Renaissance Read online

  SUSAN FANETTI

  Renaissance © 2021 Susan Fanetti

  All rights reserved

  Cover design: Susan Fanetti

  Images licensed from Wander Aguiar and DepositPhotos

  Susan Fanetti has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this book under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  ALSO BY SUSAN FANETTI

  THE BRAZEN BULLS MOTORCYCLE CLUB

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  EPILOGUE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ALSO BY SUSAN FANETTI

  The Brazen Bulls Birthright

  Redemption, Book 1

  Rescue, Book 2

  Resolve, Book 3

  The Brazen Bulls MC:

  (Complete Series)

  Crash, Book 1

  Twist, Book 2

  Slam, Book 3

  Blaze, Book 4

  Honor, Book 5

  Fight, Book 6

  Stand, Book 7

  Light, Book 7.5

  Lead, Book 8

  Salvage (spinoff novella)

  The Brazen Bulls Beginning:

  (Standalone Prequel)

  Wait

  THE NIGHT HORDE MC SAGA:

  The Signal Bend Series:

  (The First Complete Series)

  Move the Sun, Book 1

  Behold the Stars, Book 2

  Into the Storm, Book 3

  Alone on Earth, Book 4

  In Dark Woods, Book 4.5

  All the Sky, Book 5

  Show the Fire, Book 6

  Leave a Trail, Book 7

  The Night Horde SoCal:

  (The Second Complete Series)

  Strength & Courage, Book 1

  Shadow & Soul, Book 2

  Today & Tomorrow, Book 2.5

  Fire & Dark, Book 3

  Dream & Dare, Book 3.5

  Knife & Flesh, Book 4

  Rest & Trust, Book 5

  Calm & Storm, Book 6

  Nolan: Return to Signal Bend

  Love & Friendship

  Capital City MMA:

  Thunder, Book 1

  Crazy Cat, Book 2

  The Crossings Collection:

  Love & Other Lessons

  Impossible

  Sawtooth Mountains Stories:

  (Complete Series)

  Somewhere

  Someday

  Anywhere

  Someone

  The Pagano Brothers:

  (Complete Series)

  Simple Faith, Book 1

  Hidden Worthiness, Book 2

  Accidental Evils, Book 3

  The Name of Honor, Book 4

  Things Impossible, Book 5

  The Pagano Family:

  (Complete Series)

  Footsteps, Book 1

  Touch, Book 2

  Rooted, Book 3

  Deep, Book 4

  Prayer, Book 5

  Miracle, Book 6

  The Northwomen Sagas:

  (Complete Series)

  God’s Eye

  Heart’s Ease

  Soul’s Fire

  Father’s Sun

  The Golden Door Duet:

  (Historical Duet)

  La Bellezza (The Beauty)

  Il Bestione (The Beast)

  Historical Standalones:

  Nothing on Earth & Nothing in Heaven

  Carry the World

  Contemporary Paranormal Romance:

  The House on Bitternut Street

  As S.E. Fanetti:

  Aurora Terminus

  For the fighters.

  With love and thanks to the people I couldn’t do this without: TeriLyn and Jess for their patience and insight; Amy and Kim for making my reader group sparkle; the Freaks for having my back, and my husband and sons for loving me no matter what. I love you all.

  I built a world from this wreckage.

  ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, from Dionysian Dithyrambs

  THE BRAZEN BULLS MOTORCYCLE CLUB

  Mother Charter: Oklahoma

  Officers:

  Edgar “Eight Ball” Johnston, President

  Richard “Maverick” Helm, Vice President

  Seth “Dexter” Denson, Sergeant at Arms

  Caleb Mathews, Secretary-Treasurer

  Neil “Apollo” Armstrong, Technology Officer

  Roland “Fitz” Fitzgerald, Road Captain

  Soldiers:

  Simon Spellman

  Maxwell “Gunner” Wesson

  Miles “Jazz” Brooks

  Jacob “JJ” Jessup

  Duncan Helm

  Christian Grady

  Prospect:

  Montgomery Pickett

  Retired:

  Brian Delaney

  Conrad “Radical” Jessup

  Nevada Charter

  Officers:

  Cooper Calderon, President

  Benjamin “Big Ben” Haddon, Vice President

  Zachary Jessup, Sergeant at Arms

  Reed Haddon, Secretary-Treasurer

  Kai Lewis, Technology Officer

  Soldiers:

  Alonzo Little

  Eugene “Geno” McCord

  CHAPTER ONE

  Cooper Calderon jumped down from the U-Haul and looked up at the sky. The clouds were heavy and dark grey, and the air was so cold the vapor from each breath hung, frozen aloft, until a bitter gust of northerly wind broke it apart.

  Pulling his phone from his coat pocket, he checked the weather app again—still no forecast for anything but cold and wind until mid-afternoon, and the storm was coming from the northwest. He had a few hours to get into Texas and clear of whatever mess the the weather gods would decide suited Oklahoma.

  He would not miss Oklahoma winters.

