Crash (Brazen Bulls MC #1)(26)

Revitalization efforts came and went. Someday, one of those efforts might take.

Rad was suspicious of ‘revitalization’ efforts. As far as he could see, that meant rich folks moving in, jacking up rents so the families who’d lived there for generations couldn’t afford their own community anymore, and turning history into nothing more than a colorful story to tell while they gave tours of their ‘edgy’ new loft to their equally opportunistic friends.

He was glad he was from the country. Farm life was hard, but rich folk never thought the deep country was cool. Too far out from the shopping malls.

Terry’s had hung in there, its roots clinging to the soil while the winds of change flattened the world around it, doing more damage than any twister ever had. It was nothing special, except that it had stayed. A third Terry, son of the second and grandson of the first, ran the place now, and all three had stood cross-armed and wide-legged through decades and ridden out the storms.

By virtue of that obstinacy, Terry’s had become a pillar of the district. Though it was a pool hall, where men—and women, too—drank seriously and gambled casually, where too much booze and too many hard losses sometimes made the men mean and scrappy, this was a place where people came together.

Rad admired it. He’d hate to have it gentrified out of existence.

Ox was just climbing down from the station flatbed when Rad pulled up in his GMC. He snagged his Glock out of the glove box and hopped down. Shoving the gun into his jeans at the small of his back, he grabbed his kutte, shrugging it over his shoulders as he met Ox near the door.

People were reeling out the door in various states of roughed-up. Each time the door swung open, the commotion inside blasted out. He checked his watch. Less than ten minutes since he’d hung up with Dane. The brawl was still in full swing.

Rad looked around at all the vehicles parked in Terry’s lot and on the street. It was crowded in there.

Ox was a mountain of a man—six and a half feet tall, broad as a barn, a body like it was cut from solid stone—and Rad was a big guy in his own right, but even so, two of them alone trying to extract the guy who’d probably started this mess was a tall f*cking order.

He had no idea whether Eight Ball and Simon were on their way. But Gunner could be getting killed in there.

The door swung open again. Two men dragging a third between them. All three were bloody. The guy in the middle was holding his stomach, and blood poured through his fingers. He’d been knifed.

“Fuck shit f*ck,” Rad muttered. Not just a brawl. A battle.

“What’s the call, Sarge?” Ox asked, his voice deceptively soft.

“We can’t wait. Eight and Simon’ll see our rides and know to come in. We get in, get eyes on Gun, and figure out how to pull him. Don’t engage unless you gotta.”

The big man nodded his cinderblock of a head. “I’ll take point.”

Rad shook his head. “Can’t see around you, brother. I’m on point.”

Just then Eight Ball and Simon roared up on their bikes, throwing up dust and gravel as they braked. They both dropped their stands and dismounted.

“What’s the sitch, Sarge?” Eight Ball asked as he landed on the sidewalk.

“Full-on melee inside, with weapons. You carrying?” Both men pulled their kuttes back to show holstered sidearms. Rad was carrying, too. He knew Ox wasn’t. The man was a shit shot. He relied on his fists, the ten-inch blade strapped to his thigh, and anything he could turn into a weapon on the fly.

“Don’t fire unless there’s no goddamn choice.” He repeated the instruction he’d already given Ox. “Get eyes on Gun. We get him out. Don’t engage anybody unless you have to. Let’s just get our brother and get out.”

With nods from all three, Rad led them to the door.

Inside was a riot. Sweet holy f*ck. Terry’s wasn’t much in the décor department—cracked concrete floor that had last been patched or painted when maybe Eisenhower was president, walls covered in booze-soaked wood paneling gouged and scratched by years of bar fights, twelve standard pool tables chosen for price and basic functionality, plain industrial lighting, a long bar made of plywood and covered with cheap green vinyl, the cheapest possible tables and chairs—but all of that was destroyed. Chairs and barstools had become weapons. The concrete floor was slippery with blood. Posters had been torn from the walls and fluttered over the fracas like paper flags.

The ancient Wurlitzer still played at high volume, John Lee Hooker belting out a warped, skittering rendition of ‘Boom Boom Boom,’ and Rad’s eyes couldn’t resist focusing there. Some poor slob was getting his head bashed in on the side of the juke, and the force of each impact made the old 45 inside jump.

The Bulls stood at the side and sought out their brother. Where the f*ck was Gunner?

Sure that Gunner had started this bullshit, Rad looked for signs of an epicenter. He found it at a pool table close to the bar.

“There!” He pointed. A man straddled a body on the table, slamming his fist down again and again. The body on the table fought limply back, and Rad saw a distinctive tattoo, a dragon with the head of a bull, on the arm that came up. Then the arm was forced down, and Rad saw that Gunner was being held to the table.

Seeing a path through the chaos, Rad charged ahead, not bothering to call his brothers to join him. He knew they’d follow.