Crash (The Brazen Bulls MC Book 1)

by Susan Fanetti

  One of Kirill’s men said something in Russian, his tone and his face leering, and the others laughed. Kirill turned an angry look on them and said something in Russian in a low, deadly voice. All the Volkovs straightened right up.

  Kirill nodded toward Ox. “Maddie, she is yours, no?”

  Ox nodded, slowly, ready to get his back up.

  Rad squared his shoulders. Fuck, the Russians were going to start the shit.

  “She is beautiful woman. I make apology for my men.”

  Ox nodded again, this time with more ease. “Accepted.”

  When they went into the chapel, Ox held back, and Rad saw him catch Maddie’s hand and say something to her, then kiss her cheek and head for the chapel.

  The men took their seats—Delaney, Dane, and Rad in their usual places, Kirill at the opposite end, with his men on either side. The Horde officers took up the remaining seats. The other members of the Bulls and the Horde stood.

  When the vodka and glasses were delivered on a tray, it wasn’t Maddie who brought it in. It was Kymber, a regular sweetbutt. Kirill made eye contact with Ox and gave him an understanding nod.

  Okay. One crisis averted.

  Delaney poured vodka for everyone and passed the glasses around. This was a thing Kirill always wanted to do—to open and close every sit-down with a toast. No big oration, just za vstrechu at the beginning and vashe zdorovie at the end, and everybody knocked back a glass of vodka. Rad had looked the words up in a Russian-English dictionary. It had taken him some time to figure out the spelling, but he was fairly sure the first one meant ‘to our meeting’ and the last meant ‘to your health.’ Pretty standard and danger-free.

  Kirill held up his glass. “Za vstrechu.” His Russian companions and the Bulls echoed him. The Horde simply nodded, except for Little Ike, who tried saying the words. At Kirill’s nod, everyone drank.

  And it was time for business.

  “I make this meeting to know men who carry our wares over two states. To work with strangers is not good business, yes? We never hear of your club, the…Night Horde, until Brian say about you. I see for myself.” He looked directly at Big Ike. “This your club, I think.”

  “I’m the president. I started it. So yeah, it’s my club. But all Horde have a say.”

  “You do not do this work before. You are sure you can?”

  Rad saw Big Ike’s composure begin to tatter. “The Horde protects our whole town. We can protect your guns.”

  Kirill didn’t like that answer. He wanted humility from the Horde president. He wanted Big Ike to show that he understood where the power tipped at this table.

  It was the Bulls’ table, but in this meeting, the power tipped away from Delaney, and nowhere near Big Ike. Shit, the Volkovs had only been in the country for about five years, and already they were stretching their reach from coast to coast. With Kirill’s mother, Irina, at the helm, they’d made themselves a force to be reckoned with back east, where the Italians had reigned unchallenged for decades, until the Feds had finally started finding cracks in their sacred omerta.

  Russian families like the Volkovs grew up in those cracks. They’d found their power and strength in the Soviet era and come to the US after Gorbachev opened the markets and killed their business. If anything, they were tougher and more dangerous than the Italians.

  So yeah, Kirill had the greatest gravitational pull at this table, and wise men knew how to acknowledge that without kneeling.

  Big Ike wasn’t that wise. He met Kirill’s steady look with one of his own. Finally, Kirill turned to Delaney. “You wish to put your good name on this deal, Brian?”

  Delaney considered Big Ike. The table nearly groaned from the weight of the tension among all the men. Then he faced Kirill again. “Yes. This is a good deal. Gives you a better route through the Midwest. Straight shot from Indiana to Tulsa, and then we got it from there. The Horde won’t let us down.”

  Kirill stared into his empty glass. While he thought, if that was what he was doing, no one spoke. Rad scanned the table, trying to pinpoint where trouble would start if it was going to. He didn’t think Big Ike would be the first to move, though he would likely be the catalyst. No, it would be Kirill’s right hand, Misha, the big man at his side, who was always at his side.

  Rad’s job would be to hold the Horde back, not to go for Misha. Whatever was going on between Delaney and Big Ike, the Bulls’ best friends in this room were from Russia, not Missouri. He wanted his club on the right side if this went wrong.

  After a full minute at least, Kirill looked up at Delaney. “You have my trust, Brian. You have my mother’s trust. We have building good…uh…svyaz…good…”—his eyes sought the right word in the ceiling above them—“relationship, yes?”

  “Yes, Kirill. A very good relationship.”

  “Then I extend this trust I have for you to your friends.”

  Before Rad could let out a breath in relief, Kirill added, “But one thing more I need. This run, this first. Your men to join Night Horde on it. To see things are right. The take, you will share equally. If all is well, then Horde take over after.”

  He wanted the Bulls to ride with the Horde—all the way to Indiana and back—as their babysitters. For half a take. Shit. That would be a whole lot of bikers around that truck. Hard to keep a low profile. They’d have to make up some kind of law-abiding reason for a two-club run.

