SUSAN FANETTI
THE FREAK CIRCLE PRESS
Crash © 2016 Susan Fanetti
All rights reserved
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 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
The Pagano Family Series:
Footsteps, Book 1
Touch, Book 2
Rooted, Book 3
Deep, Book 4
Prayer, Book 5
Miracle, Book 6
The Northwomen Sagas:
God’s Eye
Heart’s Ease
To the heroes, great and small.
There must be those among whom we can sit down and weep
and still be counted as warriors.
~Adrienne Rich, Sources
THE BRAZEN BULLS MOTORCYCLE CLUB
Tulsa, Oklahoma
1995 Roster
Brian Delaney—President
Oskar “Dane” Nielsen—Vice President
Conrad “Radical” Jessup—Sergeant at Arms
Simon Spellman—Secretary-Treasurer
Fernando “Ox” Sanchez—Enforcer
Edgar “Eight Ball” Johnston—Enforcer
Gary Becker—Enforcer
Griffin Hayes—Medic
Maxwell “Gunner” Wesson—Soldier
Neil “Apollo” Armstrong—Soldier
Richard “Maverick” Helm—Soldier
Andrew “Slick” Zabek—Prospect
Walter “Wally” Hansen—Prospect
CHAPTER LIST
AUTHOR’S NOTE
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
CLOSING NOTE
AUTHOR’S NOTE
This story opens in the early days of April 1995 and takes place primarily in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the Brazen Bulls’ home. Tulsa is just a bit more than a hundred miles from Oklahoma City.
Timothy McVeigh, with the assistance of Terry Nichols, committed a heinous act of terrorism in Oklahoma City on 19 April 1995. He detonated a truck full of almost 5,000 pounds of explosives in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, killing 168 people and injuring almost 700 others. The Murrah Building housed the America’s Kids Day Care Center. Nineteen children died in the bombing. The youngest victim was three months old.
Because 19 April occurs during the course of this story, so does the Oklahoma City bombing. This is a work of fiction, thus the account here has been fictionalized. As I insert my pretend characters into a real horror, I’ve tried hard to be respectful of the real-life victims, survivors, heroes, and bereaved, but I can’t claim to know another’s pain, so I can’t claim to have been successful in preventing it.
I apologize in advance, and sincerely, for any distress this fictional account might cause those who bear real scars.
CHAPTER ONE
The plate clattered to the table before him, and he scowled down at it. His order of blueberry pie with a scoop looked like someone else had chewed it first and hocked it back onto the plate. He was pretty sure he saw a froth of spit swimming in with the melting ice cream.
He looked around the table at the picture-perfect slices of fruit pie before his brothers, each topped with a pretty ball of vanilla ice cream. Delaney’s even had a little sprig of mint or something.
He lifted his eyes to the waitress still standing at his side. “Come on, Kay Ann…”
She gave him a blatantly insincere smile, then shifted her attention to the full table. “Y’all let me know if there’s anything else you need.” As she shimmied off in her blue polyester uniform, the men at the table who didn’t have a plate full of garbage broke into raucous laughter.
“What the fuck you do to her, Rad?”
Conrad ‘Radical’ Jessup, Sergeant at Arms of the Brazen Bulls MC and notorious enforcer, glared at his brother Becker’s grinning gob and shoved the heavy china plate away. “Not a damn thing.” Becker was a smug young asshole. He needed some time in the ring, Rad thought. A little seasoning.
“I’m gettin’ a picture that her story’s different.”
He had no doubt. But shit, the chick was a waitress at a truck stop just south of Dallas, on I-45. The Bulls landed here maybe six-eight times a year, tops. So what if he’d been banging Kay Ann pretty regular the last two years or so, when they were here for a night or a few hours? So what if last time they’d come through he’d wanted a change and taken on the new little brunette—whatshername? Kay Ann was a good fuck and a sweet girl, but shit. Nobody had any claim on anybody. He’d’ve been fine if she’d spread for one of his brothers.
Spending the night at her place that last time with her had been a big fucking mistake. He’d known it at the time. Rad loved women, but since his—nasty, expensive—divorce three years before, he steered clear of romantic entanglements. But he’d been tired and beat up that night—and, yeah, feeling lonely and sorry for himself—and Kay Ann had offered him comfort. He’d been weak and taken her comfort, and now he wasn’t getting her pie.
