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CHAPTER ONE
“Alright y’all. I’llbe right back with your drinks.” Before she turned toward the kitchen, the pretty server grinned at Zach.
He grinned back—and watched as she walked away. She did that thing chicks did when they knew they were walking away from an audience: brushed her hand over her ass. It was a very nice ass, in very tight jeans, and he watched until it ducked behind the counter with the rest of the chick.
When he looked back at the table, Eight Ball, president of the Brazen Bulls MC, was staring hard at him. “No,” Eight said.
“What?” Zach replied, putting as much affronted confusion into the word as he could manage, though he was neither affronted nor confused. He knew exactly what Eight meant, and exactly why he’d said it.
Zach was twenty-five years old, single, decent looking, with a body he’d worked hard to make look the way it looked. He had good ink, a worthy beard, full head of hair. And he was a patched member of a one-percenter MC.
Certified bad boy. Tall, dark, and deadly.
For a fairly wide segment of the female population, he was sexual crack, and he didn’t mind one damn bit being used for their fix. Someday maybe he’d settle down, if he found a woman like his mom, maybe—smart, pretty, and equal parts sweet as sugar and tough as nails—but until then, fast, frenzied, nameless hookups in dark corners were what was great about being a hot-blooded American bad boy. He was responsible, he was always responsible, but he had fun where he could, and fucking cuties in truck stops was fun.
“We do not have time for you to dip your wick in the cute little waitress, Zachary,” Eight said.
The eldest son of Conrad ‘Radical’ Jessup—the club’s longest-standing Sergeant at Arms, now retired—Zach had grown up in the Brazen Bulls clubhouse. For virtually all his life, he’d known Eight Ball as ‘Uncle Eight,’ and Uncle Eight had been exactly the kind of uncle kids growing up in the clubhouse of an outlaw MC enjoyed most—the kind who’d turn his back and let them get away with just about anything, who’d say and do wildly inappropriate and totally hilarious shit. He’d never paid much attention to the kids until and unless there was some corrupting he could do. Almost all the kids of Zach’s generation, including himself and his little brother, Jacob, had had their first drink—and their first drunk—courtesy of Uncle Eight. Probably their first high, too.
Then he’d gone and gotten himself an old lady and a kid, and now he acted like he was trying to make ‘dad’ his primary personality.
Which was fine; Zach didn’t need a crazy uncle anymore. He was grown and, for the most part, could do whatever the fuck he wanted—except, apparently, move on the cute little waitress with the excellent little ass.
“I was just lookin’,” he protested, and his brothers at the table with him all laughed or groaned or otherwise registered their disbelief.
Zach stuck both middle fingers up and gave the table a round of fat bird. They all laughed even louder. He smiled. He didn’t mind being the butt of some good-natured fun.
“You assholes are just jealous,” he said.
He wondered if that were really true. At the table with him today were Eight, Dex, Gargo, and Jay. Gargo was ... weird. Zach wasn’t sure there was anything that guy particularly wanted—or particularly didn’t want. He pulled a clubhouse girl close often enough, but Zach didn’t think he’d ever seen Gargo have an obviously good time at anything. He just sort ofwas.
Eight and Dex were both married. In fact, Dex hadjustgotten married a few months earlier to Kelsey Helm, one of Zach and Jay’s generation of club kids and thus one of their best friends. She was very pregnant, with like a month to go. Dex, generally quiet and intense, was noticeably jumpy so far on this run. He’d called home about a dozen times already.
Honestly, of the men sitting at this table, only his brother could be reliably said to be jealous of Zach—but that was a steady state. Jay was always jealous of Zach, whether a girl was involved or not.
They were all sitting in this truck stop diner off I-40 in western New Mexico, on the outward, and thus most dangerous, leg of the latest gun run. The owner of this ramshackle place had been experiencing delusions of grandeur when he’d put the words ‘truck stop’ on his sign. There was a weedy, pitted spot out front that could accommodate probably two semis at the most, but no actual accommodations meant for over-the-road haulers.
They’d ridden past a real truck stop in Jamestown, a vast site that was part of a national chain, with an actual overnight lot, showers, a convenience shop that was practically a full grocery, and all the other amenities that helped truckers make a home of their rigs. That place was usually crowded and too easy to draw notice. There was a balance between blending into a crowd and standing out in it.
Here, there was no crowd, and the place almost faded into the dusty New Mexico landscape. Completely anonymous and beneath notice. That was what they needed; parked on the lot outside, guarded by their prospect, Christian, and in full view of their table at the front window, was their box truck, full of crates of fertilizer.
Under that fertilizer was about $300,000 in Russian military weapons.
Their job was to get it to Laughlin, Nevada, where they’d hand it off to the Silver Dragons MC, a club based in Idaho, who’d mule the product north and across the border.
Just another day in a kutte.
This day was their last on this outward leg; the hand-off was scheduled for eight o’clock tonight. They still had about 350 miles to go, give or take. That should be an easy get in seven hours on the interstate, but Eight Ball had a bum leg, and he needed a break every hour or so to walk it off.
They’d make it in time, and comfortably so, but when Eight didn’t join them on a run, they moved about twice as fast. Which meant offloading the guns—and putting the risk behind them—that much earlier.
Zach did these runs more often than not, and he definitely preferred them without their president. He didn’t mind working outlaw, not even working bloody, and he sure loved the bank, but he had no burning desire to do time if he could help it. He liked getting the illegal product off his hands as soon as possible.
His father, despite being notoriously violent and hotheaded, not to mention a thirty-year member of the Bulls, had managed never to do real time. A few overnights in lockup, but no convictions. He’d simply been savvy enough to stay just out of law’s crosshairs.
In that as in most things, Zach considered his father his role model.
The server came back balancing on one hand a tray of iced drinks. As she set them before the men who’d ordered them, she slipped in close to Zach and leaned over, managing to give him a great view of both her excellent ass and her above-average rack. He detected a touch of bright red lace inside the V-neck of her black tee.
