Lessons In Corruption (The Fallen Men Series Book 1)

by Giana Darling

“I don’t know! Some guy at Evergreen Gas.”

  “What the fuck were you thinkin’ doin’ random drugs on fuckin’ campus?” King growled.

  Carson’s pause was long and full of something heavy and dark.

  Another crash as King threw him brutally against the metal at his back. “Fuckin’ talk. That kid is laid low because of you and I want to know why.”

  “We hook up, okay?” Carson admitted in a broken whisper that ended on a sob. “We meet up at the gas station and usually drive around or come back to campus to find a quiet place to hook-up because I don’t want anyone knowing we do that shit together, okay?”

  Somehow, even through my already considerable shock and horror at the situation, this surprised me and not in a good way. Tears pricked the backs of my eyes as I leaned down to kiss a now still and unconscious Benny’s forehead.

  “My sweet Benny, why didn’t you tell me?” I whispered.

  He must have been so confused and excited about his secret hook-up with one of the hottest guys at EBA. It made me furious that Carson would subject sweet, loving Benny to secrecy and gross hook ups but it made me want to literally (and I was an English teacher so I really did mean literally) kill Carson to know that he’d given Benny drugs.

  “And the drugs?” King continued, totally unfazed, totally focused on getting the information he needed.

  “I don’t know, I heard that it made sex better,” Carson mumbled.

  “Fucking pathetic,” King spat out.

  There was a spluttering sound and I imagined that King was pressing his arm harder across Carson’s throat.

  I wanted him to keep it there until Carson couldn’t breathe anymore.

  “Cressida, the police said they’ll be here in ten minutes tops,” Warren said to me as he took a crouch beside us.

  I looked up briefly to see his eyes wide and his skin pale as he stared down at the prone Benito.

  “He’s such a good kid,” I whispered and only realized that I was crying when tears slipped into my open mouth.

  “He’s going to be okay,” Warren assured me, but he didn’t sound sure.

  “Is he?” Carson croaked out.

  “Shut the fuck up,” King roared into his face. “You think you deserve to breathe, let alone talk when you got that kid fuckin’ overdosing in a goddamn hallway? You’re lucky I don’t put your cowardly ass in the hospital too.”

  “King,” I murmured quietly.

  He heard, though, and just like he had done with me, my voice brought him calm.

  Flashbacks toyed with the edges of my vision as the sound of sirens came from down the street.

  I spent the night at the hospital.

  Benny’s family told me I didn’t have to stay but I could tell that Arturo and Anna Lucia, the proprietors of the fancy La Gustosa restaurant and Benito’s guardians after his parents died in a car accident a few years ago, were happy to have me sit with them. They both cried when they saw me, not because we had any special bond but because, apparently, Benny had told them about me. I started crying too when they wrapped me in their semolina-scented arms and prattled on about how much Benny loved me and how grateful they were that he felt he had someone to talk to.

  So, we sat together, my hands in Anna Lucia’s, while Benny’s stomach was pumped and then he was given some kind of anti-fentanyl drug called Naloxone to mitigate the effects of the chemical already in his system. Apparently, the first few hours were the most dangerous in these kinds of situations so it was a relief when the clock struck midnight and Benny was still breathing.

  King had disappeared at some point after giving a brief statement, which I grateful for both because I didn’t really want him mixed up with the police and because he would want to comfort me, I would want to accept that comfort and it was not the time or place for that to go down.

  The police interviewed Carson but there were no legal consequences to his actions. This enraged me. How could my brother have been sent to jail for protecting me, and Carson didn’t even get a ticket when he’d nearly killed an innocent?

  I was so angry that when Carson had the gall to walk up to the Bonanno’s to ask for an update on Benny, I took him aside myself.

  We walked down the yellow-lit halls, our shoes clacking on the chipped linoleum floors. I wanted to get control over my anger before I opened my mouth but only mildly succeeded. We stopped at a vending machine and stared at it as if we would get something, as if it held the profound answers to all life’s important questions and we only had to press the right combinations of buttons to own them for ourselves.

