So it took the entire Bulls family, the new club van, and five pickup trucks four hours to move his woman and child where they belonged.
Four hours, and four years.
Once Jenny had finally said yes, Maverick had put his considerable will, and the combined power of the old ladies, to the matter of getting it done as quickly as possible. Mo and Joanna had done more research on nursing homes, and he’d taken Jenny on a few tours. When she’d found one she liked well enough, it had had a waiting list. So he’d asked Willa if she had any contacts at the hospital who could help. She did.
Jenny had been uncomfortable with the idea that they were ‘cutting the line,’ but she’d been almost as impatient as he, once she’d made up her mind, so it hadn’t been hard to persuade her that they’d both been on a cosmic waiting list for four fucking years.
They didn’t have the house on the market yet—Jenny wanted to fix it up first—and she hadn’t decided yet whether she’d sell the bar. But those were tiny details, comparatively. On a sunny November day, with his house full of his family, Maverick knew it would all work out.
He’d allowed himself to have hope, and now he had all he could have hoped for.
“You need a swing on this tree.”
Gunner looked up into the branches of the sycamore they stood under; Maverick followed his line of sight. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. That branch is perfect. Every kid needs a tree swing.”
“I was thinking about one of those sets they have at the lumber yard.”
“Those are okay, too. But you gotta have a tree swing. Used to be one on this tree. Look—you can see the scar where the rope was. Fuck, I could run back to the station and get what we need to make one today.”
“He’s right, Mav,” Simon agreed, bringing over fresh beers. “Kid can’t grow up right without a tire swing.”
Maverick had never swung on a tree swing in his life, and no one in his thirty-five years had ever extolled the virtues of them before. There’d been a rickety metal swing set behind Iggy’s, and he remembered that the big game had been to see if you could swing hard enough to get the front legs to leave the ground completely without sending the set over. They’d also had a metal cage of a jungle gym, and a set of metal bars, in three ascending heights. All of it over hard-packed dirt. His childhood had been a collection of scrapes and bruises even before he’d discovered the ring.
But he’d been pretty good at rocking the swings—and at what they’d called the ‘dead man’s drop’ off the highest bar.
He shrugged and took a swig of his beer—Rolling Rock; Rad and Willa must have brought it. “Okay. But hold up. Let me talk to Jenny first.” He’d promised to follow her lead until he had his feet under him as a father. He needed her buy-in before he let their daughter have a tire swing.
Gunner laughed. “Damn, son. You are whipped.” Simon chuckled, too.
“Fuck you, bro. Don’t play like you wouldn’t ask Leah the same fucking thing.”
He flipped his friends off and scanned the yard. Rad, Griffin, Apollo, and Becker were lounging on the new picnic table, drinking. Delaney and Dane were checking out the new grill. Kelsey was playing house with Zach in her cottage. Jenny stood on the patio with Willa and Leah. The other old ladies and Bulls must have been inside.
Jenny and Willa laughed at something Leah said. That was something he hadn’t heard before—Jenny having a good laugh with the old ladies. Before, she’d been intimidated and shy around Mo, Joanna, and Maddie, all of whom were over forty and had been old ladies for decades. Maverick thought they’d been kind to Jenny, but she’d felt patronized. And maybe she had been. They were tough, assertive woman, all three of them, and Jenny, before, had not been.
But Willa was close to Jenny’s age, and Leah was younger—and she, too, had had a toxic relationship with her father, according to Gunner. So maybe Jenny had simply needed someone more like her to connect with. He hadn’t seen it then, but he’d had a club full of men like him. He hadn’t seen why she couldn’t value the club, the family that they were, the way he had.
This club, as it was now, offered Jenny family. Not before, but now. There was a lot he hadn’t seen before. And a lot he hadn’t heard. Now, with half his hearing gone, and near half his eyesight, he could listen and see clearly.
He saw his own place in the club again, too. His doubts and reservations, the grudge he’d harbored at the bottom of his heart for all the men who’d been living their lives while he’d been away, all of it eased, standing in his own back yard, on a crisp autumn afternoon, watching his woman and child blend into his club and become one.