  That scramble was the least of the problems at the moment.

  “The Horde don’t need a minder.” Big Ike spat the words at Kirill, and Rad went tense again.

  Kirill studied Big Ike as if he found him quite interesting, but he didn’t give him a reply. Instead, he turned back to Brian. “This is how we go. Or we don’t. But I like this…as you say…’straight shot’ in middle. If not this way, maybe we find another.”

  He’d returned his attention to Big Ike as he’d spoken the last sentence. Rad didn’t know if Big Ike heard what Kirill was really saying, but Rad did, as did Delaney—and he thought at least a couple of Horde had heard it, too.

  Kirill was saying that the Horde would work with the Volkovs on the their terms, or the Volkovs would take the route by force.

  Little Ike, standing behind Frank, took a step toward the table. “Sounds good. Always like riding with friends.”

  Little Ike wasn’t an officer, but he was a patch, and if the Horde was anything like the Bulls or most any other MC Rad knew, that meant he had a voice and could use it when he wanted. But his father was obviously irate. A vein in Big Ike’s temple swelled and throbbed so forcefully that Rad could see it from across and down the table.

  Before he could speak, though, Reg, his VP, set his hand on his shoulder. “Makes sense that we both try each other out. Make sure we like working together.”

  Nice. Frame it to give Big Ike a way to save some face, pretend that it was a mutual trial. Rad checked to see if Kirill was content with that, and he was nodding at Reg.

  Big Ike nodded, too. “It does make sense. Okay.”

  There were so many silent sighs of relief in the chapel at that moment, Rad would have sworn the temperature went up.

  ~oOo~

  Once they were out in the party room, though, things got interesting again. Rad was going to have a fucking ulcer before the night was over.

  Right there in front of two clubs and five members of the Volkov family, including their second-in-command, Big Ike charged at his son, driving his hands into Little Ike’s chest.

  Or his belly, actually. The son had a good eight, nine, ten inches on the father. But the father didn’t seem to care. He didn’t say a word, just bellowed like an animal and slammed into his son.

  None of the Horde moved to do anything to stop the confrontation. It was like they wanted it to happen. But Rad did not. Not here, not now. He gestured to his men, and Ox and Eight Ball joined him to head toward the scene and get it under control.

  Before they got in the middle, though, Rad saw Little Ike’s eyes, and he put up his ha
nds to hold his men.

  The son put his hand around his father’s neck and held him away. He was obviously not squeezing hard enough to cut off Big Ike’s breath. He didn’t take a swing. He didn’t lift the smaller man. He didn’t throw him. He simply held him off, out of reach.

  It looked like what Rad’s brother, Chris, had so often done when they were kids and Rad—he’d been Connie back in those days, or Conrad when their father was coming for him—had gotten angry and tried to fight his older brother. Chris would just grab hold of him and stiffen up his arm, and Rad wouldn’t be able to reach him to land a punch.

  Chris would laugh and laugh until Rad caught the bug and was laughing, too.

  Little Ike held his father steadily, and eventually his father stopped trying to get to him. For a few seconds, the two Lundens glared silently at each other. The room around them, filled with close to fifty people, was just as silent.

  “You want to go again, old man?” Little Ike asked in a voice like a low rumble of thunder. “I said you wouldn’t touch me again and live. Is this that day? I’ll just stand here and squeeze. Be a fitting way for you to go, wouldn’t it?”

  Delaney reacted sharply to that and stepped forward. “We got a ring, brothers. If you need to work this out, it’s at your disposal.”

  In a loud voice obviously intended to show that he had not lost his power, though his son’s hand was still around his throat, Big Ike said, “No need, D. I’m sorry we brought this personal shit into your house.” To his son, he said, “Don’t ever talk over me at a meet.”

  Little Ike released his father. “I’ll speak when I have somethin’ to say. I’ve got the same patch on my back as you.”

  Then he turned and walked to the bar. On the way, he hooked his arm around one of Maddie’s girls, a curvaceous little blonde, and brought her with him, his hand on her ass.

  When Rad turned back to the place where that scene had gone down, Reg was leading Big Ike toward the door that opened on their patio.

  Kirill had come up to Delaney, and Rad moved closer, in case his president needed him. Though Kirill spoke quietly, only for Delaney’s ears, Rad was close enough to hear.

  “You are friend of father, I know, but he and I will not be friends, I think. I like son. He will lead Horde runs. Not his father. You will make this happen.”

  Delaney stared in the direction Big Ike and Reg had gone. He looked tired and older than his years. “I will.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  In the time that she and Rad had been together, Willa had come to feel differently about time alone, a conflicted feeling she hadn’t had before.

  Before Rad, for the most part, alone was just what she’d been when she wasn’t at work. She’d been watchful and guarded when she was away from home and alone, and she’d been quiet and content inside her little home with her dog, and that had been her life.

