Lead (The Brazen Bulls MC, #8)

by Susan Fanetti

  “Thank you, baby. They were on special at the Save-A-Lot. I thought maybe we could make this house up nice, have a good place to live for once.”

  Leaving her mom to her dreams, Sage went into the house. As she crossed the threshold, adrenaline flared quietly up. Denny had never touched her, but he had a vicious tongue, and her mom didn’t protect her from his shouts and snarls. She had trouble not snarling back, and then he’d start throwing things. If she really pissed him off, he’d take it out on her mom.

  So she was just as afraid of the man as if he beat her. More.

  He was in the kitchen, putting the leftover bacon in a plastic container. The dish drainer was full, and he had a flowered towel over his shoulder. The evidence suggested that the man was cleaning the kitchen. He looked like his normal, rumpled self—sagging khakis, stretched-out beater, greasy ponytail—but it was early yet, and the house was actually in decent shape.

  Sage was surprised enough to wonder if maybe a corner had really been turned in this house.

  While she stood in the doorway, paralyzed by surprise in the act of pushing through the saloon-style louvered doors, he looked up. “Hey, baby girl.”

  That was what her mother called her. She didn’t like it when anyone else did. Especially not a guy like this. But she let it slide. Calm was a delicate thing here. “Hi.”

  “Come sit down. I’ll make you some coffee. There’s a cup left.”

  “That’s okay. I’ve got work today.” Not for hours, but she had every intention of changing her clothes and hanging out at the library until it was time for her shift at the Bin.

  “Sage. Sit.” He pulled out a chair. “Now.”

  With no choice but to comply or start a fight and break this peace, she went all the way into the kitchen and sat at the dinged Formica table. He set a cup of coffee before her and pushed the sugar bowl close.

  As she put the spoon into the sugar bowl, Denny sat across from her, favoring the side of his ass Becker had shot, and set a black drawstring bag in the middle of the table.

  Her savings. Six years of working, hoarding it away, trying to build up enough so she could take care of her mom without a guy around. Or so she could just get away on her own. Three thousand, seven hundred, and sixty-five dollars.

  She let go of the spoon but said nothing. What could she possibly say? Any challenge she made, any demand to get it back, would feed his need to hurt her. This kind of hurt, he could get away with, and he knew it.

  Anger and despair surged up and twisted around each other, setting a fire in her chest. That was all her hope, in that black canvas bag. Six years of hope, of knowing she had control of her life, now in Denny’s hands.

  “All that ink you ruin yourself with, I knew you had money stashed somewhere. I know how much that shit costs. But I gotta hand it to you, you’re a sneaky little bitch. I thought I’d find it in the move, and I tried to keep my eyes on you then, but I missed it. Took me all this time before I found it. I even looked under that loose floorboard twice without seein’ it.” He leaned on the table, coming closer. “You been holdin’ out on me. On your mom.”

  “I pay half the bills. I buy my own food and clothes. I give Mom money, too. It took me six years to save that much because I put so much of what I earn into this household. So no, I haven’t been holding out. I’m the only one with a job, and I’ve got two.” She felt her face twisting into a contemptuous sneer and couldn’t stop it. “Mom thinks you got honest work, but that was a lie, wasn’t it? You’re planning to pretend my savings is your pay until it runs out.” The scenario fleshed out as she said it. “And then you’ll tell her you quit or got fired for some bullshit reason.”

  His smile was nasty. “You don’t got no savings, baby girl.”

  “What’s to keep me from telling Mom?”

  He sat back and crossed his arms over his chest, smug as anything. They both knew what would keep her from telling her mom: it wouldn’t do any good, and it might do harm. She would either make excuses for him, or she would challenge him. If she challenged him, he’d hurt her.

  Her mom drew the line at Sage getting physically abused. Everything else, she could tolerate. Denny knew that, and found ways to hurt her like this.

  Which hurt about as bad as anything.

  “You’re a cocksucker.”

  His eyes narrowed, and Sage had just long enough to hope he’d hit her before he shook it off and laughed. “You better get to work, Sage. You got some savings to build up again. I wonder where you’ll hide it this time.”