~oOo~
“Can I do that?” Kelsey watched Gunner shimmy down the rope.
Crouched beside her, Maverick pulled her close. “No, pixie. The rope isn’t for climbing. It’s to hold the swing.”
“But Uncle Gun was climbing.”
“Just to hang the swing, so it’s safe for you,” Gunner said. He gripped the rope and pulled, making the tire spin gently. “Now it’s good and strong and ready.”
Kelsey stayed where she was, leaning back on Maverick’s chest. “It’s not a swing, though. We got swings at school and they’re not like that. That’s for cars.”
Jenny came over and held out her hand. “Let’s try it, pix.”
With her mother’s encouragement, Kelsey went forward, and Jenny picked her up and helped her get her legs through the tire and set her bottom comfortably. Gunner backed off, and Jenny gave the tire a little twist, just enough to rotate a couple of times.
Kelsey giggled. “It makes my tummy tickle! Can I go more?” Jenny twisted her a couple more times and let go, and Kelsey squealed with delight. “More! More!”
Still crouching nearby, Maverick felt his chest tighten, and he understood what people meant when they said their heart swelled. His felt like it was going to push straight through his ribcage.
Zach came toddle-bounding over, his arms up, headed for the swing, and Rad ran after him, sweeping him up in a wide arc and landing him over his shoulder. Zach screamed and kicked, yelling, “WANNA FWING! WANNA!”
Rad winced at the shriek in his ear. “No you don’t, buster. You’re not big enough, and your mama will have my balls for earrings.”
Maverick laughed. If he was whipped, he wasn’t the only one. They all were, from Delaney on down.
When you had the right woman, there was no other way to be.
~oOo~
“Babe, stop.” He grabbed the stack of paper-wrapped plates out of Jenny’s hands. “It’s late. This’ll all be here in the morning.”
Their family had left, at long last. Maverick had bathed Kelsey and put her to bed. He’d sent Jenny to take a shower and had thought he’d find her in bed, waiting for him, but instead, he’d closed Kelsey’s door and heard rattling and thumping and rustling in the kitchen. She was still unpacking.
“It’s not late. It’s eight-thirty.”
He set the wrapped plates on the counter and grabbed the knot she’d made in her flannel shirt, at her waist. “Yeah, well, I have other plans for the rest of the night.” He pulled her close and bent to taste the skin beneath her ear. “We’ve never fucked in this house. I want to do you in every room.”
Her sultry chuckle rumbled over his tongue as he traced a line down her throat. “Not Kelsey’s room, I hope.”
“No. Not that one. Or her bathroom. But all the others. Thought we’d start with the kitchen.” He grabbed her hips and lifted her onto the counter.
“You sure she’s really asleep?” Jenny was already breathless and undoing the knot of her shirt.
Maverick pulled open his jeans and released his cock. “Sound asleep.” He opened her jeans, and she helped him wriggle them off of her. Her panties hadn’t come down with them, but he was too impatient for that. He yanked them aside and shoved into her, groaning in harmony with her gasp. Pulling the cup of her bra down, he latched himself onto her tit and began to thrust.
“Oh, Mav,” sh
e panted, winding her limbs around him. “I love you so much.”
She’d always said that it didn’t count when he was inside her, but he’d never agreed. “That’s four,” he rasped against her chest.
~oOo~
As the Bulls dismounted, Delaney sidled up to Maverick. “You steady, brother?”
“Yeah, yeah.” He looked around the shadowy lot. This half-empty industrial park had been the site of more than a few of Montgomery’s underground fights, and he knew it well.
The president nodded. “Let’s see how bad this shit is. Everybody, stay back from Rad, Dane, and me. Stay alert and frosty. Getting the kid out in one piece is our priority. If we can do that and get out of here without anybody getting off a shot, we’ll regroup in the chapel and work out what’s next.” He turned to Maverick again. “I know you’re still holding onto that grudge with Dyson. I need you to keep holding it. We don’t know the field right now. Understood?”