  “I didn’t know you were gay,” I started and somehow my voice was smooth, pretty casing over the hollow words. “I wish you’d felt comfortable talking to someone about it.”

  “Dad’s a homophobe,” he muttered.

  “That’s hard. Not a reason to treat the boy you like the way you have been, sneaking around with him like you’re ashamed of him, and it’s certainly not an excuse to give him drugs. Honestly, I can’t even imagine what you were thinking.”

  Carson’s jaw ticked, his eyes laminated with tears. “I take it when I have sex with girls, makes it, uh, easier for me. I figured if I did it with Benny who I’m actually into, it would be amazing. Plus, I told him about doing it with girls and he got really jealous, wanted to give me the same thing even though I said I didn’t need it.”

  “Shouldn’t have made him feel that way in the first place, Carson,” I said softly because he’d started to cry, silent tears of shame. “Shouldn’t have given into him either.”

  “Yeah,” he croaked. “I know.”

  “I think this is a wakeup call, buddy. You need to step up and be there for Benny while he gets better and you need to be open with everyone about who you got those drugs from.”

  “I already told the police that it wasn’t one of The Fallen dealers,” he said quickly, his darting to me for the first time. “I know you’re dating Zeus Garro.”

  I put my hand on his shoulder because I didn’t want him to be afraid of me because of that. “You’re not in trouble with them, Carson. It’s Benny you need to focus on. If you still can’t do right by him than you need to be man enough to tell him, okay?”

  “I’ll do right by him,” he mumbled, looking to the floor for guidance.

  “Your parents coming?” I asked because I knew his parents often worked and stayed down in Vancouver.

  “Yeah,” he tipped his head with his eyes squeezed shut, tears leaking out from under them. “He’s gonna kill me.”

  I didn’t want think of the kind of father who would make his son feel that way but it made it easier to empathize with Carson and I knew that he needed someone in his corner to prop him up while he got his feet beneath him again so he could move forward on the right path.

  “You call me if you need me. I’ll come pick you,” I offered. “I’ll get you a hotel room or something, okay?”

  He looked at me then, turned right into my face and stared right into my eyes. I let him search them with his frantic spotlight stare until he found what he needed to find and then, because I knew it was coming and even though I hated him for what he’d done to Benny, he was just a kid and he needed the comfort, I opened my arms to accept his hug when he drooped forward onto my shoulder and burst into tears.

  His mother came into the hospital to pick him up and I spoke quietly to her about the events of the evening. She looked sick to her stomach about Carson’s fears because she knew her husband would freak out. I pretended not to notice the bruising she wore around both wrists like shackles and she promised me that she would take care of her son, even if it meant leaving her husband. From the frantic determination hardening her face, I knew she meant it.

  After, I went back to sit with the two elderly Italian immigrants again and took up Anna Lucia’s hand.

  Benny woke up at three in the morning and his grandparents let me see him. His throat was too sore to speak but I sat on the edge of his bed, stroking back his dark
floppy hair and reading to him from the copy of Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance that I’d stuffed in my bag that morning. He fell asleep again shortly and, soon after, I followed, my head cocked uncomfortably against the orange plastic chair.

  I woke up at seven o’clock, said goodbye to the Bonanno family and left the hospital to go home for a quick change of clothes before heading to school.

  When I walked through the automatic glass doors to the parking lot, King was there, standing against his bike with his arms crossed and his eyes shut. I stopped mid-step, staring at his beautiful face, creased like bed sheets from a sleepless night tangled up in them.

  Feeling my eyes on him, he looked up and right into them.

  My breath left my body in a long whoosh and then I was sprinting across the driveway. He caught me without effort, braced and ready for my full body impact into his arms. I wrapped my arms and legs around him immediately, tighter than vines and just as unyielding. My face planted in his neck, in that fragrant spot just behind his ear where I could soothe myself with the scent of his hair, scented with fresh sea salted air, and the familiar warm laundry aroma of his clothes.

