Crash (Brazen Bulls MC #1)
Susan Fanetti
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 f*ck 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 *. 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 f*ck 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 f*cking 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 *. His ex, among others, would say that was a certified guarantee.
He f*cking hated being called an *.
Delaney, their president, sliced his fork into his 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 f*ckin’ 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.