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~oOo~
Of course Marcella didn’t stay in his office. She didn’t even make a pretense of it, but was right behind him as he followed Zach out to the back. He didn’t have time to fight with her about it, so he let her come.
“What’s goin’ on?” he asked Zach as they hooked around the corner to the hallway leading to the rear exit.
“Some shit with Kelse. That asshole she broke up with, you know?”
Kelsey was Maverick’s kid. Eight had no idea about her dating life. “No.”
Zach swung around and gave Eight a look like he should have had an idea about Kelsey’s dating life. “He’s an abusive piece of shit. Me, Jay, and Dunc handled him before Mav could get to him, ‘cuz Mav would’ve killed him. Maybe we shoulda let him.”
“What this got to do with—” he didn’t bother to finish the question, because Zach was pushing through the back door, Eight was following, and now he could see what Zach’s story had to do with the current problem.
Behind him, the party was still in full swing. Before him was a reenactment of the shootout at the OK Corral, frozen in the moment before the first bullet flew.
About fifteen or twenty feet from the tent the women called their throne room, a man Eight had never seen before stood, clutching Kelsey with one arm tight around her shoulders, holding her with her back to his side. His other arm held a fucking AR-15. With a bump stock.
Kelsey looked more pissed than scared. She had her hands around the guy’s forearm, her nails clearly hooked in like claws. Eight was surprised, actually, to see so much fight in the girl. She was a quiet little sweetheart, as far as he knew. So sweet and pretty you’d expect woodland creatures to follow her around and help her with chores.
It was Jenny who looked positively terrified. She hunkered in Mo’s arms. All the women were clustered in a knot, and several hangarounds had formed a human wall in front of them.
Rad, Maverick, Gunner, and Duncan, who was the man of honor at this party, were all drawn on Kelsey’s abusive ex.
The stalemate arose from the obvious: The Bulls couldn’t fire on the guy without risking Kelsey. Gunner was a dead-eye shot, but the guy was about the same height as Kelsey, so their heads were too close for a clear shot.
As for why the guy wasn’t pulling a mass shooting and spraying bullets until his mag ran out? Also obvious. First: clearly, he was a pussy. Second, or maybe it was 1.a: he knew he’d get dead before his mag ran out, and he clearly didn’t want that. Third: he was a fucking idiot. He’d come in here with his big steel dick extender thinking he could wave it around the Brazen Bulls compound and they’d stand back and let him drag one of their own off with him.
“Jesus,” Marcella muttered behind him. “Oh Jesus.”
Without turning around, Eight muttered back. “Go back inside, Marce. Now.” She was several layers of defense from the main action, but Eight didn’t want even the tiniest chance she could get caught in this.
Shit. Was this going to scare her off? She was already ambivalent about the club, and the talk Zach had interrupted had been full of thorny patches. Now she was about to see blood spilled on her first visit. He’d told her the clubhouse was safe. Shit, shit, shit. Fuck.
He couldn’t let that problem distract him. He could tell from the sudden dampening of sound from inside that word was moving through the partiers there about what was going on here. In a matter of seconds, there would be a much bigger crowd, and that guy with the big gun was twitchy enough.
Eight was president. This was his problem to solve.
He slid his Walther in his waistband, against his back, and stepped away from the building.
“Baby, no!” Marcella hissed.
“Inside, Marce,” he replied without looking back.
He strode out, through the wall of people shielding the women, past his men drawn on the guy. He stopped about two steps in front of them, just as the guy flinched, thinking Eight was charging at him at the pace of a leisurely stroll.
“What’s his name?” he asked, loud enough for his men to hear but low enough the guy probably couldn’t.
“Greg,” Mav snarled, making the name sound like something a cat yakked up.
“Hey, Greg,” Eight said, and the guy did flinch. Kelsey gasped as his arm clamped harder and he jerked her around a little, shifting his position so he could point the AR at Eight.
This fucking sucked. Eight was not good at not acting. He could not wait to get that rifle off the mofo and teach him a very important lesson.
First, though, he had to get Kelsey clear and make sure all the women were out of range.
“I’m Eight Ball,” he said to Greg. “I’m the president of the Brazen Bulls. If you’ve got a problem with the Bulls, it’s me you deal with.” Shifting a sliver of his attention to Kelsey, he asked, “You okay, Kelse?”
Greg changed his hold on her, twisted his hand up to grab her face. “Don’t fucking answer him!”