  “Got you, Queenie,” he murmured, his hand diving under my hair to enclose the back of my neck in his hold. “Got you.”

  I just clung to him, incapable of speech after the long night without sleep, after the long hours worrying about Benny. It was impossible in that moment to care if anyone we knew could see us embracing in the middle of the hospital parking lot.

  All that mattered was being in King’s arms. I needed that feeling more than I needed my next breath of air. There were limits to the human body, five days without food, three without water. I’d just learned that mine was twenty-four hours without King.

  “Let’s get you home, babe,” he murmured, gently peeling me off him so he could settle me in the ‘bitch seat’ on his bike.

  As soon as he was situated, I slumped against him pressed groin to cheek on his back and wrapped myself around him again, even my legs, which I hitched up and over his thighs. It was a precarious position. I was entirely reliant on King to balance the weight of the back and keep me from tipping over but I didn’t care and apparently, neither did he.

  When we reached Shamble Wood Cottage, it was obvious to me that he’d spent the night there even though I’d stayed at the hospital. The dishes we’d left in the sink the morning before were put away and there was a giant bouquet of flowers on the dining room that King told me were from Maja and Buck. There were fresh sheets on my bed, pale pink instead of cream, and it was made with all the little pillows I only bother with if I had company over.

  King steered me into the bathroom, turned the shower to scalding and shucked off my clothes. I was numb to everything but his touch, which seared me each time it landed. I was tired of feeling so I shied away from it and was grateful when he shoved me into the shower but didn’t join me.

  When I emerged there was pretty white polka dot red dress with a cream cardigan on the basin. The sound of King murmuring to someone on the phone in the other room filtered under the crack of the door but I ignored it and focused on pulling myself together.

  I wore more makeup than usual, but a girl’s got to do what a girl’s got to do to feel pretty, especially on the bad days.

  King stared at me long and hard when I finally left the bathroom, assessing my mindset, probably.

  “I’m ready to go,” I told him, surprised by how hollow my voice sounded.

  He strode forward, grabbed my hair hard in a fist and jerked my head back as he pressed himself hard against me. I gasped, instantly and inappropriately turned on by the gesture when I should be grieving.

  “Know you’re hurting, my Queen,” he said softly despite his intractable expression and dominant stance. “But Benny is alive and gettin’ better in the hospital. You’ve got nothing to grieve for, you hear me? He’s alive. And that’s probably because you and me were foolin’ around in detention and overheard him. That asshole Carson didn’t have a fuckin’ clue what to do. You and me, babe, we helped Benny. That’s somethin’ you need to hold on to right now, not the bad stuff that happened last night, but the fact he’s okay and you helped see to that, yeah?”

  King’s words coated my skin, sat on the surface of me for a long minute while I fought their meaning, tried to stay helplessly lost in overwhelming exhaustion and an overindulgence of empathy. When my eyes started to slide through him, he pulled harder on my hair and, when that didn’t work fast enough, he kissed me.

  He kissed me the way little girls dream about being kissed at their weddings, the way teenagers like to see in movies. The way most grown women have given up on wishing for.

  I lost myself to the kiss, to King’s strong hold on me, and when I emerged on the other side, I was once again the Cressida I’d been trying so hard to be.

  King watched me with his moonshine eyes. “Good?”

  I pressed my lips softly to his then spoke against them, “Thank you.”

  “Told you, I got you, babe.”

  “Now, I know it, King,” I replied, running one hand down his arm so we could link fingers.

  “Ready for school?”

  “You’ll be there, right?”

  He grinned and squeezed my hand. “Until June 18th, babe.”

  I laughed a little and it felt really good. “Then, yeah, babe, I’m ready.

  Classes were going well. Everyone was deeply rattled by what had happened to Benny but very few students or faculty knew the full story, mostly because Carson Gentry’s family owned half the town and I was sure he had a part in keeping his son out of the narrative.