  ~oOo~

  Sage went behind the sales counter and tripped over a plastic grocery bag full of CDs that lay on the floor just at the end of the counter. “Goddamn it! Reggie, I told you to get these fuckers logged!” She kicked the bag. The handle got hung up on her Doc, and she almost tripped again. “Fuck! FUCK FUCK FUCK!”

  “Sage, chill,” Dylan barked, and she looked up, ready to tell him where he could put his fucking chill.

  He was at a register, checking out what looked like a dad and his two daughters. The girls giggled at each other, but the father was furious. “I want to talk to your manager, young lady. A business is no place for that kind of language.”

  “I am the manager, so suck it.”

  Dylan gave her a wide-eyed look. “Sage, shit.”

  Angry Dad reached over the counter and snatched his credit card back. “Cancel that sale. We’re not spending money in a place that’s run like this. Come on, girls.”

  She had the good sense to wait until they were out of the store before she made the jerk-off gesture at the space where he’d been standing. “Asshole.”

  “No, you’re the asshole. What the fuck is your problem today?”

  What was her problem? Denny was her fucking problem. Her life was her fucking problem. Not being able to enjoy the night and morning she’d had with Becker because every fucking other thing in her life was total bullshit was her problem.

  “None of your business. Did you take your break yet?”

  “Reggie’s still on her break. Which you demanded she take right then. Which is why she hasn’t logged that bag of buys. You need to go take a walk around the block or something, or, shit, smoke a bowl. Kill that bug that crawled up your ass. You’ve been snarking at people since you got here.”

  He was right, of course. She was being a cunt and taking her mood out on everybody around her, but there was a nuclear explosion going on inside her, and she had no control over the fallout. Losing that money—not losing it, having it fucking stolen from her, right in front of her—was more than the dollars. It was six whole years of her life, working nonstop, trying to keep something for herself unstained by her shitty life. It was like Denny had taken an ice cream scoop to her insides and hollowed her out.

  The bastard had left her all her incidental little treasures, all arranged neatly on top of the black box, sitting right on the floorboard. So she’d know for sure he’d gone through everything, had touched everything, and had taken what he wanted.

  And he’d ruined her night with Becker, too! The heavy throb of soreness between her thighs, she’d expected that to feed her fantasies all day long as she relived the feel of him, but now all those feelings came with a chaser of Denny.

  “You need to worry about yourself and leave me the fuck alone. I’ll log the fucking buys.” She grabbed the bag off the floor—barely missing a collision between her forehead and the counter as she did so—and stomped off to the back.

  She’d apologize for being terrible later. Right now, she needed to hate everyone and everything.

  ~oOo~

  “I can give you four apiece for these. Two bucks each for this stack. These, I don’t want.” She pushed the stack of late-80s, one-hit-wonder CDs back across the counter.

  Ricky came in at least once a week with a couple bags or boxes of CDs and cassettes, sometimes LPs. Some really random shit from just about every possible genre and era. Sage didn’t know where he got them, and she didn’t ask,
but she could look at the dark scars striping his arms, following his veins, and know where he put what she paid him.

  He pushed the stack back toward her. “Come on, girl. You can give me somethin’ for these.”

  She picked up the top CD. “Basia? Come on, Ricky. She sucked when she had a hit.”

  “That’s a matter of taste. She had a moment. It’s like ... a time capsule.”

  “Yeah, I got a whole shop full of time capsules. Including three Basia CDs, just like this one, that nobody’s buying. No sale.”

  He drummed his fingers on the counter. Broken, dirty, yellowed nails. “Gimme three each for these, then.”

  Sometimes she felt surrounded by junkies, and she enabled every damn one of them in one way or another.

  “Two-fifty. I’ll round it up to twenty for the stack. Forty for the lot. Best I can do.”

  He grinned with relief. “That’ll do, that’ll do.”

  As she filled out the sales pad, the sleigh bells hanging on the door made their clanging racket. Sage jumped at the sound and sent her pen across the page. She was alone in the store except for Ricky; Dylan and Reggie were off shift, and Marcus had gone to the wing shop across the street for dinner. Normally, that didn’t bother her, but today, still reeling from what Denny had done, she felt exposed and insecure. Dark had fallen, and the night lurked behind the poster-covered windows, waiting to unleash some new horror on her.