  Other than a few unsuccessful attempts at dating, she hadn’t thought often about it ever being anything else.

  Now, Rad was with her whenever they both had free time, and Willa’s time on her own felt different—both more lonely and more precious. She missed him, but she also stretched her wings a little, remembering what it was like not to have to think about anyone but herself. No negotiations, no compromises.

  However, she felt less safe when he wasn’t with her—less safe than she had before she’d known him. As if having someone to lean on had weakened her.

  She didn’t like that.

  Whenever he left town, he put one of the prospects in charge of checking on her a few times a day—Wally or Slick would call the hospital during her shifts and knock on her door once or twice when she was home. Willa wasn’t sure if that made her feel safer or weaker or both.

  She’d told Rad she didn’t want people following her around all day, but he’d assured her that it was standard procedure to check on old ladies while their men were away.

  That was what she was now: Rad’s old lady. He wanted her to ‘keep his flame’—get a tattoo that marked her as his. He’d brought that up the night they’d first shared ‘I love yous,’ while they were sitting naked on the floor eating pizza.

  His ‘flame,’ he’d explained, was a tattoo of a heart on fire, with his name over it. All the old ladies had one like it, apparently, though they didn’t all look exactly the same.

  Willa had always thought it was straight stupid to ink someone else’s name on your skin, unless that name was ‘Mom’ or ‘Dad’—or your kid’s. Or your pet’s. But she could see plainly how important it was to him.

  She’d told him she needed to live with loving each other for a while first, before she’d be ready for a tattoo. He’d pushed the point for a bit and then relented. Giving in had seemed almost literally painful for him, but he’d done it.

  For the past few days, though, a little pressure was leaking out around the edges of his restraint, and he’d kiss her shoulder, or her chest, or her arm, and say something about how good his flame would look right there.

  She wanted to get the tattoo, and not just to make him happy. She wanted the commitment that it meant. But it was too soon—just a few days shy of two months. Her brain needed to make the call, not her heart or any other part of her.

  Rad was on a big run now, planning to be out of town for at least three days. The last two coincided with her days off, and as she finished an unremarkable shift on the first afternoon, Willa looked forward to a quiet evening, and then two more days of being able to read and garden and do whatever she wanted—and not feel any pressure about things that Rad wanted.

  In the parking lot, on her way to her bike, however, the hairs on the back of her neck stiffened, and she turned around, sure that someone had been staring at her. Her first thought was that it would be a prospect, but no one was behind her, and neither Wally nor Slick skulked.

  It was shift change, and it was a warm afternoon at the end of May, so there were lots of people around, walking to or from their own vehicles. A couple of doctors in green scrubs and white coats stood on the sidewalk, chatting. A man carrying several pink floral arrangements wended his way between parked cars. She recognized him from her ward. He must have parked in the staff lot to pick up his wife and new daughter.

  No one unusual, no one paying her any mind. But she still felt that sense of being watched.

  Her impulse was to chalk it up to paranoia, to that growing sense that having Rad in her life was weakening her ability to keep herself safe. She made it all the way to her bike thinking she needed to get a grip on herself.

  But the prickling skin on the back of her neck wouldn’t calm down.

  There was a long row of tall hedges between the staff lot and the street that led to the hospital campus exit. An image flashed in her mind, a few frames from a movie: Halloween. The early scene when Laurie was walking home from school with Annie, and Michael Myers stepped out from behind a hedge. Cue that scary chord in the soundtrack, the one everybody in the world knew.

  Great. Now she was putting herself in a slasher movie. Paranoid indeed.

  But Willa had been attacked. Someone had raped her and tried to kill her. Twice. It wasn’t paranoia. It was a lesson learned.

  And she was a good student.

  She walked to the end of the hedge and looked around it.

  A line of cars waiting at the light to exit the campus. A minivan turning in from the street.

  Across the street, directly opposite her, a man walking away, into the public lot. Longish, bushy dark hair. Wearing a denim jacket and black jeans. The only thing unusual about him was his position—it was hard to say where he’d come from, since he was walking parallel with the hospital, from a side edge of the parking lot.

  Unless he’d come from where Willa now stood, at the end of this row of hedges.

  The man walked without turning or looking around at all. He wasn’t hurrying. She squinted, trying to decide if that was Jesse, finding her at last. His hair was the right color, but Jesse always kept his much s
horter. He was the right height, maybe, though his shoulders slumped, and Jesse always stood ramrod straight. This man was thicker than Jesse, and had a soft look about him, from what she could see from his diminishing back. Jesse was lean and fit.

  He had been all those things when Willa had last seen him. Years ago.

  She didn’t know if that was Jesse. She didn’t know if that man had been watching her at all.

  But she watched him. Standing at the end of the hedges, on a narrow strip of concrete that was not intended to be a sidewalk, she saw him walk down the center lane of the public lot and stop at a brown van—an old one, with a round window at the back like a porthole. She didn’t recognize it.