I frown. “Doesn’t Rossi do his homework before letting people into that place?”
“He does, and I know because he vetted me and the MC before letting Ivani in, but not every kid who does something wrong has a record, particularly if it’s something like sexual assault. How many of those go unreported or aren’t investigated? Plus, the place is a business, at the end of the day. Rossi uses it to wash dirty cash, as well as give the kids an education away from the public. I assume no red flags were raised and the price was right, so he had no reason to say no.”
I guess he’s right. What kind of red flags could he have looked for, anyway? We’re all a bunch of criminals.It’s not as though having a violent past or having done time would exclude someone from the college, unless the crime was a sex crime, and as Jack says, how many of those are recorded?
“Anyway,” Jack continues, “Nataniele Rossi has his men on high alert. When Ledger returns, Rossi assures me that he has strict protocol in place for dealing with fucks like him. Plus, I alerted my daughter’s…friendsabout the situation. No one has seen Ledger so far.”
“So, Ledger could have run back to Texas?”
“It’s possible, yes. I know a couple of MCs in that area, so I’ll get them to investigate, but I can’t see any reason for him causing us trouble.”
I crack my knuckles. “We weren’t the ones he was causing trouble for. It was Camile.”
Something flickers across Jack’s face, and I can’t quite read it. I’m normally good at getting an angle on people, so that bothers me. It was me mentioning the girl’s name. She’s friends with his daughter. Is that why he’s taking this so personally, or is it because she ran to him for help?
Jack is a good decade older than me, but that doesn’t mean he’s blind. The woman is stunning, of course, but she’s also different in how she dresses and carries herself than a lot of the women we hang with, which I guess is why she grabbed my attention. I haven’t noticed a woman in a long time, so she’s clearly got something about her. Has she caught his eye the same way she’s caught mine? I’d picked up some vibes that night at the party at the college, but I hadn’t been sure if I’d been reading too much into it. Perhaps I hadn’t.
He blows out a breath and sits back, then scrubs his hand across his beard. “Yeah, I hear you. I’m not exactlyhappy about letting her out of my sight either, but we can’t make her a prisoner here.”
“We can keep her until we find the little prick.”
Jack arches an eyebrow. “And if she doesn’t want to be kept?” He lets the words hang between us. “Besides, I must believe that Verona Falls is safe. My own fucking daughter goes there. If it’s not…”
I understand what he’s saying.
“No one is targeting your daughter, though,” I point out. “Someone is targeting Camile, and we don’t know why or where he is.”
Jack narrows his eyes at me. “We knowwhy.It was a date that went bad. She turned him down, and he made her pay for it.”
“As far as we know…”
“Yeah,” he agrees. “As far as we know.”
“And we don’t know where he is. He could hide out at the college, waiting to get his revenge, and we’re about to throw her back in with the dogs. Maybe he snuck back in before Rossi was alerted and he’s hunkering down until she goes back? Let’s give it another twenty-four hours, see if we can flush him out.”
Do I have ulterior motives for wanting to keep her around the compound? I haven’t so much as exchanged a single word with her yet, and Ace and Rook are fawning over her like a couple of lovesick puppies. She seems to be tolerating them, for the moment, but something tells me she’d like a more serious man in her life.
I glance over at the huge, bearded man across the desk from me. Someone like Jack? I wonder if that’s what he’s thinking…
Jack seems to be considering my suggestion.
“I guess it is daylight now,” he muses, “which means ifLedger is still hanging around, we’re more likely to spot him.”
“True.”
“But ultimately, it’s going to be Camile’s decision. If she wants to return to the college, then we’ll have to respect that.”
I raise my brow. “Will we? Seems to me that if we tell her to stay put, she won’t have much choice in the matter.”
I’m treading on kind of shaky ground here, speaking quite so freely to the Prez, but as his Sergeant at Arms it’s my fucking job to speak my mind, and to ensure he and the club are safe.
That idea sounds good to me. Keep her here, where we can have an eye on her and whoever is around. I’ll happily watch over the girl. She won’t even know I’m there.
But Jack laughs. “You want to be the one to deal with my daughter when she finds out I essentially kept her best friend prisoner at the compound? I seriously wouldn’t want to put either of our balls on the line like that.”
I raise an eyebrow. “You’d prefer to deal with Ivani when her friend gets hurt or worse, and she wants to know why you didn’t do more to prevent it?”
Jack’s face turns serious. He knows I have a point.