  But it was Becker coming in. He wore his kutte over a black hoodie, and he was about the hottest thing she’d ever seen in her life. Her mood instantly improved—not all the way to wonderful, but at least no longer murderous.

  Ricky, on the other hand, freaked out. He jumped back so hard and fast that he knocked two stacks of his CDs over. Backpedaling all the way to the far end of the counter, he muttered, “I just need my money. Just gimme my money.”

  Becker stopped near the register and stared at the man. Then he turned to Sage. “You havin’ trouble here?”

  “No. Ricky’s just selling me some used CDs. Do you guys have a problem?” This whole scene was very strange.

  “I ain’t doin’ nothin’, man,” Ricky said. It came out like a plea.

  “Then why’re you actin’ so guilty, Rick?” Becker’s voice was a low rumble, full of menace, and for the first time, Sage saw the Bull he was. Even when he’d shot Denny, he hadn’t been as threatening as he was right now, just leaning on the counter, staring at Ricky.

  He cast a glance around the empty store, then focused again on Ricky. With long, slow strides, he walked the length of the counter until he reached the poor junkie. Grabbing a fistful of his t-shirt, Becker threw Ricky face-first on the counter and proceeded to frisk him like he had a side job with the Tulsa PD.

  He pulled a thick roll of cash out of Ricky’s pocket, and Sage had a sick flash from the morning, watching Denny thumb through her savings.

  “This is a whole lot of cash here you’re carryin’, Rick. Why you gotta be selling shitty CDs, too? Unless this ain’t your roll. You doin’ business on Bulls’ ground, son?”

  “This is Greenwood,” Ricky said. The words were ground into the counter with his face.

  “This is south of 244. You know the map. You gotta have our okay to do business here, and you’re not on the list.” Becker let Ricky up. “So I’ll just keep this as a penalty for breaking the treaty.”

  “No! The boss’ll take my balls if I go back empty.” Ricky lunged for the roll, but Becker was bigger and stronger—and not strung out—and held him off easily.

  “That is not my problem.” He nodded toward Sage. “Finish your business here and get the fuck out.”

  “Please, man. I go back like this, you might’s well kill me right here, cuz you’re killin’ me later.”

  “Out.”

  Shaking so hard he could barely walk, Ricky stumbled back to Sage. She handed him the two twenties she’d taken out of the register. He gave her a pathetic little nod and headed slowly toward the door.

  “Wait!” She ran around the counter and put herself in front of the door. When Ricky stopped, his eyes wide, she looked to Becker. “You can’t do that! You can’t just steal his money and tell him to go off to get killed!” If he was trying to scrape a few dollars from crappy CDs while he had a roll of thousands of dollars in his pocket, then that money was very much not his to lose.

  Becker’s face turned dark and so furiously furrowed it practically folded in on itself. With much more speed, he stalked straight to her, fast and angry enough to scare her, and grabbed her arms. He yanked her out of the way of the door and snarled “Get the fuck out” at Ricky, who got the fuck out.

  Frightened and furious, Sage kicked Becker as hard as she could in the shin, just below his knee, with the toe of her Doc. When he yelled and let her go, she ran to the middle of the store, putting a bin of dollar CDs between her and him. A veritable arsenal.

  Becker locked the door and turned the ‘Closed’ sign out. When he turned to stalk toward her, she picked up cheapo CDs as fast as she could and started hurling them at him.

  Like some kind of killer robot, he barely bothered to duck or deflect, just came right at her, letting the flat plastic cases bounce off, lunging around the bin before she could get to another side and keep it between them.

  “NO! FUCK YOU! HANDS OFF!” She tried to strike out, to writhe out of his hold, to kick, or bite, or something, but now he was ready for her fight, and he had her in a bear hug, his legs and arms trapping hers, before she could do anything except shriek.