“I said I’m good, D.”
Good wasn’t the right word. But he was in control. His hatred for the Dyson crew was way down on his list of priorities now. He’d had Jenny and Kelsey with him for only a few days. His main priority was to keep that life intact. He’d never forgive or forget what Dyson had done to him, but his grudge was a cold stone in his heart. Something to feel, but no longer something to do. Killing Ellison Carver had been the last of the doing.
A steel door in one of the abandoned warehouses opened with a protesting creak, and dim light wedged out onto the cracked pavement. An unarmed man stepped out, little more than a silhouette against the pale light.
“Okay,” Delaney gruffed. “Let’s see what’s what. We’re crossing enemy lines, boys. Alert and frosty. Don’t get dead. Let’s get Wally and get out of this shit alive.”
“Should some of us stay back, watch out here?” Gunner asked
“No,” Rad answered. “We don’t know what’s in there, or what’s waitin’ out here. We stick together. Don’t want a locked door splittin’ us up.”
“Could be an ambush, though. They could end the whole fuckin’ club,” Eight Ball observed.
Delaney nodded and wiped a hand over his beard. “Yeah, could be. Expect it. But where? In there, or out here? They got the leverage right now. That’s why we get Wally and get out. We’ll handle the beef later, on our terms. They set this table, and I don’t want to choke down any more of what they’re serving than we gotta.”
“We’re in the fuckin’ city limits,” Dane groused. “This is not how we work.”
“Tonight, it is. Let’s go.”
Every member of the Brazen Bulls walked toward that open door. Delaney, Dane, and Rad walked abreast in front. Ox, Eight, Becker, Apollo, and Simon made a second row. Maverick, Gunner, Griffin, and Slick brought up the rear.
The door itself was a pinch point, a vulnerability for the men walking blindly in. Maverick looked around, trying to see trouble in the lurking shadows.
He felt the weight of the gun at his back, and the second piece on his ankle. The brass knuckles in his pocket.
He felt the greater weight of his family. He’d made arrangements; Jenny wouldn’t be without support, no matter what happened to him. But he’d only had this life for a few days. The thought that it might end already leaned hard on his shoulders and made his knees want to shake.
They went single file through that steel door and followed a wending path down dank corridors, into a wide space that must have once been stock storage. Massive steel racks had been clustered against one wall. The rest of the space was empty. Hooded lights stretched down from the ceiling and made a pattern of spotlights on the damp concrete floor, leaving the rest of the space in eerie darkness.
Under one of those spotlights was a metal chair. Bound to it, beaten and unconscious, was their prospect. Wally.
“Jesus fuck,” Rad growled and pulled his gun. All the Bulls did likewise.
A rustling clatter of assault rifles being aimed answered the act, and about thirty black men—double the size of Melvin Dyson’s crew, and more than double the Bulls—emerged from shadows around the room.
“Where’s Melvin?” Delaney called.
Four seconds passed in silence before a man stepped out of the darkness and stood under one of the lights. He appeared to be unarmed.
At Maverick’s side, Gunner muttered, “Oh, fuck me.”
At the same time, Rad again grunted, “Jesus fuck.” Ox did the thing he did, where he seemed suddenly to get even bigger. His back flared out and his shoulders spread. He was already enormous, so everybody called it ‘Hulking out.’
These guys knew who that man was.
“D,” Rad said, but Delaney held up a subtle hand to stop him.
“I know.” To the man in the light, the Bulls president called, “Booker Howard. We haven’t been introduced.”
The man smiled. “But my reputation precedes me, looks like. And yours does, too, old man. Brian Delaney. King of the Bulls.”
“Just president. I take it Melvin’s not here.”
Booker Howard laughed. He wore tidy slacks and a good-fitting Polo knit shirt. He was dressed like a man who had dinner plans after golf. A conservative businessman. Except for the ostentatious, gold-and-diamond Rolex glinting in the hard light.
“That’s why I called this meeting. To serve you notice. The twenty-first century is coming up fast. The time has come for old men and old ways to make room. Melvin...let’s say he retired. There is no more Dyson crew. The Street Hounds own Northside now. I own Northside. My ways aren’t old ways.”
