Healing Gabe (The Last Hangman MC #3)(36)
“You know I’m right, you’re just too scared to admit it.”
“What do you know?” I glare at him.
“I just know. You’re acting the exact same way Aleck did. You want her but can’t be with her because you’re trying to keep her safe. And just like Aleck, you trying to keep her at arm’s length is going to hurt her more than you can imagine. The safest place for her is by your side.” He states matter of factly.
“Whatever.” I groan as I put my car in reverse and drive away. The kid is probably right, but I’m not ready to admit that. I can’t think about this, not now, not today.
I drive the couple of miles to my house, park the car in the garage and jump on my bike, driving away. I know I’m late, not much but enough for Ant, Ray and Ric to be pissed. I speed to catch up with them and get into the group, behind our three leaders. I get a couple of glares but can’t be bothered to care right now.
I hope everything goes without too much trouble for us. We can’t risk losing anyone, especially not Ant and Aleck. I dread having to tell Ayden or Charline that anything happened to them. I shake those thoughts away and focus on what we have to do. It’s a do or die situation. We need to have the upper hand. We will outnumber them today, but we need to make sure that they take a bad hit.
So much shit has been going on within the club that the smallest thing is going to make it crumble. Jared is still power hungry and is trying to achieve what Trent tried to set up. The only problem for them is that no one wants to ally themselves with them so they are using women for anything they can, be it sex or blackmail. They’re killing innocent people for no reason, and ruining kids’ lives with their poor quality drugs, all because he wants to control Louisiana. It’s f*cking chaos and we need to fix it.
We get to the point of exchange two hours early, we need all the time we can get to make sure we’re able to get everything ready and hide before they get here.
“I don’t know why the f*ck you were late joining us, but we take this very f*cking seriously. If you don’t, you still have time to leave.” Ric spits at me.
“I take this very seriously. I was making sure someone was safe, especially considering what’s going to go down today.” I glare at him.
“Viv.” I’m pretty sure I pale as he says her name.
“How do you know about her?” I growl.
“Because Jared has been after her for twelve years, she’s back in town and I figured you might want to keep her protected so he doesn’t get to her.” He smirks.
“If you or your men touch one hair on her head, I’ll end you all with my bare fists.” I growl, getting in his face.
“Easy. I’m not threatening either of you. Just warning you that Jared is still after her, even if he hasn’t done anything to hurt her, he’s been dead set on scaring her back to him. In the beginning, we wanted an alliance with them. They were the most powerful club around. What they were asking us to do back then was reasonable, do a couple deals for them, some runs, but then, they wanted us to get them women. We’re not proud, we got two willing women to go party with them. To this day, I still regret doing it, we never saw them again and I don’t know what happened. We told them we didn’t want anything to do with that kind of business and he seemed to understand which is unlike Jared. Instead he asked us to keep an eye and scare a particular woman so she would come back here. We had a couple of charters keep an eye on her and follow her everywhere. It clearly worked because she’s back and I’m dreading what will happen to her. We stopped spying on her for a while now. I don’t know exactly the history she has with the club, but keep a close eye on her and take Jared down. Until he’s dead, he’ll always want Vivian.” I’m seeing red. I can’t f*cking believe what Ric just said. I knew Jared was f*cked up but for f*ck’s sake can’t he just give Viv a break?
“That sick motherf*cker, I want him dead.” I growl beyond the point of being pissed.
“We all do, Brother.” Ant pats my shoulder and motions for everybody to get into position.
Aleck walks over to me. “Get your head into this. You’re doing this to help Viv live a normal life in her hometown. Don’t f*ck this up. I know you can’t stop thinking about her. I understand the feeling, but keep in mind that you have to stay safe if you want to be able to protect her without Bennett trying to hit on her.”
“Dickhead.” I groan and look for cover with him. “I don’t want her in the middle of this.”
“I know you don’t, just like I didn’t want Line to be caught up in the middle of club business. In reality, those f*ckers were after her, me being with her didn’t make a difference, hell she could have been going out with a bar man and they still would’ve tried to get to her. The exact same thing is happening to Viv. When are you going to get this? Having our brothers watch her over is fine, but at the end of the day she needs you just as much as you need her so pull your head out of your ass and make sure you get back to your woman in one piece.” Aleck scolds me. I sigh knowing the bastard is right.
“I know.” I rub my face. “I just can’t help it. I want to make sure she’ll be safe. I can’t risk anything happening to her, especially after what Ric just said.”
“I know. This f*cking blows but you gotta hang in there to be with your woman. No matter what happened between the two of you in the past it’s clear to everyone you two are made for each other.”