Crash (Brazen Bulls MC #1)(87)

Apollo, the other Bull on this run, was riding behind the truck. Rad didn’t know what he knew or if he was already in trouble.

They were on a highway in rural Oklahoma—no other traffic on this side of the road at the moment, but that could change at any time, and there was light traffic on the other side. He didn’t want bullets flying at all if he could help it, but he knew he hadn’t misread the situation. Those riders meant trouble.

They’d come from behind. Had they followed from Nebraska? Was this a Riders beef they were caught up in? Something they’d missed in their research?

No. He knew what it was. As he turned and rode back that direction on the inner shoulder, hearing his enforcers following behind him, he knew exactly who they were facing: Dirty Rats.

This was an ambush, then. How had they known where to set it?

As if they’d been waiting for him to do exactly what he’d done—turn around and come their way—a shot rang out, and the windshield of the box truck spiderwebbed. The truck veered wildly, skidded, tires screeching, and ran off the road, bouncing into the field until it hit a shallow ditch and rocked to a stop.

Rad saw it in his peripheral vision, and spared a thought for Slick. But front and center was the shootout that had exploded with that first shot. All the bikes were down, riders were using them as cover, and bullets flew back and forth.

Between shooting and ducking, Rad tried to get sights on Delaney and found him and Dane both down in the median, using the slight dip of the ground to increase the coverage their bikes provided. Ox was ahead of them, providing cover fire to keep the leaders safe.

Good. Rad needed to find the Rats leader and cut the head off the goddamn snake. Rising up to a higher crouch, he scanned the area. The headlights from the dropped bikes threw light and shadow in odd ways, making aim difficult for both sides. It was too dark to make out anybody’s flash, and none of the Rats seemed to be getting extra coverage—

Out of nowhere, Rad was punched in the shoulder, and he flew off his feet, landing hard on his back. As soon as he was on the ground, a black Expedition skidded to a stop mere feet from his head, and three Russians jumped out, armed with AKs.

As Rad slammed his hand over his new bullet wound, the air filled with the sound of automatic weapons fire.

It was over in seconds after that. The Rats who managed to escape the AK fire ran like little bitches. Four Rat bodies and their bikes were sprawled across the pavement. Slick had been hit; the bullet shot into the truck windshield had skimmed off the side of his head, leaving a gouge above his ear, but doing no more damage than that and probably a concussion. The box truck had some damage but still ran. Rad had a bullet in his shoulder. Becker had a case of road rash on his arm. But that was it.

Thank God for Russian steel.

It seemed like they’d been blocking the road for hours, but from his first notice of the Rats behind them to this moment of aftermath had probably been five minutes, if that. There were no other cars on the road, not in any direction. It was conceivable that there had been no witnesses to all of this. It was a dazzlingly lucky strike, and it wouldn’t be the case for long.

Rad stood, holding his shoulder, reeling from the pain and the growing blood loss, trying to think. They had to get out of here. They had to get the truck back on the road, get the bikes into it, get—

A whole lot of Russian yelling drew his attention, and Rad turned toward the Expedition. He didn’t make sense of what he was seeing at first—the back doors were both open, a Volkov man leaned into the back seat on each side. Misha was yelling at Delaney in Russian.

As Rad’s pain and blood loss began to make the ground tilt and the air thicken, he saw a small hole in the Expedition’s windshield, and he realized that Kirill was not standing among the Russians.





CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO



Willa sat at her patio table and enjoyed the warm morning while Ollie did his last piss-and-sniff before she and Griffin headed to the hospital. Griffin was inside, chugging her coffee and raiding her fridge.

Usually it was Wally or Slick who sat all day in the waiting room while Willa was on shift, but when Rad left before dawn that morning, it was a droopy-eyed Griffin, one of the younger patches, who’d taken his place.

She wasn’t surprised; Rad had told her that the club had increased security on all the old ladies since they were going to be two states away and were still taking extra precautions against the chance that the Dirty Rats were looking to, as Rad called it, ‘beef’ with the Brazen Bulls.

It had been two weeks since she’d killed Jesse, though. Two weeks of quiet. From what she knew about the Rats, they didn’t seem like the kind of club that took their time and made a careful plan before they acted.

However, she didn’t mind her leather-clad shadows nearly as much as she’d thought she would. They were polite and careful not to get in her way or anybody else’s, and she had gotten to know the prospects pretty well. They were nice kids.

Willa chuckled to herself. Slick and Wally were twenty-six and twenty-eight, respectively. She was thirty. She hardly had the age on them to call them kids. But Rad did, and she’d picked up the habit of thinking of them in the same way. Kids.

Kids. She was going to have a kid.

Just like the month before, because she and Rad weren’t as diligent about birth control as two people old enough to know better should have been, she’d been watching and waiting for her period. When she’d been late, she’d kept her mouth shut, waiting a couple more days, with the thought that all the turmoil with Jesse might have jostled her usually clockwork cycle. She had no symptoms—no queasiness, no tender breasts, nothing. Maybe she was just late.