Furore (The Night Skulls MC #1)(19)

CHAPTER 11


Jo



Belle View club was one of the most beautiful upscale places in San Francisco. Vibrant and had a big square bar with blue and magenta neon light straps in the counter body. Packed with people, the sound of laughter, good music and sex. Around every dark corner, there were heels hooked around hips accompanied by moans and grunts. A happy, care-free place for happy, care-free people.

I wasn’t one of those people, so I contemplated leaving at least ten times in the past fifteen minutes I’d been here. Coming tonight wasn’t even my idea. It was Perla’s. The P.E. teacher at the school. She’d called me and every female teacher that was doing the summer courses for a girl’s night out. No one should spend the summer with flunking teens in the morning and grading papers in the evening. So take off your underwear and meet me at Belle View. Your vagina needs air. Also tequila and a fat cock. Her words, not mine.

It was more than odd for me to accept the invitation. I never went anywhere. I always kept to myself. Someone with so many secrets to hide and protect had to. But I needed company tonight. I was tired of the ghosts that haunted my nights, dead and living. I needed a distraction, something, anything to keep my mind off Ty and the horrendous past. After the latest class at San Quentin, the recent distraction I’d been using had turned into a source of pain as well.

What did I expect? An honest criminal? A convict with honor and respect? Of course, he was a liar. Men like Furore said and did anything to get what they wanted no matter the consequences. They didn’t care what or whom they hurt or manipulate along the way. They don’t give a shit. I’d learned that the hard way. Why, for the love of God, just to get over a boy, had I allowed myself to get attached to a stupid fantasy when I knew it’d lead to no good?

And now that I was pretty sure Furore had an ulterior motive joining my class—this couldn’t be just about winning a bet—boy problems were the least of my worries.

What was he gaining from getting closer to me? Was he trying to find out whom I really was for him or for someone else?

The Cosmo I gulped didn’t warm the ice pit in my stomach. The idea of just packing my little, lonely, pathetic life and go start over somewhere else sounded more than tempting. I had nothing here to risk being found for…except a false hope my ratchet heart still clung to.

“Jo! C’mon, girl! Tell us what you think!” Perla yelled over the music.

I frowned. I hadn’t been listening to a word she, Laura, the Physics teacher, and Christine, the History teacher were saying. “About what?”

She feigned shock, putting a hand on her chest, eyes bulging. Then she, not so subtly, pointed at the bar where a man in a white T-shirt and a leather vest—a cut?—with full sleeves of tattoos on his bulging arms sat, downing shots. “If you don’t go, I will!”

“Go where?”

“Talk to him. See if he’s interested.” She giggled.

“Oh! No.” I shook my head rapidly. “You, by all means, have at it.”

“You shittin’ me? Have you looked at him? And the emblem on his cut?”

I narrowed my eyes to take a closer look. Our table was at the back, distant from lurking eyes, and I’d chosen the least visible seat to the bar. I couldn’t make the emblem from here.

“Take off the ugly shades, girl, to get a better look,” Christine said.

I pushed them up my nose, as if they were going to fall off, holding on to them more. “I’m photophobic. My eyes are very sensitive. The strobe lights will kill me.”

“That’s the emblem of the Night Skulls MC.” Perla saved me. “Ever heard of them?”

More than I should have. I just nodded.

“I think they used to own this place. They threw the wildest of parties at their compound.” She spoke about them as if they were gods. She didn’t know they were lying thugs that used and hurt people. “Back in college, I met one of them here. He took me to one of their parties at Rosewood and we…” She uttered strange sounds that were supposed to refer to sex. “His name is Dusty, and he is, hands down, the best I’ve ever had.”

“Oh my God.” Laura put down her drink. “Isn’t that their young hot president that took over when his father died?”

Perla nodded emphatically, sipping her cocktail.

“Fuck, I envy you, you dirty, dirty slut.”

“Isn’t he dead?” I blurted out.

They stared at me, their laughter deceased. Well, if it weren’t me to be the party pooper and kill the mood…

“I mean, they said the fire killed them all, but what do I know?” I pointed at the bulky man at the bar in an attempt to lighten up the conversation. “Which chapter?”

“Huh?” Perla hummed.

“The Night Skulls have chapters, like groups, all over the world. They’re global. Which chapter does he belong to?”

Christine grinned. “All knowledgeable about chapters and bikers and shit? Wait a second. Do you have bikers in your class in prison? OMG, you totally do, don’t you? That’s why you’re not interested in that guy. You have another at your disposal, don’t you, Miss Meneceo?” She made the last sentence sound dirty.

My eyebrows shot high. “I…um…as a matter of fact, some of the students are affiliated, yes.”