He hadn’t moved from his place under that light. He hadn’t even gestured. With his hands at his sides, he’d rattled off that speech like a prepared oration.
“Good for you,” Delaney snarled. “Why’d you take our boy?”
“Because he was easy, and I wanted your attention. You need to know how things are gonna be now. The Hounds want Tulsa. All of it. And I aim to make that happen.”
Delaney laughed. “Boy, you got no idea how deep you just sank. Declaring war on us is a stupid fuckin’ move.”
Howard finally moved, reacting to Delaney’s use of the word ‘boy.’ Maverick didn’t think he’d meant it as anything other than ‘young man,’ as he’d used it to refer to Wally moments before, but Booker Howard took it to mean something more offensive, and his smile disappeared.
“I got your whole club locked in this room, and I could wipe you out with a snap of my fingers.” He held up his hand as if to snap. That watch glittered. “I’m not declaring war, old man. I’m serving you and your redneck brothers your eviction notice. And one more thing.” He stepped out of the circle of light, moved through shadow, and stopped in the next circle, about six feet from Delaney and Rad. He extended his arm, his finger pointed at the end of it. “I want him.”
Gunner. He was pointing at Gunner.
“What the fuck?” Maverick muttered and moved in front of Gunner. “Fuck you.”
Howard cocked his head. “I don’t know you. Which one are you?”
“Maverick,” he snarled. He felt Gunner’s hand on him, trying to pull him off, but he shook it away. “You want him, you gotta get through me.”
Finding his smile again, Howard answered, “I do know you. You’re the one killed Jennings inside. I heard Clem Carver made you his bitch for that.”
Maverick flinched against the whip of those words uttered with his brothers all around him, but he kept his eyes locked on Booker Howard. “I’m no man’s bitch. You can ask Carver about that.”
Delaney moved then, stepping between them and breaking Maverick’s sightline. “You don’t get Gunner. Not gonna happen.”
“Then I keep the one I got.” Howard snapped his fingers, and one of his men stepped forward and aimed his rifle at Wally’s head.
“No!” Gunner shouted and tried to push forward, past Maverick. Releasing his two-handed hold on his gun, Maverick grabbed his friend and held on.
“Easy, Gun. Let D play it out,” he
muttered at his ear.
Delaney’s voice was calm. “If you think you’re gonna cause me pain over makin’ a choice between ‘em, you don’t know shit about us. That boy there is not a patch, so my choice is easy. You don’t get Gunner. But you kill that boy, and you will learn all about the Bulls. We will teach you every lesson we have. We will take our time and make sure you learn.”
“Big words from a man leading a club I can wipe out right now.”
“With a snap. So you say. But you won’t. You’re gonna give us our boy, and we’re gonna walk out of here pretty as you please. While you watch.”
Another curious head tilt from Howard. “You think so?”
“I know it. You’re smart, Booker. I see that. You gotta be to take over a fifty-year-old organization and end the son of the man who started it. Melvin’s roots went deep in Tulsa. So you must have worked some smart strategy to land where you are. You’ve done your research, I wager. You know who backs us, so you know what kind of power we have on our side. My bet is the Hounds are more than themselves, too. You have people to answer to. And they have bigger concerns than Tulsa. So you won’t start a war right here.”
“How’s it a war if I wipe you out?”
Delaney didn’t answer. Maverick couldn’t see his face, but he had the strong impression that the president was smiling.
The scene seemed to freeze. Delaney and Howard stared at each other. Except for them, and the still-unconscious Wally, every man in the space was armed and aimed somewhere. But no one moved or spoke.
At last, Howard moved. He flicked his hand back toward his men. “Cut him loose.” To Delaney, he said, “Take your boy. Get your asses out of here. But you remember tonight. We’re coming for you, old man. You and your club.”
~oOo~
“We gotta lock down,” Rad said. “Bring our women and children in.”
Slam (The Brazen Bulls MC #3) Page 29