Betraying The Bratva King

Students

The students were all seated at tables of four and Briar, Dante, Evander, and Romy, the fourth chaperone, sat at their own table. They had a corner of the hotel restaurant to themselves but another high school choir from Canada were at the opposite end of the restaurant. The entire place was lively, and chatter was echoing off the walls.

Briar sipped her water and tried to focus on the menu in front of her.

“Ms. Rose,” one of the students called out, “you sure we can’t have wine?”

“If you touch a drop of alcohol and I find out, you will have flown to Paris to watch from the audience as your team participates without you on their quest to global domination of high school choir.” She lifted an eyebrow at Dwayne who spat the mouthful of wine he’d taken because the server had automatically poured it for him back into the glass. He pushed the glass to the middle of the table. She nodded her approval at his actions.

Dante chuckled, “I’m a thirty-year-old man and even I don’t want to touch the wine after seeing the look you shot him.”

She grinned cockily, “damn straight.”

Evander lifted his glass of wine, “I’m not scared. I’m drinking the wine.” He took a large mouthful and sighed happily after swallowing. “Nothing better than French wine in Paris.”

Romy gave a laugh as she sipped hers, “being on the plane today while my kid shot her mouth off about being embarrassed by my every breath means I am not only going to drink this wine,” she lifted it in a salute to her daughter, “I’m going to mock her with every delicious mouthful.”

Briar laughed loudly and turned to look at Romy’s daughter Rue, who was glaring at her mother. “Oh dear.” The relationship between mother and daughter had Briar missing Hadlee and she pursed her lips and exhaled audibly. Like Rue, Hadlee was a handful.

“Missing Hadlee?” Dante asked as he gripped her hand on the tabletop. He could read her well.

“Yes. I called her before I came down to dinner. She was having fun with Marie’s hellions.”

“Marie’s kids aren’t so bad.” Romy stated and at Dante and Briar’s raised eyebrows she paused, “Are they? Marie seems so strict.”

“They have her tenacity and her husband’s need to play pranks all the time. It’s a war zone on the best of days. I watched them before Christmas because Marie wanted a weekend away with her husband before the insanity of the holidays. They painted me with oil-based paint while I was sleeping. They taught Hadlee cuss words I never heard of in my life. I had to google them to find out what they meant.” Her compatriots were roaring with laughter at her words. “They even faked a bloody injury using ketchup and I damn near had a panic attack. They are insane.”

She gave a shake of her head, “I work with some of the toughest kids in the world, but I’d rather be stranded on a desert island with them than ever spend another full weekend with the five of Marie’s kids.”

“You know,” Romy said earnestly, “you two have done so much for so many kids. I know you’ve only been teaching for seven years, Briar but, my daughter has been involved with you for three of them. She graduates high school this year and I can tell you four years ago, I never dreamed she would still be in school, let alone thriving. You can sit there all you want and say how much Marie’s kids are naughty but there is no way you can convince me you don’t enjoy every moment of their devilry. You live for the challenge.” She waved her glass between the two choir directors, “you both do.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dante quipped avoiding Romy’s eyes.

Briar chuckled at the blush rising on his cheeks. Dante came from a family of religious people who had sent him to conversion camp as a young teenager. Shunned and ostracised by them when the camp failed to deliver on promises of ridding his body of the devil called ‘gay,’ he had been homeless until he’d been discovered singing on a street corner pan handling for cash. He had been a one-hit wonder by the time he was eighteen, fame not everything he had dreamed it to be. He’d taken the money he’d made, invested in his education and with a dual degree in psychology and teaching, he became a teacher of the arts.

She squeezed the hand still holding hers, “Dante leads the way with his understanding of them. I follow his lead.”

“Not true and there’s not a person in this entire room who believe you.” Dante mocked her. “I might be someone they can relate to and feel comfortable being themselves around, you, my sweet friend, offer them security and discipline in a way they respond to. We make a good team.”

“The best team,” Evander lifted his glass, “to the best team.”