It was possible that he’d gone for the little brunette the next time on purpose; Rad was self-aware enough to realize he might have been looking for a reset after that night at Kay Ann’s. When he’d woken in her bed, with her snuggled on his chest and purring like a cat. Definitely needed a reset.
It was also possible he was an asshole. His ex, among others, would say that was a certified guarantee.
He fucking hated being called an asshole.
Delaney, their president, sliced his fork into h
is flaky piece of pie and took an appreciative bite. Around the mouthful of berry and crust, he said, “What do I say, brother? I say it all the fuckin’ time.”
“One chick to a roost,” about six of the men at the table chimed in. Delaney’s big wisdom: outside the clubhouse, never bang two chicks who know each other.
Rad flipped them all the bird and poured himself another cup of coffee from the carafe Kay Ann had left on the table. He didn’t really want pie, anyway.
He was in too damn good a mood to let a bitch’s hissy get him down. He wasn’t looking to get his knob polished today—they were planning a straight shot home this run and only stopping here to refuel body and bike.
The Bulls were on their way back from a charity run and rally in Houston, and they were all in high spirits. They’d been riding in a massive formation with other friendly clubs, and the occasional solo rider or couple of buddies. Clubs didn’t mind some civilians in their midst on runs like this, as long as they kept their manners and didn’t get tangled up inside different club formations or try to showboat. Bikers respected each other, sporting colors or not, until that respect was broken.
The diner here at Ethel’s Fuel & Food was nearly packed, and Rad guessed more than half of the clientele was affiliated. Several of the clubs they’d been riding with had pulled off with them—he saw patches from the Night Horde, the Priests, the Vikings, and a couple others the Bulls didn’t work with much or at all. As they’d been eating, more bikers had come in, wearing colors or just carrying helmets. The Houston rally pulled people internationally, from Mexico and Canada as well as across the US. They’d just spent three glorious days partying hard with friends from all over.
The clubs taking this route home to points east would all probably stick more or less together as far as Tulsa, where the Bulls called home, and the rest would break off onto different interstates and keep on rolling.
As Rad finished his third cup of coffee—he was going to have to drain the pipe before they hit the road—and his brothers finished their pie, Big Ike Lunden, president of the Night Horde MC in Missouri, came up to the table.
The Horde was a piddly-ass club in the middle of bumfuck nowhere. They ran a tiny town that was dying on the vine, and they shouldn’t have been of any account to the Bulls or anybody else. But Delaney and Lunden went back some kind of way, and he’d convinced the club to bring the Horde into some business, to help them keep their club—and, apparently their whole damn town—afloat.
Rad didn’t like it much. Lunden was a sour son of a bitch who ran his two-bit club like his own personal kingdom. Way too goddamn big for his boots.
Delaney saw Big Ike coming and wiped his mouth before he stood and held out his hand. “Hey, Ike.”
Ike grabbed his hand and shook. “D. We’re headin’ out. Wanted a proper handshake if we don’t see ya on the road. And I want to thank you again.”
Even on fun runs, some business always got done. This time, the officers had met with Kirill Volkov to finalize changes to their gun routes, and Delaney and Dane, the Bulls VP, had met with Big Ike and Reg, the Horde VP, to pull them in on some of the transport work.
“Always help a brother out, you know that.”
They embraced, and Ike nodded at the rest of the Bulls collectively. “Fellas.”
They all nodded and muttered vague pleasantries back. The rest of Lunden’s small club were standing, hanging back a few steps; when Big Ike headed toward the door, his men followed in a line, nodding to the Bulls and other riders they knew as they walked out. Lunden’s son, Little Ike, brought up the rear, as far from his old man as he could be.
That kid was young, not long patched, but not remotely little. Rad figured ‘Little Ike’ for a good six and a half feet, maybe more, and he carried lots of muscle on that tall, broad frame. He was near twice the size of his old man.
The vibe between those two had never been warm. When Delaney had started throwing work the Horde’s way a couple of years back, Rad had protested—he was concerned that so much obvious venom between the king and the prince could only mean instability in the club as a whole, which was a dangerous risk in outlaw work, but Delaney knew them better, knew Big Ike well, and insisted that the boy would toe his father’s line.
In Houston, Rad had made note of the new, nasty red scar that climbed up half the kid’s face, from his mouth to his temple. He’d also noted the way Big Ike looked at it, and he wondered if that scar hadn’t been Little Ike getting his toes dragged back where they belonged.
