“I would lower your voice and think before you run that mouth of yours anymore, Mrs. Irons,” he encouraged me.
“It’s Miss Irons,” I shouted. “You could look the other way for Carson Gentry because his father owns half this fucking town and look where that left us? His habit went unchecked and it ended with beautiful Benny Bonanno having a drug overdose in our hallways. Yet, you’re looking for any opportunity to toss King out on his ass even though he’s an exemplary student, a wonderful young man who cares for his fellow classmates and the only crime he’s ever committed is to be born the son of The Fallen MC.”
“I told you to watch yourself, Miss Irons, and I meant it. Do not think that you can just storm in here and tell me what to do. I am the Headmaster of this establishment, not you. And just because Zeus goddamn Garro thinks he runs this town and blackmailed me into letting his good-for-nothing-son attend this school, do not think that I will continue to turn a blind eye to the fact that you and he are having an entirely inappropriate relationship.”
I blinked at him, my heart pumping too much blood to my head so I couldn’t think straight.
“Excuse me?” I whispered.
His smile beneath his thick mustache was slick and cruel. It made him look like Santa Claus stumbled into a horror flick. He crossed his hands slowly and propped his fleshy face on them.
“You heard me. I know all about what you and that disgusting thug get up to in ‘detention’. Warren first told me about it weeks ago. You should go home tonight and kiss his father for holding my affair over my head or not only would you be out on your ear without a job, I’d have you investigated.”
“But you can’t,” I said, trying to see through the panic and focus on the good. “You can’t do shit because Zeus is blackmailing you…”
I’d well and truly snapped, obviously, because I threw my head back the way King would, and burst into laughter.
When I was done, and I took my time, I wiped my eyes and smiled at the Headmaster. I could feel the expression stretch my lips too wide, my eyes giddy with mania like I was the female incarnate of the joker. I felt crazy, wild and just as dangerous, so I didn’t care.
“You are a weak, pathetic man with no real power,” I told the seasoned administrator before me. “You’re owned by the rich and blackmailed by the corrupt. This may be one of the best schools in the country but a weak man with a narrow mind runs it and I don’t want to be a part of that. You can’t even fire me when you know I’ve been fucking a student, who is absolutely delicious, by the way.” I shook my head and turned to walk out the door. When I was at the doorframe, I shook my hair out behind me dramatically and turned to him again. “So, it’s my fucking pleasure to be able to tell you that I quit.”
I left his garbled response behind me, ignored Tiffany Calloway’s gaping mouth and the students who called after me as I stormed through the halls of EBA for the last time and pushed open the doors to the parking lot. My mind was preoccupied with only two things: getting to Street Ink Tattoo Parlor, and then, getting King out of prison and back to me.
It wasn’t my first visit to prison and, given that I was in love with an outlaw, I knew it wouldn’t be my last. They were technically called ‘correctional centers’ in British Columbia, but jail was jail no matter what they called it. Although, Ford Mountain Correctional was set between beautiful forest and snow-capped mountains just outside of Chilliwack, a strangely tranquil and stunning setting for a medium security prison. It soothed me slightly to know that King was somewhere like that, at the very least.
I was also well acquainted with the visiting protocols so I made sure I called ahead for an appointment and wore conservative clothing. I knew what it was like to go through the body scanner and a pat down, to wait in the cold, drab visitation room for the correction officers to bring prisoners in to visit their family and friends. I knew it because I’d done it all before with Lysander. Driving my new and improved Betty Sue down from Entrance, I told myself that knowing this, I would be unfazed by the sight of King in a prison jumpsuit.
That was not the case.
The sight of King in a prison jumpsuit eviscerated me.
The orange of the rough fabric was garish and combined with the yellow fluorescent lights that hummed overhead to made him look gaunt and hollow cheeked. All his magnificent hair was scraped back into a ponytail at the base of his neck so, for a moment, I thought they’d cut it all off and I nearly burst into tears.