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  It was about as much as I would confess. The idea of revealing more to a fourteen-year-old was a little mortifying to me.

  “I know,” Alyssa said. “He always knows how to treat those who matter to him. Even if it takes some encouragement from me.”

  I laughed at her honest words before she headed out, leaving with the slightest of smirks. I just sat at that desk, chuckling to myself. Alyssa wasn’t usually falsely arrogant, but she could have some humor and some punch to her when she needed.

  He always knows how to treat those who matter to him. Even if it takes some encouragement from Alyssa. I guess I should have been grateful now for what she had said on Monday. She had probably said some other things I wasn’t aware of behind the scenes.

  I cruised through the next two periods of my day before my break, the time when teachers had the chance to kick back and work on whatever they needed to, whether it was lesson plans, test grading, or just a nap. I rarely used such times, the school’s fourth period, for naps, but I definitely had used them to drink water and berate myself for being an alcoholic. It was good not to feel that way.

  But just after the bell for third period ending and before I had the chance to start on my lesson plans, I got a call to my room on the classroom phone. I saw that the principal, Jerry Patrick, was calling me. I didn’t think I’d missed any meetings—not that I usually did—but just like students had some level of trepidation when this happened, I felt the same amount of stress when I saw him calling me.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Miss Ross,” he said with an air of authority.

  Jerry Patrick was an older gentleman, probably in his early sixties, and someone who called anyone younger than him “mister” or “miss,” even if they were married. It was the most old-school thing I had ever seen, especially considering we were in California, but it was also oddly endearing.

  Unfortunately, it could be quite intimidating in moments like this, when I was sure I had done something wrong and his voice was doing nothing to dismiss that possibility.

  “Could you come down to my office please?” he said. “I have something I need to discuss with you.”

  What happened? What did I do?

  “Sure, I’ll be right down.”

  I hung up the phone and walked slowly to the office, wondering what in the world was going on. My mind raced to the possibility that some parents had complained about me last week, but parent complaints during parent-teacher conferences were as predictable as students upset about bad grades on essays. It was the kind of thing where most of us just rolled our eyes, promised we’d take their feedback into consideration, and then call it a day.

  But right now, this was leaving me a little concerned that I had done something bad enough to warrant the principal calling me down. I’d certainly never experienced this before, and I’d dealt with more than a few bad parents in my day.

  I knocked on the door and entered when Jerry let me in. He wore a green bowtie and prominent wedding ring on his finger. He motioned for me to take a seat.

  “Miss Ross,” he began. “It is not of particular joy for me to bring this to your attention, but I wanted to do it in private before anything gets out of control.”

  What the fuck?

  “We had a few parents who said that you seemed to be under the influence at the conferences,” he said. “I have heard similar complaints at other events in the past, but I have tried to ignore those as parents trying to smear you after students may have performed poorly on grades. However, I cannot avoid what was said, given it is now a pattern. I would like to ask you, Miss Ross, and please be fully honest with me. Were you drunk?”

  I was so stunned I couldn’t speak coherently for a few seconds. It was absolutely true that I had shown up to school hungover before, and it was absolutely true this had also happened at events like theatrical productions and sporting events.

  But I was as sober as a rock at those conferences. I’d made it a point to stay off the bottle during that time, especially because I knew parents could be worse than the kids. I also wanted to stay clean for when I saw Vance, but that didn’t seem like a statement that would garner me any favorable points at that moment.

  “No, no… no, really?” I said, still unable to find my words. “I have enjoyed some alcohol after work, but I am very adamant in saying that I don’t drink or show up under the influence at school events.”

  I show up hungover, but I’m still functioning in such spots. So it can’t be that bad.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Jerry nodded, folded his hands, and twiddled his thumbs.

  “I believe you, Miss Ross, and I am giving you my support on this one,” he said, which felt like such an enormous sigh of relief. I felt like I had walked into the courtroom, only to be given lenience by the judge. “However, because this is not the first time that I have heard concerns like this, I would ask you to please be careful about any public drinking or the effects of any drinking you do carrying over to public events.”

  I felt like that was the polite way of him saying “don’t be hungover” without actually saying “don’t be hungover.” At this point, though, I was so relieved to be avoiding punishment or anything of that sort that I didn’t mind the heavily layered and subtle language. I’d already gotten what I wanted out of this meeting—a freedom from punishment.

  Still, the message was serious. Drinking wasn’t just affecting my mental health and my dating life. It, apparently, was affecting my career. This was non-negotiable. I had to be better.

  Although, I wonder who the hell said that. I think some parents are just pissed, but Jerry’s right. It’s not just a concern of that night; it’s part of my reputation.

  “I understand, sir,” I said. “I promise you that whatever drinking I do will be confined to the weekends and will be strictly in private.”

  The only reason I didn’t outright say I wasn’t drinking at all was because I didn’t want him to believe I had a reason not to drink at all; the all-or-nothing approach likely would have been indicative of the fact that I did have problems. So, in actuality, I was going to be even better than Jerry might have expected.

