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CAMERON
She was incredible. Amazing. And not my student anymore.
Less than a couple of years ago, the girl gyrating on the stage had been my favorite student. Not because she was great at math, but because she was enchanting, even back then. I’d been a good guy in those days though, not the bitter, twisted psycho I felt like most days since my brother died two summers ago.
I took a deep breath, my eyes closed for a second, as grief washed over me. Jamie had been killed by a drunk driver, an open and shut case since the guy that hit him was drunk as a skunk at the scene. Or it would have been and open and shut case if the guy wasn’t the county sheriff and good buddy to some powerful people in state government. Because of that asshole, my younger brother had died behind the wheel of his car, alone and in pain.
I’d tried to go back to teaching the next fall but screaming, hateful teenagers that thought the world owed them a chance to be a TikTok or Instagram star was more than I could handle. I’d left the job after a kid threw his desk at me. For a second, I’d almost given into my urge to beat the kid’s face in, to show him that he wasn’t the guy with the biggest balls in the school, but I hadn’t done that. I’d left the classroom that day, for good.
Every day since my brother died, I’d become a little more twisted up, my eyes opened to the fact that the good guys don’t really win. It was men like the crooked sheriff who won, men like Derek who won, and I’d decided that, well, maybe a life of crime was for me, after all. I’d approached Derek one night at a bar and eventually, after a grueling process to join the club, I stopped being a weekend road warrior and became a full-time club member. My job now was to make sure the records about his illicit sales stayed off the books for his legit businesses, while also keeping those books a little on the cooked side. Every dollar given to the taxman, after all, was one kept away from the club. I didn’t care, so long as I got my cut.
“What exactly is the problem that Val needs protection for?” I asked, sitting closer to the table, looking at the two men with me.
“Diesel swears she’s in danger but won’t say from what. That makes me nervous but if she’s in danger, I guess it doesn’t matter exactly what’s wrong. It simply matters that there is something wrong,” Derek answered and we both turned to glare at Diesel.
“I’m sorry, but I gotta keep that info on the DL for now,” Diesel protested, making a pushing down motion with his hands. “I might be able to deal with the problem myself, but I’d like to know she’s being looked out for, you know what I mean?”
“That’s…confusing,” I said, blinking rapidly at Diesel, my gut clenching with unease. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
The younger guy, twenty-two now if I was remembering correctly—so only six years younger than me, really—glared at me with a malice I hadn’t been capable of at that age. I was now, but not back then. How different our lives must have been, and then I felt guilt wash over me as I looked at the girl on the stage. She shouldn’t be up there dancing like that, taking her clothes off for money, but as the bills began to float down around her and onto the stage, I had the notion that she wasn’t going broke, far from it.
She might actually be on the way to stardom, especially if she got involved with social media, the way some of the girls in her business had. Not that she needed that kind of pressure or exposure, really, but yeah. I couldn’t shake off a strange sensation coming over me the longer I looked at her, a tightness in my chest, a fire in my veins that she was on view to so many assholes in the room.
I stopped my thoughts with a frown, realizing I was back in teacher mode, looking at her surreptitiously, as I had when she was my student. I’d made sure, back then, to never to never spend too much with her or looking at her. I’d watched her squirm in that chair, a look in her eyes that I took to be distress because of her need to go to the bathroom. I’d never recognized it as a young girl with no clue that what was making her squirm was desire. I’d mistaken that hunger in her eyes, the need, as distress, which was probably for the best. It was bad enough I’d had filthy thoughts, dreams about her. Those thoughts, the dreams weren’t criminal but if I’d acted on any of it, that would have been.
I was a biker now, with the badged-up vest and the Harley outside to prove it. Breaking the law was on the agenda, but little Miss Valentine was no longer jailbait. She was free, so was I, why shouldn’t I indulge myself with her? A slow grin spread over my face, and I let the conversation go as the other two men at the table bickered like two old women.
Derek’s deep, gravelly voice was darker as he spoke in a low tone. “You gonna tell me what the problem is, once and for all? Even Teach over here thinks your little explanation is confusing.”
“Like I said, boss, I’m trying to handle it, let me do that for once, right? Let me prove I’m not the fuckup you all think I am,” Diesel protested, his eyes on Val. “But, in the meantime, we need to protect her. Just in case I am the fuckup.”
“I think you’re the fuckup,” Derek said simply, but the faint lines around his eyes eased up as his face relaxed. “But, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt, Diesel. This time. Just don’t make things worse, yeah?”
“Yeah, I won’t, Derek.” Diesel nodded, his dark hair falling into his eyes.
“And get a haircut,” Derek said with a laugh, but Diesel just gave him the finger.
“Cut this,” Diesel said and brushed his hair back from his forehead and eyes.
I thought Derek would blow up at the younger club member, but he laughed, displaying perfect, white teeth marred only by a slightly crooked upper incisor on the right side. Derek didn’t seem angry at all, he seemed relaxed. I knew Derek’s best friend was Diesel’s stepdad, so maybe that accounted for Derek’s nonchalant manner with the younger man. Either way, I knew I wouldn’t be able to talk to Derek the same way and expect to walk away with my teeth still in my head and my skull not fractured.
I’d seen the guy turn from jovial and friendly to deadly in a heartbeat at the club house on the other end of town. I had to tread carefully in this situation, or I’d end up at the bottom of Lake Michigan with the rest of the poor assholes that had stepped out of line from here to Chicago over the decades. There wasn’t much I could do but sit there and try not to end up at the wrong end of the pistol tucked into the back of Derek’s pants.
“What about you, Cam? Would you be down for this?” Derek asked, making the notion I’d thought was merely a joke a whole lot of reality. Up to this point, I’d thought this was a game of ‘what-if’. The discussion about Val’s safety was serious, but I’d half-believed this was just a game, a test to see where my loyalties would fall. Now, I knew the other two men with me were very serious.
