Page 85 of Resolve (Brazen Bulls Birthright 3)

So much for acting like a president.

Caleb’s phone went off then. It sat face-down on the glass table top, and the vibration of the phone on the glass and the glass against the table’s flimsy metal frame was like the whole room filled with static.

He flipped it over. “It’s Eight.” He hesitated, looked around the table, and decided he didn’t need to go anywhere for privacy. He answered on speaker. “Hey, Prez. You’re on speaker. Coop, Gargo, Zach, Ben, and Reed are with me. That’s the Laughlin table so far. What’s up?”

Eight Ball’s gruff voice came through like a loudspeaker. “We got trouble. The Dragons didn’t make their drop.”

Every man sitting at this cheap table looked at every other man sitting with him. Two days ago, they’d handed off to the Dragons for the last time. It was a smaller order, mostly ammo and mods, with some handguns and semi-auto rifles, but it was still a six-figure cargo. They should have handed it off to the buyer that morning.

“Did theyhavetrouble, or are theymakingit?” Cooper asked.

“Apollo tracked their van back to Idaho. Looks like they got home and stopped.”

“Maybe something just slowed them down?” Caleb suggested.

“Maybe, but Wash is sending me straight to voice mail, so I’m thinkin’ we got real trouble here. We can’t tell if they offloaded before Idaho or if the van’s sittin’ in Twin Falls full of Russian steel. Got to run the route and make sure, and Tulsa can’t get there fast enough. It’s on you, fellas. Please fuck, tell me you can handle it.”

“We got it, Eight,” Cooper said, and sounded absolutely confident.

Zach hoped like hell that confidence was real and not misplaced.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Singing along to theplaylist she had running through the house speakers—currently it was The Pretenders—Lyra flipped the laundry, got the washer and dryer started up again, and collected the basket of whites she’d just pulled from the dryer. She carried it to the kitchen and set the basket on a chair so she could fold the clothes. Brutus followed because she was the only one home and he seemed to think his primary job was ‘escort.’

She hated folding laundry at the kitchen table, but it was the best place in the house to do it. From the time she was about ten, she’d started thinking of the things she’d want in her perfect home. Those ideas had evolved over time—when she was ten, she wanted a turret with stone steps and a stable for fifty horses—but she still thought about her perfect house almost every day. One thing she knew for sure she’d want if she ever did get a chance to build a house to her specifications was a laundry room with a roomy folding counter.

Nowhere near as interesting as a stable full of fifty solid-black Arabian horses, but much more enticing, now that she was grown and in charge of this big house that she hadn’t designed to her specs.

As she folded the clothes and made stacks for her dad, her brother, and herself, now singing along with The Runaways, Lyra contemplated the sharp turns her life was suddenly taking on the regular.

For most of her life, the image of her future had been static: a straight, flat road leading exactly nowhere. She’d had no plans for any kind of substantive change. Any dreams she’d had, she’d recognized as fantasies. Yes, she loved to make art, but she knew she’d never make a living from it, or even a name. There was only the one Georgia O’Keeffe, and she’d been basically the only one to get famous painting desert flowers.

Lyra’s art Insta had about four thousand followers, which to her felt like a huge number, but when she’d tried to offer prints for sale, she’d made less than a hundred dollars. People just liked to mutter ‘oh, pretty,’ when her posts hit their feed, tap the heart, and move on. Maybe leave a comment if they thought it was particularly great—or if they had something of their own to promote.

No, she’d never seriously considered being an artist for a living. Her job was being part owner of the family business. She cleaned up blood and guts and shit for a living and always would.

Years-long fantasy of her custom house notwithstanding, she’d never even seriously considered moving out of this house. She and Michelle occasionally thought about getting an apartment together, but they always petered out before an actual plan got started.

Michelle’s mom needed her. She’d been flattened, emotionally and financially, by Mr. Strong’s death, and still relied on Michelle for both emotional and financial health. And Pop needed Lyra. Maybe not in the same way, but on his own he’d be like one of those TV-sitcom husbands who didn’t know how to get ice from the dispenser. An exaggeration, but not a crazy one.

If she wasn’t around, he’d figure it out, of course. Reed, too. They were smart men. But for all her life, she’d never thought she wouldn’t be around. No real relationship after Tommy, no plans for a career beyond the family business, nowhere really to be except home.

That had all seemed fine to her. Truly. She loved her family, and she simply didn’t have big ambitions. So she’d been rolling along that flat road, comfortable in knowing exactly where it would take her: where she already was.

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