“It’s your table, Coop,” Eight Ball said. “You’re at the head. I’ll stand.”
Both charters of the Brazen Bulls MC were crowded into the Laughlin chapel. Everybody stood around the table because they hadn’t worked out the protocols for who would sit and where. Another issue Cooper hadn’t considered until it was a problem.
He stopped that thought before it could get off the line. This was not a big deal, just a little awkwardness. Since his talk with Ben the other day, and his later talk with Siena, Cooper was making a concerted effort to chill the fuck out.
“You’remypresident, though, Eight,” he said now. “There’s room for us both at the head. Let’s get as many of us around the table as we can. The rest can sit close at the back.”
Eight nodded, and with that, they shuffled around until everybody was seated more or less around the table. With the presidents sharing the head, nobody got precious about seating position. They just found a place to sit and sat.
“This table is something else,” Jazz said, brushing his hands over the carvings before him.
“My cousin made it for us,” Geno said with a proud grin. “He’s a real artist, man.”
“Yeah, it’s a hell of an upgrade from our beat-up table,” JJ said. “Whole fuckin’ clubhouse is an upgrade from Tulsa.” There was a dash of petulance in his tone. JJ apparently hadn’t gotten over his butthurt about his older brother, Zach, leaving Tulsa for Laughlin.
“You think he’d take an order from Tulsa?” Maverick asked Geno.
“No,” Eight said before Geno could answer. “D put the table in our chapel. It’s the only one’s ever been there. As long as it’s on its legs, it stays put.” He turned to Cooper. “But they’re right. Clubhouse looks great. This chapel looks like a chapel should. You did good, brothers.”
Mav gave him a thoughtful nod, and that particular topic ended.
Claiming the right to start the meeting, Cooper said, “I can’t tell you how glad I am to have Tulsa here today. When you were here before, we said goodbye to Gargo at the same time we took on Nevada rockers. That day was solemn, because it couldn’t be anything but. Since then, we’ve made this place our own, and when we get the shop open, Gargo’s presence will be felt even more clearly than now. So this weekend, it feels like the real birth, or maybe a rebirth of the Nevada charter.”
“Up from the ashes,” Fitz said from the opposite end of the table.
Cooper grinned. That was it. Many times, a Nevada Bull had said something about how what had gone down in Idaho, the way they’d formed their club, was like being born in fire. Cooper had thought of it, and said it, himself more than once.
Today was the rebirth. The rising.
“Exactly,” he replied to Fitz. “So we’re gonna party our asses off tonight, and ride out tomorrow. Right now, I’m giving the floor to Eight, because he’s got some business to share with us today.”
“Thank you, brother,” Eight said before he turned and faced every Bull in the country. “Yeah, we got a lot of business to talk about. Lot of changes. Some pretty interesting shit that affects us all.”
After Tulsa had ridden up to the clubhouse and Laughlin had greeted them properly, Zach had led the rest of the Bulls on a tour of the compound while Cooper took Eight up to his office for a one-on-one. Eight had told him there everything he meant to say now—and yeah, it was a lot of pretty interesting shit.
Shit that Cooper, still dealing with the occasional nightmare reliving the Perro days, had some qualms about. He sure as fuck hadn’t told anyone about the nightmares, and he was careful about couching his questions to Eight in his office so they didn’t sound like he had qualms.
It was some serious shit they were getting into again. He hoped to fuck they’d all—Volkov included—learned some lessons in the Perro days.
But fuck. They were outlaws, right? Soldiers. Ride or die.
Some of these guys, though, were still pretty green. Yeah, Laughlin had been born in fire, and not one of his brothers had balked in Idaho. They were strong. Solid. Tough. But they didn’t know what it was to be sandwiched between a Russian crime lord and a Mexican cartel king.
While Eight paused for effect, Cooper scanned the table, wondering what his brothers, who hadn’t heard the news from Tulsa yet, would think when they did.
“First thing,” Eight said, “This run we’re in the middle of right now is the last on that route. After you finish this run, the destination will change. That’s a reason the cargo is so big this time. We won’t be going back into Canada for a while after this.”
“Russians are pulling out?” Ben asked with a curious glance at Cooper.
“No,” Maverick answered. “But Niko’s making some big changes in his operation, and changes he makes almost always roll down to us.”
The news was Eight’s to share, so Cooper kept his mouth shut for now, but he focused on his own table—especially Zach, who might have heard already from his brother, which would piss Cooper off thoroughly, since Zach hadn’t said anything to him.
But Zach looked as uninformed as the rest of the Laughlin patches.
Eight picked his thread back up. “As you know, crossing borders has been a special kind of pain in the ass for a few years now. South worse than north, but neither’s been easy. That was the big appeal of the route we’ve been running—it’s not one of the better-known crossing points, and we had a border patrol agent on the payroll. That all got fucked when the Dragons double-crossed us.”
“We’re about to make that crossing in a couple days. We don’t have an agent at the border to take us over?” Zach asked.