His eyes stared into Briar’s, and she felt Dante kick her under the table when she couldn’t tear her eyes from his. She shook her head and sipped her water. Evander was becoming increasingly bold with each day they knew each other and there was no doubt he was interested in her. She was super flattered but Dante’s comment when he’d stopped by her place the night before to go over last-minute trip details was resonating in her head. “You’re in the city of love. May as well take a lover!” He’d followed it up by boldly suggesting Evander. She’d had wicked dreams all night.

He was a gorgeous man. He was also the parent of one of her students and she wasn’t stupid enough to go there, no matter how much he flirted or how her dreams as of late weren’t centered on him naked.

She heard the chatter of the room start to disperse and she looked around to see the kids’ meals were finally being served their food and it was shutting them up. She had a distinct feeling the proud French hotel staff were annoyed having to serve a throng of teenagers from two North American schools.

She reached for another slice of the baguette which was on the table and bit into it happily.

“I missed French bread,” she said to nobody in particular.

“Have you been to France before?” Romy caught onto her comment.

She met Dante and Evander’s gaze and nodded once, the bread now feeling like sawdust in her throat. She hadn’t spoken of her sister in years. Dante and Marie, both knew her past and now Evander did as well but suddenly Sully was on her mind because of this European adventure her students were on. “Many years ago. I came as a teenager.” She shredded the bread onto the plate in front of her.

“Were you like the kids? Here for a tournament or something?”

She chuckled, “not even close.” The sound of one of the kids cursing out another saved her from any further questions as she got up from the table and stepped between Eric, the leather wearing boy who was always flirting with Peyton and another boy named Shane. She leaned over the table and glared, “care to tell me why in the middle of a beautiful French restaurant, on our very first day in the beautiful city of Paris, I’m hearing words which would make a sailor blush?”

Eric glowered at Shane. “Just a difference of opinion.”

Shane glared back.

“Up, both of you now. Let’s go,” she motioned for them to precede her out of the restaurant and into the hotel lobby. Gesturing towards a quiet spot at the far side away from anyone else, she kept her eyes focused solely on the boys. She put them both cornered at her. “Spill it. What’s going on?”

“He thinks he gets to tell us all what to do and it’s bullshit,” Shane grunted.

“I didn’t tell you what you had to do. What I said was, I’m not going to risk my only chance at a scholarship by getting booted off the team because you want a piece of ass,” Eric shot back.

“Shane, ten seconds to tell me or the entire team will be remanded to their rooms for the duration of this trip with no socializing and I will tell them all it’s your fault,” she folded her arms across her chest.

“One of the girls from the Canadian team invited us to her room after curfew,” he glared at Eric, “but Eric said if we left our rooms, he’s calling you to deal with it.”

She gave a shake of her head, “you’re a smart kid Shane but you make stupid choices. For the record, Eric wouldn’t have needed to call me. I arranged hotel security for both the girls’ floor and the boys’ floor. None of you are getting out of your room and nobody is getting into your room without me knowing.”

“Wait what?” Shane’s eyes bugged as Eric snickered.

“Yup. I arranged for the hotel to put a guard on each floor.”

“You don’t trust us!”

“Not as far as I could spit in hurricane,” she laughed in the teenager’s face. “Why do you think Eric isn’t willing to go down with the ship, Shane?”

“Cause he’s a eunuch or something.”

Eric shoved him and she pushed him back away from Shane.

“I can’t speak to whether he’s a eunuch,” she gave a shudder and an exaggerated gag, “but I can tell you, he was with me when the choir director of the Canadian team told me this is a rebuilding year for them and they lost most of their seniors to graduation last year and eighty percent of their choir is under sixteen.”

“Jailbait stupid,” Eric snapped at Shane. “I’m not spending my time in Paris in a French holding cell because you want to get your d**k wet with a child.” He grimaced, “I’m not going down with the ship, asshole.”

