The rest voted for Rex, too, leaving a permanent scowl on my VP’s face. I knew he had nothing against my son. Molar wasn’t the kind to trust easy. That was why he was my VP. He was the sound of reason if I was blind by emotion. God knew my temper didn’t make shit easy, and recently I discovered my heart wasn’t all black, and that could be the worst kind of blind.
I patted his back, knowing he was giving Rex tough love for his own good. He rose and brought the cut himself. After I read Rex the rules, and he took his oath, I gave him his cut.
Putting the Night Skulls’ cut on my boy was one of the happiest moments of my life. Fuck, I was as happy as the day he was born. “Welcome to the Night Skulls. Are you sticking to Rex?”
“Yes,” he said.
My brothers tapped the table with their fists in salutation and roared in celebration. Then I informed him about Jo. He took it surprisingly well.
“Until then, Miss Meneceo should act normally,” he said.
“Yeah, she’s a young, uptown teacher, and has no kids of her own. She won’t sit around on her ass all day,” Marshall, the wise ass Treasurer, said. “She has to find a job and do her thing, and then go to the mall or whatever bitches do these days.”
“I won’t let her go out alone,” I said. “And y’all have a lot of work to do. Me, too. Who’s gonna drive her around and keep an eye on her?”
“I can do it,” Rex said.
“Do you even know how to fight? Or shoot? Have you ever fired a gun, Rex?” Molar asked.
“Yes, and yes. I have yet to take a life, but I will if I have to.”
“Puh-lease. You can’t shoot a hen.”
“Furore, think about it,” Rex told me. “I—”
“Prez,” Molar interrupted. “He’s Prez now.”
“Prez,” Rex amended with a scoff, “she will work at a school. I’m a student. We, in the same school, will look normal and won’t raise any suspicions. I get to go and leave with her, which means she’ll always have someone to watch over her, and the mob ain’t that stupid to pull any shit on campus.”
Molar narrowed his eyes at Rex. “I thought you dropped out.”
“Well, that’s about to change.”
“It’s a fine idea,” Hook rasped, “not that your ol’ lady needs any protection.”
Fort and Marshall laughed.
Texas jabbed a finger at them. “That shit ain’t funny. My leg is half-broken.”
“How can it be half-broken? It’s either broken or not,” Marshall said.
They were going to bicker, so I gaveled. “Church dismissed.” I turned to Rex. “I like the idea, but I can’t say yes. Not until I ask her first.”
“What do you think she’s gonna say?”
CHAPTER 9
Jo
“Absolutely fucking not.” I leaned my hip against the kitchen counter, folding my arms across my chest, my eyes wide at Laius. He was irritably calm, smirking at me behind the smoke of his coffee. How could he be okay with this? Could he not see that was Tirone’s plan all along? To get me and him in forced proximity away from Laius so he couldreclaimme? Of course, he couldn’t. He didn’t know anything, and it was all my fault.
“You’re being unreasonable, Miss Meneceo,” Tirone said in warning. He was resting his elbows on the other side of the counter, his intent—dark as always—stare digging a hole into me, eliciting his threats in their own way. Of course, this was his idea to get me to be alone with him. Of course, he had to lie through his teeth, feeding Laius whatever story to convince him to accept his genius solution to the problem.
“I’m not being unreasonable. I’m being violated.”
“Violated? What do you mean violated, Jo? Who the fuck violated you, my old lady, in my own place?” Laius asked, his temper evident in his voice.
“You exposed very private details of my life, my secrets, my traumas to all of your friends, whom I don’t even know yet, by the way, and to a former student of mine, whom overnight I’d learned he was my boyfriend’s son, with no consideration whatsoever to boundaries or consent.” I was sincerely upset about the first part. The Tirone’s part was an embellishment for emphasis. Or a cry for help. I wanted to tell Laius everything. I just didn’t know how.