  After he pulled the overhead door down and locked it, and slid the loading ramp into its slot and secured it, he hitched the trailer to the back of the truck and walked his Softail up onto it. By the time he had the bike secured on the trailer, his hands felt stiff and brittle with cold. He cupped them before his mouth and blew hot breath over them.

  He’d given up his Tulsa apartment when the setup crew headed to Laughlin in September. His mom had let him store his shit at her house—for a price—while he was in Nevada without a permanent address. He could have, and maybe should have, rented a storage locker instead, which would have been much nicer than the garage and
probably more secure, but at the time that had seemed like a pain in his ass.

  He’d told his Bulls brothers he’d hired a moving company and didn’t need their help today, but he’d been lying straight out his ass. The truth was he hated the sappy awkwardness of goodbyes. The thought of the Bulls all lined up to bid him adieu—or worse, ride him out of town—made his balls shrink up. He’d partied at the clubhouse New Year’s Eve party last night and said his goodbyes there, as they should be said: drunkenly and loudly.

  Now he had only one goodbye left, and it would be plenty awkward but not the slightest bit sappy.

  He stood for a moment and contemplated his mother’s house. He hated the fucking thing like he hated nothing else in his life.

  The house itself wasn’t the real source of his hatred, of course. Well, it was an absolute piece of shit, rundown as hell, with a roof so leaky his mother had a set of thrift-shop pots she’d collected specifically to catch the various leaks in rainy weather. The yard was nothing but weeds, the sidewalks were broken and heaved up, the driveway had barely any gravel left on it, and the garage was on the brink of collapse. He’d made the obligatory offers to help with repairs, but she’d shot each one down as ‘putting lipstick on a pig.’

  And she wasn’t wrong. In most neighborhoods, his mother’s house would be an eyesore her neighbors complained about, but this was Muscogee, Oklahoma, Muscogee Nation territory, and most of the houses on this street looked about the same. Some were worse.

  With no sign of his mother on the porch or at the door or a window, Cooper sighed and trudged back to the house. Though he doubted she’d really care, he supposed it would be shitty to move across the country without that last awkward goodbye.

  He went in and didn’t see her in the front of the house. He found her in the kitchen, sitting at the table with the day’s issue of the Tulsa World. An ancient beanbag ashtray sat on one of the tacky vinyl tablecloths she liked so much. This one had Christmas trees and ribbons all over it. A chipped mug of instant coffee sat beside the ashtray. Smoke from a More cigarette, probably at least her fifth of the day already, wisped up from the ashtray and mingled with the steam from the mug.

  “I’m packed up,” he said, leaning against the side of the counter.

  His mother nodded and turned the page of her paper. Without looking up, she asked, “Did you get that box of shit I put on the porch?”

  That ‘shit’ was his trophies and plaques from soccer teams and Brazilian jiu-jitsu tournaments when he was a kid. But he was long past being hurt by his mother’s entire lack of interest in him. “Yeah, I got it.”

  Cooper’s mother was half Muscogee Creek, on her mother’s side. Her father had been an Anglo white man who hadn’t stuck around to be a dad, so she’d been raised by her Native family here in Muscogee. Raised, but not necessarily accepted. Her family had some ideas about mixing with whites, so they’d looked on a mixed-race child as someone who, while family, wasn’t quite worthy. She hadn’t had an easy childhood, and it had made her into a bitter woman.

  Then she’d gone and married an undocumented Salvadoran immigrant and did some more mixing. Cooper, with three ethnicities pumping through his veins and accepted by none of them, hadn’t had an easy childhood, either. There was a reason he’d earned his first-degree black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu when he was nineteen years old, at the earliest possible chance.

  He’d worked hard not to let it all turn him into an asshole, and he thought he’d mostly succeeded. But he was pretty sure it had turned him into someone who’d never really connect with anyone in a significant way.

  It had been better when his father was alive. He hadn’t been an easy or loving man, either, but he’d been more interested in Cooper than his mother ever had been. Their marriage had been shit—they’d gotten married for a lot of reasons, including Cooper himself, but none of those reasons were love or even much affection.

  Also for a lot of reasons having nothing to do with love, they’d stayed together. They hadn’t had any more children, however. Cooper wouldn’t be surprised were he ever to learn they hadn’t fucked each other again after he’d inconveniently popped up as a line on some plastic stick.

  This house had always been tense as fuck, but his father had tried to be a decent-enough father most of the time. As an adult, Cooper could look back on his childhood and be pretty sure his father had paid attention to him because it was a way to make Mom look bad by comparison, but whatever. At least back then, someone had made sure he got to his soccer and BJJ shit, signed his report cards, remembered his birthday, all that. He might also have given Cooper a good hard smack on the regular, for reasons that weren’t always legitimate, or even comprehensible, but, you know. Take the good with the bad.

  Anyway, his dad was dead, and his mom was ... this woman right here, small and skinny, with a pack-and-a-half habit, looking like a hunk of beef jerky with a grey buzz cut, and with a personality to match.

  “I’m gonna go, Mom.”