“Enough with the language,” she chastised Eric and then turned back to Shane. “You are not in France to try unusual ways to sneak out of the room. This is an opportunity for all of you to get noticed. You have an incredible voice, Shane. Better than most and this competition will have producers and agents looking to find the next best thing, but nobody signs a teenager who can’t follow simple instruction and has no discipline.”

The boy rolled his eyes, and she fought the urge to smack him up the back of the head the way Marie did most kids.

“Shane, let me put this in a way you can understand,” she met his gaze straight on and pulled no punches, “record labels aren’t going to sign someone who has been arrested in a foreign country for diddling with minors.”

“Fine,” he threw his hands up. “I wouldn’t mess with anyone like that anyway. I only wanted to hang out with the girls. I wasn’t going to actually sleep with one of them.”

“You don’t even have to,” Eric rolled his eyes at him. “It takes one girl to say you did something, whether you did it or not, and it is game over. I’m not risking my one chance to get the hell out of our shitty neighborhood back home. This is my future you’re talking of screwing with. We’re roommates and if you go down, I’m not going down with you.”

“I get it! Stop lecturing me man!”

Eric ruffled his hair “Shane, my kid sister is fourteen. It’s grossing me out you would want to –”

“I don’t!” Shane made huge eyes suddenly. “God, I didn’t even think of your kid sister. I want to gouge my eyes out now. Why did you say that?”

“I’m saying you helped me protect her from my stepdad but here you are looking at girls her age. It’s gross. It’s making me wonder if you’re looking at her.”

“No!” he looked at his best friend in horror. “Jesus no. I get it now. I get it. I will stay away from the Canadian girls.”

“Enough,” Briar reaching up to put her arms over each of their shoulders. “We are going to go back into the restaurant, finish the lovely dinner the hotel prepared for us and no more foul language, snapping at each other or acting like the brats the French already think we are. When dinner is finished it will be close to nine and you will all stay in your rooms tonight and rest up for tomorrow. We have a big day. Don’t let me down and more importantly, don’t embarrass me. If I have to call your parents, please don’t make it be for bail money because they will have to provide my bail money too for beating your ass.”

Shane chuckled as they walked back to the restaurant, both boys towering over her. “You know, Ms. Rose, for a little lady, you sure are scary.”

“And don’t you forget it.”

As she was walking back a woman caught her eye and Briar recognized her as the woman from the airport. The woman looked at her smugly and she frowned at her. She still had absolutely no idea who she was, but it was clear the woman thought she knew her. She shrugged it off and continued to escort the two young men back to their table. She gave them a final stern warning about language and behavior and then made her way over to the choir director of the Canadian team and whispered in her ear. The other woman groaned and rolled her eyes and shook her head. She moved to sit back next to Dante.

“What was this all about?” Dante asked quietly.

“A couple of the girls from the Canadian choir asked Shane and Eric to their rooms and Eric knows they’re all minors and it pissed him off Shane would consider it. Something to do with Eric’s kid sister being the same age as the girls and him thinking Shane looks at his sister.” She kept her voice low, “Pissed Eric off. I let the choir director know her girls were already looking for fun not a full day into being here.”

Evander frowned, “wait, are you saying Eric was pissed off because Shane wanted to go hook up with some girls?”

“Yes.” She could see Evander pondering the young man his daughter was currently enamoured with. “Don’t let it fool you, Evander. If he thought for one minute the girls were over sixteen and it wouldn’t cost him his scholarship possibilities, he would scale a drainpipe on a fifty-story building to get laid. He’s a teenage boy.” Evander’s nostrils flared at her answer, and she shrugged, “just speaking truths.”

Romy sighed, “why do I feel I should stop enjoying my wine?”

“Enjoy the wine, Romy,” she grinned suddenly. “I put the fear into them. They won’t be acting up tonight.”

“You’re sure?”

“Hundred percent. I let the boys know we have security on the floors.”

Dante frowned and whispered, “we don’t have,” he paused and then made big eyes at her. “Oh, you’re naughty!”

“Work smarter, not harder,” she tapped her temples as the other three people at her table laughed. Perhaps she would get to sleep tonight after all.