up to the club and he’d take it to the table.

  With so many of the Bulls paired off and faithful, the sweetbutt roster had dwindled a bit, but pretty girls made a good party, and hangarounds became prospects who became patches. Becker wanted to keep girls around and happy, so there would be men who wanted to hang around. They voted to pay Janine to manage the girls. Not much, certainly not enough to call it any kind of a job, but enough to make it worth her while, and to feel respected.

  Sage devoted her energy—she had a lot of it in her second trimester—to the clubhouse Christmas party, which was serving as a grand re-opening celebration as well. Mo was clearly giving pointers on the side, training her replacement, because the party looked like any party Mo had ever thrown in this room, with the new addition of a whole lot of glitter. Sage liked sparkly things.

  The two queens—Mo tall and intense, Sage small and also intense, resting her hands on her round belly—stood near the kitchen door, conferring intensely. Smiling, Becker decided to stay out of the way of that double tornado.

  But damn, it was good to see Mo back in this house. She and Delaney had not stepped a single foot inside these walls since the day he’d walked away and left his kutte behind. He’d been to the construction site only once during the entire project, and on that day he refused to go next door. He was half-owner of the compound, but he would not come close.

  Becker thought he understood. Delaney had built everything on this compound. The station had been solely his own until this past March. The Brazen Bulls MC had been his idea, and he and Dane had built it from nothing. Though it had been his choice to leave, a choice no one had wanted him to make, it hurt him not to be part of what he’d made.

  But Delaney had retired, not died. He’d left in good standing, and they’d even voted to let him keep his ink, with the addition of a dated ‘Out’ tag. He was still their father. There would be no Brazen Bulls without him. So Becker had taken Sage out to Bixby, and they’d laid down all the pressure they could to get them in for the Christmas party, at least.

  The women had been the key. Sage needed Mo, and Mo missed her family. Delaney couldn’t withstand all that feminine intent.

  Now, Becker went to the bar and sat beside his former president. “How you doin’, D?”

  Delaney smiled at his whiskey glass. “Shit looks good, Beck. You’re doin’ good.”

  He took the shot of Jack that D.C. passed to him. “Thanks. But I asked how you were.”

  “I’m alright. But this isn’t my place anymore, son.”

  “Sure it is.” Becker looked around at a clubhouse unchanged in the past couple of years. “It’s just like you left it.”

  “Not what I mean. You’re making the club yours. Making calls I wouldn’t make, taking roads I’d’ve passed by.”

  He was talking about their new drug runs. Becker considered defending that call
and even opened his mouth. Then he decided it didn’t need defending. So he filled his mouth with whiskey and let Delaney’s observations go unrefuted.

  Delaney was right: when the club made the vote to add drugs to their Volkov runs, he hadn’t been at the table, at the head or anywhere else. He hadn’t simply given up the gavel, he’d given up his patch. He’d given up his voice. He would always be the Bulls founder, and their father. He would always be family, always welcome in this clubhouse.

  But the Bulls were not his club anymore.

  Now Becker had the lead.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  “Wow. That’s ... that’s a lot of glitter.”

  Becker’s mega-sexy voice pulled Sage’s head out of her project. He stood in the doorway of the second bedroom, leaning against the jamb, his arms crossed and a wry smirk planted deep in his cheeks.

  She examined the corkboard she’d just covered in pearly white paper coated in iridescent glitter. She’d had Becker paint the thick wood frame of the board white, and then she’d glazed it with deep pink glitter. “I like sparkle.”

  “Yes, I know. Be careful you don’t blind our girls before they can even see straight.” He came up behind her and set his hands on her hips. “And get down. No ladders.”

  “It’s not a ladder. It’s a step stool.”

  He cleared his throat and clenched his fingers tighter at her hips. Sage sighed and let him lift her off the stool and put her feet on the floor.

  The second bedroom had been a hodgepodge of bins and boxes and random crap—and his gun safe. Now, all that crap had been repurposed, donated, or disposed of, and he’d built a closet thing in the living room corner to store his safe. In a few months, this tiny room had to hold two little baby girls, and Sage meant her daughters to have everything she hadn’t. Like her dream bedroom, all pink and white, with crystals hanging in the window, a thrift-store disco ball hanging from the ceiling, and soft pink walls, a fluffy white rug, pretty pink-striped linens with sleepy kittens, anything she could find that sparkled and glittered, and every Care Bear she could get her hands on.