My teeth gritted as a slew of the memories I’d repressed slammed me from out of nowhere.
I could thank Aster Rose Costa for that.
Girl had fucking crushed me, and now she had me stumbling all over again.
I forced myself to keep the grin plastered to my face as Trent tossed Gage’s backpack to the floorboards.
“Just be sure to leave the rest of the teachers alone, yeah?” Trent razzed as he closed Gage’s door.
“Of course…that is if they can keep their hands off me. Impossible, I know, but I’ll do my best.”
Trent shook his head, though his eyes glinted with amusement. “That ego is going to bite you in the ass one of these days.”
“As long as she’s cute, I don’t mind.”
“For my own sanity, I’ll pretend I didn’t hear you say that.”
Laughter rolled out of me, and I clapped him on the shoulder. “You know you love me.”
“Barely.” He fought a smile.
“I’ll see you tonight,” I promised.
“Seven,” he reiterated.
“Yes, Daddy.” I winked.
Since the dude had basically raised me, doing the best he could even though he was nothing but a kid himself, trying to keep me out of the clutches of our piece-of-shit father, I doubted much that he’d ever stop looking at me like I was five.
I didn’t think there would have been a thing either he or Jud could have done to stop that spiral, though, the fact our father had manipulated each of us into who he wanted us to be.
Our father had been the president of a brutal MC back in LA.
Iron Owls.
The club had been steeped thick in every sort of crime, and before they could even drive, Trent and Jud had been seeded deep.
Roots getting tangled in ugliness.
They’d tried to protect me from it—from the hooks that sank in and drained out innocence and life before it filled it back up with death and immorality. I figured they’d been so wrapped up in surviving, it was easy for me to slip into the debased, even before I’d realized it myself.
“Later, man. Be good.” Trent gave me a jut of his chin as he moved to the driver’s side of his car.
“Always,” I said as I backed away.
I couldn’t help the twinge of guilt over what had gone down last night. He would flip if he knew my vices. If he knew the thirst that could never be quenched.
It was the one sin I’d never let go.
It was who I was. Who I’d been bred to be. The numbers came easy. Manipulating them came easier.
Because I’d never again allow anyone to own me. Control me. Would never allow anyone to look at me as less than because I would be the one to dominate.
But I’d always done it in ways that it wouldn’t blow back on my family.
I wasn’t sure that was the case this time.
They pulled from the curb, and I watched them disappear down the road. The second they were gone, that antsy feeling was back full force. The sense that something was off.