  She picked up her brown cigarette in brown fingers wrinkled and scarred from years of beadwork and took a long drag. She didn’t speak until she’d savored it and blown it back out.

  “Okay, then.” She set the cigarette back in the ashtray and pushed her chair back. When she’d stood and taken the three steps that brought her from the back of the table to the middle of the kitchen, she said, “I guess you want a hug?”

  He laughed. Shit like this didn’t hurt anymore. It didn’t. “Not unless you want to hug me.”

  She considered the question for a moment. Then she put up her arms. Cooper went to her, bent practically in half, and hugged her. She was about as soft as jerky, too.

  “Bye, Cooper. Don’t fuck it up out there.”

  Yep. Incredibly awkward and not the slightest bit sappy.

  “Bye, Mom. I won’t. Take care.”

  “Yep.” She stepped back. Then she went back to her paper and her cigarette.

  Cooper turned and left his mother’s house.

  For good.

  ~oOo~

  The ride from Tulsa to Laughlin was about as straight a shot as it could be: hop on the interstate and head west, stop when you get there. Seeing as he was on his own, with no one else to worry about, Cooper planned to drive straight through. Maybe stop at a truck stop for a meal and catch a nap if he needed it, but more likely just mainline Monsters and blare Rage Against the Machine until he got his ass where he was taking it. That plan had the bonus of not leaving all his shit and his Softail on the lot of some roadside roach motel overnight.

  The plan got him to Albuquerque, which was about the two-thirds mark of the trip. He hit the city about an hour past sunset—which came stupidly early on this first day of the Year of Somebody’s Lord Two Thousand and Twenty-Two—and the thought briefly occurred to him that, if he wanted to stop for more than just gas and a Hot Pocket, he could find a La Quinta or something else halfway decent here to crash at. But the holiday had the traffic sparse, and it seemed stupid not to capitalize on that and get home before dawn.

  Home. Laughlin, Nevada was home now. It already felt more like home than Muscogee, Oklahoma ever had.

  Instead of doing a Bugs Bunny and making a left at Albuquerque, Cooper pulled another Monster from the little Igloo on the passenger seat, cued up some Audioslave on Spotify, and pushed a little harder on the U-Haul’s gas pedal.

  ~oOo~

  About an hour later, while Cooper was downing his ... seventh? eighth? twelfth? canned caffeine concoction and belting out ‘Show Me How to Live’ with Chris Cornell, red and blue lights flashed in the full dark of the desert night.

  “Fuck!” he muttered as he glanced in the side mirror and saw precisely what he expected to see: the source of all that obnoxious fucking light.

  From pure, deeply ingrained instinct, his first thought was to floor it and make a chase of it—but that was stupid. First, he was driving a goddamn U-Haul and towing his bike. There was no ‘flooring’ to be done, and any chase would last ab
out two minutes. Also, he hadn’t done anything fucking wrong. His cargo was a cheap leather sofa, an expensive king-size mattress, several boxes of mismatched kitchen shit, and a slightly embarrassingly large collection of blue jeans and black boots. Not Russian guns.

  However, he was a medium-brown Latino-Native man with a fuck ton of ink, and that pretty much meant he was assumed to be wrongdoing even when he wasn’t doing wrong. He wasn’t even wearing his kutte; it was draped over the top of the passenger seat. He didn’t wear it when he drove a fucking U-Haul.

  There was a gun in the cab, which could be extremely bad—but it was his registered sidearm, it was holstered, and it was not on his person right now. If he got a chance to explain all that.

  With no other choice, Cooper pulled onto the shoulder, hit the hazards as soon as he figured out where they were, turned off the music, unbuckled his seatbelt, put down the window, collected the rental agreement paperwork and his driver’s license, and put his hands, holding all that, on the steering wheel where Officer Friendly could see them.

  Then he watched in the side mirror. It took the cop—probably a trooper—a while to get out of his cruiser, so he was certainly running the plates of both the U-Haul and the Softail. When he ran the bike, he’d get his name, and shortly thereafter would discover the delicious fact that Cooper Javier Calderon had done twenty-seven months for aggravated assault—the result of a bar fight he had not started but had decisively finished. His stretch had ended more than ten years ago, but that likely wouldn’t matter.

  Finally, the cruiser’s door opened. Cooper squinted at the mirror, trying to see through the bright headlights, the flashers, and the cop’s flashlight.

  Oh goody. Big fat white dude in a trooper hat. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Bet that motherfucker’s body cam was ‘malfunctioning.’

  The trooper stopped about six feet back from the driver’s door.

  “Good evening, officer.”

  “Cooper Calderon?” He pronounced Cooper’s last name with all short vowels, which seemed weird. You’d think a New Mexico trooper would have encountered a pretty standard Latino name like that many times. But it didn’t matter.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Mr. Trooper Man drew his gun. Of course he did. “I need you to get out of the truck. Slowly. Show me your hands.”

  Knowing the drill, Cooper did not ask what the problem was, or what he’d done wrong. Those were white-people questions.