  “Very good, Miss Ross,” he said. “Enjoy the rest of your day.”

  I nodded to him, quickly stood up, and walked out of the room. I shut my door, taking a deep breath, and told myself that this was the breaking point. Now, the motivation to stay sober wasn’t just about self-respect. It was about financial survival.

  The walk upstairs back to my classroom was like the lightest jog I had ever made. I was off the hook from trouble. I had work to do, but it was work I was doing anyway.

  And, best of all, when I got back and checked my cell phone, I saw I had a text from Vance.

  “Wanna hang out this Saturday afternoon?”

  Chapter 9: Sensei

  I think I sent that text because I knew I would need some stress relief from what was to go down.

  I was sitting in the president’s seat at a hall meeting—a seat that still didn’t feel right—looking at my phone before I dropped it outside, standard procedure for our club meetings. This almost felt like a lie to Courtney, and it felt like manipulation. I was doing something she hated—working for the Savage Saints—and then expecting her to reward me with a good time, all while she was ideally oblivious to what had happened.

  What’s going to happen when the truth comes out, Sensei? What happens when she learns that you are a Savage Saint? You think she’s going to stick around? Or do you think she’s going to run like hell from you and never see you again?

  The answer should be pretty obvious. But then again, I suppose you are pretty good at hiding the truth. Maybe you’ll get lucky and not feel guilty for the duration of your relationship.

  Still, under the right light, I felt like this was fine. My work for the Saints was temporary until Trace recovered; what I had with Court might wind up lasting for a very long period of time. At the m
oment, I didn’t think it was necessary to sacrifice the longer-term prospect in favor of being brutally open and transparent about the shorter-term prospect. Whatever makes you feel better, bud.

  I sighed and saw BK and Krispy approaching and heard the door swing open as the remaining officers stepped inside.

  I sat back down in the chair. It was surreal. It still didn’t feel right. I was going to owe Trace so many apologies for taking his seat. But the club had insisted that I sit there; they said it couldn’t be taken as seriously if I chose to sit in my normal seat. It would be less of a leader’s role and more of a communal decision, something that the Savage Saints had never operated on.

  To my right was BK. To his right was Sword, then Krispy, then Mafia, and… that was it.

  It was the smallest I had ever seen a hall meeting, and the most devoid of leadership. I had no idea how the fuck the club could ever decide that I was going to make a good leader, especially given that I was in my forties and would have held some sort of leadership role if I was worth a shit. But it was a choice they made, and it was a choice I had accepted. I had to embrace it now.

  “As many of you know,” I said, beginning my talk. “I didn’t want to be here a few days ago. I chose to leave the club as an officer—albeit remaining as a member—so that I could spend time with my daughter. However, obviously, recent events have changed things. I am here to tell you, right now, that for as long as Trace cannot operate as president and Splitter is out of contact, I am completely and one hundred percent committed to running the club.”

  That was very true. I was not going to come here and do a half-ass job; that would have been worse than any of the other four officers doing a full-ass job. There was going to be no wavering, no questioning if I should or should not have come back—at least out loud.

  “I will seek the input and the expertise of all of you as we go forward, but I will also lead this club and make decisions so long as I am in this spot,” I said. “Please be open and honest with your communication and your thoughts with me so that I can be the best president possible. OK?”

  “Got it,” the others said in unison.

  “Good,” I said. “Now. This is the smallest I’ve ever seen this fucking place. And on top of that, as far as I am aware, we don’t have too much intel on what had happened, right?”

  There was one other problem that I hadn’t mentioned, one that I didn’t feel was right to mention here.

  Our most stabilizing forces were gone. Trace was president almost exclusively because he was the best at remaining calm under pressure; he’d grown a lot in the last few months, and it was not an exaggeration to say he reminded me of a young Paul Peters. He kept the hotheads like Krispy and Mafia in check.

  Splitter was more volatile, but in the moment of truth, he had a way of rising up and becoming a good leader and a good fighter. He wasn’t going to be someone who could keep himself in control in normal moments, but still, he was someone that the club looked up to.’

  Now, we had the sergeant-in-arms; we had Sword, a man who had that nickname for a reason; and we had Krispy and Mafia, who, if left unchecked, would burn the city of Los Angeles to the ground to get the Mercs, and it was hard to say if they would have done so intentionally or accidentally.

  “We have a little bit,” Krispy said. “Some motherfucker named Zane is the last holdout in the Mercs. Most of the Mercs, smartly, have left town. But our friend the sheriff handed this to BK while Trace was being rushed to the hospital.”

  I looked at the police report for an olive-skinned, brown-haired man who simply went by “Zane”; he didn’t even have a last name listed. His rap sheet had everything from assault to theft to attempted murder. It was so long that it ran down two pages. A warrant for his arrest had been out for almost a year—literally longer than any of the guys had been with their girls—but somehow, he had just managed to avoid arrest.