  He held her and let her until she gave up. As she squirmed silently against his restraint, trying to find freedom, he said into her ear, “I told you that what I say goes when it comes to the Bulls. Don’t ever get in the way of club business again.”

  “He’s gonna get killed.”

  “Do you think that bothers me? What is it you think I do, shortcake?”

  “Don’t call me that when you’re being a dick.”

  He chuckled, and she would have given a lot to get a foot free and kick him again. “Ricky’s future is not my problem. The treaty is my problem.”

  “Treaty?”

  “None of your business. If I let you go, are you gonna be cool?”

  “He’s just a sad old junkie. You’re a bully.”

  “He’s a runner for the Street Hounds, Sage.”

  Her fight died on that note. “Oh. I didn’t know that. But he’s still pathetic.”

  “And that’s still not my problem. Are you ready to be cool?”

  “Yeah.”

  Becker let her go, and she rubbed her arms where he’d first grabbed her at the door. He’d been truly angry, and he’d hurt her a little, pulling her away. She didn’t know if that was in the same zone as what her mom’s men did to her. Was this the way shit like that started?

  He saw her rub her arms, and he frowned and displaced her hands with his, stroking her gently. “I’m sorry I hurt you. I didn’t mean to grab you so hard.”

  That sounded like the shit abusive guys said afterward, and Sage stepped away from him. She busied herself picking up the CDs she’d hurled at him.

  He crouched and helped her. “Sage. This is my life.”

  She found the case for a Gerardo CD—who the hell had given up store money for this?—and put it back together. Then she looked up and met Becker’s eyes. “You have a rule about the club. I get a rule, too, then.”

  He smiled. “Let’s hear it.”

  “You don’t get to touch me when you’re angry. You don’t ever get to hurt me like that again. No debate.”

  She saw the guilt and understanding flash through his eyes. “I wasn’t trying—”

  “No debate. Shut up and just don’t do it again.”

  He nodded. “Okay. I promise. We good?”

  “Yeah. And I’m sorry, too. I—I just ...” She’d been thinking about Denny, and put Ricky in her shoes. “I didn’t think.”

  “You gotta think. Around my shit, you gotta think. I’ll
keep you as clear as I can, but I didn’t see this comin’. You’ll have to trust that what I do needs doin’, no matter what it is.”

  “That seems like a lot of trust.”

  “It is. But that’s the way it’s gotta be.”

  Well, he’d told her he was dangerous. He’d told her he was a killer. She just hadn’t expected to see it up so close and personal. But the Becker she was falling for, the one who’d saved her mom, and fixed her car, and needed to hold her while he rested, who’d fucked her so brilliantly, and held her so warmly, that Becker was good and safe.

  They were both the same man. To have one, she’d have to take the other.

  “Okay.” She stood with her pile of CDs and put them back in the bin. “Why are you here?”

  He stood and put his pile of CDs in the bin, too. “I told you—I have a cellphone for you.”

  Fishing in his kutte, he pulled out a silver flip phone. “I have this number. My Bulls number changes regularly, but I’ve got a personal, too, and I put it in the contacts. I’ll show you how it works.”

  A pounding on the front door interrupted them, and Becker grabbed her hand and yanked her behind him, hard enough that she stumbled. Apparently, getting yanked around and put where he wanted her was going to be a thing.

  She shook loose of him and looked around his arm. Marcus was at the door, lifting his hands up, miming What the fuck?

  “I know how to use a phone, Beck. And that’s an employee of the store coming back from his dinner break. Now it’s your turn to chill.” Sage went to the door and unlocked it.

  “Everything okay?” Marcus asked, giving Becker a wary once-over.

  “Yeah, sorry. Just had to go in back for a second, and I forgot to unlock the door.”

  Now Marcus grinned. “I get it.” He held out his hand to Becker. “I’m Marcus. I guess you’re a friend of Sage’s.”

  Becker gave his hand such a firm shake that Marcus’s eyes flared wide. “Becker. And yeah.”

  “I gotta go, hon.” Becker came to her and set his hand on her hip. The touch was full of claiming, and Sage maybe should have minded, especially after the past ten minutes, but she didn’t. “Everything good?”