Rumor had it that Big Ike was damn loose with his fists in his family. Some even said he’d killed his wife.
Not that that was any of Rad’s business. But he’d had a hard father, too. He remembered the lash and the fist, the buckle and the switch. He carried the scars, too. So he felt a little sorry for the big kid sauntering out of the diner door behind his buddy Showdown, dragging a hand through dark hair almost long enough to pull into a ponytail.
Rad sent a thought out to the kid. Little Ike was big. His father was not. When you were beaten down all your life, it was hard to see when you got bigger than your old man. You had to be bigger on the inside as well as the outside before you could see it. But one day it would happen, if it hadn’t yet. It had happened for Rad, and it would happen for Little Ike. On that day, the old man would learn that his days of beating his boy down were over, well and truly.
Rad’s face stretched in a bitter, nostalgic grin.
~oOo~
From Ethel’s, they took US-75 north to Oklahoma. The sun on this early April afternoon shone warm and gold in a blue sky, and Rad settled into the saddle and let his mind wander. It was a long day of riding—eight hours on the road—but he was in no hurry for the ride to end, and he doubted anyone else with an engine between his legs felt any different. You didn’t ride if you didn’t want to be on the road as much as you could.
Rad rode near the head of the Bulls pack, alone in the lane for the most part, just behind Delaney and Dane, who rode side by side. Every now and then, Griffin, a young patch Rad had sponsored, would pull up alongside, just being companionable. But Rad preferred the lane to himself, and Griff knew it, so he’d drift back after a few minutes.
They cruised along just faster than cage traffic when they could, but when they got bogged down, it was no sweat—just meant sharpening the senses to guard against the drivers who were still on autopilot.
It was a fine day and a fine ride, and Rad’s spirit puffed up and crowed.
Every now and then, a sport bike or three would zoom past, wanting the speed more than the ride, but so far, nobody had been obnoxious. In fact, for a good ten miles or so, two brightly-cladded Kawasakis, each carrying two riders, all in full gear, had ridden up with the Bulls. Rad could tell they were youngsters, getting a rush from riding with the Big Bad Outlaws, checking out the massive American metal, and they behaved themselves.
The passenger on the green bike, nearest Rad, was wearing a pack on her back with a shiny logo from Six Flags Over Texas. Her bright red ponytail brushed wildly over it. Rad figured that was how they’d spent their spring weekend, and it confirmed his assumption about their youth.
Cruising wasn’t what the kids were after, and it didn’t take long for them to tire of the easy pace. When the rider on the green bike held up a gloved thumb and then waved, Rad returned both gestures, and the two crotch rockets surged forward with the high-pitched racket of bumblebees on steroids.
Rad cringed. That was his number-one reason for hating sport bikes. They had no throat at all. When he opened the throttle, he wanted a roar, a rumble, something that would make a civilian quiver in fear, thinking a beast was on his tail, ready to eat him, not swat at his neck, expecting to be stung by a bug.
Not long after his young Kawa bees had flown off, another bike pulled into the lane beside Rad’s. As always, he took note. A little Harley sportster with a silver tank. The rider was wearing full gear, even an armored jacket, and a solid black full-face helmet. But R
ad could tell it was a chick—that ass, sheathed in black riding leather, was a work of art. Jesus on a biscuit.
Ascertaining that she was solo, he slowed up just enough to get her a bit more forward and then settled in to appreciate the view.
Since he’d slowed, Griffin pulled up at his flank and waved at him, checking in. Rad gave him a thumbs up. He was great. He was building up a nice picture in his head of what that ass might look like naked and rocking on his cock.
Then the hot ass on the little Harley turned that black face shield and pointed it right at him. He could see nothing—fuck, for all he knew, it was a dude with a feminine shape in there, not that he was going to let that thought stomp around on his fantasy—but still he felt sure that it was a she, that she was fully aware that he’d been checking her out, and that she was letting him know she knew.
She faced forward again and opened her throttle, pulling up ahead, lane splitting and putting some distance between her and the Bulls.
They were within an hour of Tulsa, though. The afternoon was getting old, the shadows were long, and traffic was thickening up. Lane splitting was illegal and drew unwanted attention, so most riders resisted the urge. On straightaways, he could still glimpse the Kawa bees. Hot Ass wasn’t getting far.
Crash (The Brazen Bulls MC Book 1) Page 1