  The report included a camera shot of him shooting Trace in the shoulder and another one coming in with a baseball bat before some of the other Saints came in and stopped it. He could be seen clear as day, but the other Mercs all wore black hoods and black sweaters.

  “Almost like he wants us to know he did this,” I grumbled.

  “Wouldn’t you if you had a fucking rap sheet like his?” Krispy groused. “The motherfucker knows if he ever gets caught, he’s going to spend life in jail. At this point, he’s just giving us a giant middle finger. He wants us to know he did it, and he wants to twist the knife.”

  “So we have to kill him, you see?” Mafia said.

  For that, I agreed, but there was something about this whole process that just felt like one giant loop. We could kill this Zane guy, sure, but then someone else would pop up in his place. There had to be something we could do that would eliminate the Mercs once and for all; I just didn’t know what it was at that very moment.

  But, then again, with a group as prone to violence and aggression as one comprised of BK, Krispy, and Mafia, maybe it would make sense to go in there and blow shit up. Maybe it would make sense to draw blood, lots of it, and then take care of the fallout after.

  “Agreed,” I said. “But we have to do this right. We can’t just come in, shoot some shit up, and walk away. Their size, ironically, gives them an advantage that they didn’t have before. They’re much more mobile and much more flexible.”

  “So we kill them when we see them!” Krispy said.

  He almost seemed excited at the idea. In fact, he did seem that way—he had a massive grin on his face when he said that. It was a little concerning, especially since we’d done so well to rehab our image.

  “You want to take the fight in public?” BK said. “Undo all my work?”

  “No, but if this is the last of them—”

  “It won’t be,” I said. “That was a mistake I made. I thought we’d reached a stable point for the club where nothing else would happen. It’s why I stepped away. But the approach we’ve taken to shoot them all and take them out one by one has clearly not worked. They’re a club that thrives on being attacked. It’s like a hydra; you kill one and more heads appear.”

  “A what?”

  Not everyone is as into that kind of thing as you are, Sensei. Just remember that.

  “My point, Krispy, is that this is a battle where the more we fight, the more trouble we have to deal with,” I said. “Maybe we are getting to the point where we kill enough of them and things will be good. But right now, I don’t see it that way. I think they have enough passive members who become more active when they see their friends killed.”

  “You would give them an out?” Sword said.

  I shook my head.

  “I don’t know. This is why I didn’t want to be president, because I’d have to make decisions on things I don’t know the answer to.”

  Then again, I wonder how often Trace has all the answers when he makes a decision.

  “Here’s what I do know,” I said. “Zane wanted us to attack? OK, fine. We’re not letting that sort of thing go unnoticed. We never know when there are enemies coming from places we haven’t anticipated. We need to make sure our image is what we want it to be—that we are saintly gentlemen, but that we can be savage all the same.”

  I sighed.

  “Convene here at midnight. We’re going to make a run for their operations.”

  “Where?” Krispy asked.

  “Simple,” I said. “If I were Zane, and I wanted to do things in the most DM way possible, do you know where I would go? Back to their old base.”

  * * *

  The solution was only temporary, and now I was worried that the temporary solution was going to prove to be a poorly chosen one.

  What I had just advocated was a violent attack on a violent man who seemingly had no qualms about going down with the ship. Everything about Zane suggested that he was a man willing to kill and attack by any means necessary, and he wasn’t deterred by the threat of punishment; he seemed spurned on by it, almost a masochist
in that regard. If we went into the DMs old base—which itself was a guess, not an evidenced-based decision—we were playing right into his hands.

  I went home that day and was noticeably quiet around Alyssa. She, too, was quiet as well. I had gotten a text from Courtney noticing that she had been quiet and a little unsteady at school, followed by the question of if something had happened.

  Well, of course, something had happened. I was going to put myself in the line of fire tonight, along with many of my best friends, and there was nothing I could do to tell Courtney about it. It would drive her away.

  I was beginning to think Alyssa was having second thoughts about encouraging me to get into the firefight and make a difference, but it was too late to back out of that now. I just wanted to be there for her for the next few hours in case she needed anything.

  And, ideally, to tell her the truth about her mother.

  But every time I started to speak to her, she would get up and leave. It was like she was deliberately ignoring me, but I couldn’t figure out why.

  Well, I could figure out why, but I didn’t like the answer. She was probably hoping that, despite her words, I’d take her anyway.

  I truly do need a point where I walk away. I’ve already given my commitment this round to the Saints, but I need to step away at some point. I need to be strong and say no.

  Just like I need to be strong and say the truth.

  And yet, when eleven o’clock hit and I had finally summoned the courage to tell Alyssa what had happened, she was putting on clothes for the night.

  “I’m going to a sleepover at Madison’s,” she said. “Her mom is picking me up and will be here in a couple.”

  “Could you have told me?” I said.

  “Why? You’re going out too.”

  “What, what—”

  “You’re wearing your jacket, Dad. You only do that when you’re going out.”

  Goddamnit.

  “Alyssa…”

  I took a deep breath.

  “What, Dad?”

  Tell her everything. Lay it all out there.