  My IB English and History classes were especially subdued by the news but I put on movies in both classes so they could zone out and relax. Everything was going well until the end of the day when an announcement went out that there would be a town hall meeting at six that night, and that it was mandatory for both students and faculty to attend.

  “Is that normal?” I asked Tayline and Rainbow as we had a cup of tea after school in the teacher’s lounge.

  Before EBA, I never would have thought I’d enjoy hanging out in a teacher’s lounge but the Academy was superbly funded so the teachers enjoyed a mahogany-paneled, multi-room space on the ground floor of the Main Building that included a beautifully appointed kitchen, a full bathroom and an enormous lounge decorated with plush leather chairs and couches, plaid pillows in the school colors of navy blue, green and yellow, and a media center on the other side of the room from where we sat.

  Our trio liked the window banquette tucked away at the narrow end of the communal area because it afforded us a grand view of the room (perfect for gossip target practice) but also the privacy we needed to properly talk (gossip).

  “It’s happened twice before,” Rainbow answered after sharing a concerned look with Tay. “Once, after a kid went missing and the town pitched in to find him. That was probably, oh, twenty years ago? And then again when two girls at EBA got pregnant in the same year, this was probably 2010, and the pastor and his son, the mayor, joined forces to warn about the perils of sex before marriage.”

  “Wow.”

  Tayline nodded. “I’m telling you right now, it’s not going to go well for The Fallen.”

  “It shouldn’t go well for them,” Warren cut in, appearing by our table with a suddenness that disturbed me. I wondered where he had been lurking to overhear our conversation. “They’ve been causing problems in Entrance for years.”

  “Oh please,” Tay said while rolling her huge, chocolate brown eyes. “The Fallen have protected us from tons of crime. We have one of the lowest rates of drug abuse, drug-related crime and murder in small town Canada. It’s their protection that buys us that statistic.”

  Warren was a handsome man, clean-cut and brunet with blue eyes in a way that most women liked, but when he looked at Tayline as he did then, eyes narrowed and mouth pursed over the sour lemon of thought perched on his tongue, I thought he was hid
eous.

  “They’re thugs and they’ve been given free reign for too long this town. I’m a personal friend of Mayor Lafayette’s and I think you’ll find he has some very… persuasive things to say about your darling MC tonight.”

  Rainbow snorted. “Come on, Warren. You grew up here same as me and Tay did. You know they aren’t bad guys.”

  “Sure, that’s why Benito Bonanno is in the hospital after a drug overdose,” he quipped.

  The blood drained from my face both at the reminder of last night’s horrors and at the reality of what Warren was saying. They were going to pin the accident on the MC.

  I didn’t know what that meant for King or Zeus, but it couldn’t be good.

  As it turned out, it wasn’t.

  “We need to reaffirm governmental and legal authority in this town,” Mayor Lafayette preached later that night from his chestnut podium in Town Hall.

  I’d never been to the massive ivy-covered brick building in the center of town. I wished I were there under more auspicious circumstances because everything about it was old and beautiful. Instead, I sat in one of the packed rows of the main auditorium listening to a tall, middle-aged man with great hair talk about the evils of the MC and the laziness of Entrance citizens in giving them free sovereignty over society.

  “We have let these bikers run roughshod over our town for too long. It’s time to take it back from them,” he finished, which prompted an uneasy round of clapping.

  It was uneasy, Tayline informed me from my right side, because The Fallen were actually great for the town. They supported local economy, kept drugs (hardcore ones at least) out of the city proper and brought a lot of foreign business into town because of the popularity of their custom car and motorcycle outfit. The MC had been unpopular until nearly ten years before, when the President who preceded Zeus tried to get into the narcotics game and, thankfully, failed.

  “And how do you propose we do that, Mayor?” Stella stood up, her back ramrod straight and her voice hard. She was the owner of the diner in town. People loved her and respected her so they all listened to her, waiting to take their cue from her tone.