Teaching Aleck (The Last Hangman MC #2)(29)

“Yes, have been for years now.” He smiles softly and helps me put the helmet on after securing my bag on the back of the bike.

“Good to know.” I smile softly at him and get on the bike with his help. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome, Gorgeous. Where to?” I give him my grandparent’s ranch address. He gets on the bike and smiles softly. I can tell he’s not pleased at all by the situation. Neither am I, but he looks furious and ready to kill. “Hold on tight.”

I do as I’m told and wrap my arms tightly around his waist as he gets back on the road.

It’s so much faster with his bike and we get onto my grandparent’s property in no time, much to my disappointment. It feels amazing to be so close to Aleck.

He stops the bike before driving up the huge lane that leads to the ranch.

“Is everything okay?” I look at him confused as he gets off the bike.

“No. I know you didn’t see their cut, but do you remember anything about them, any detail that could help us?” He’s pacing.

“Uh, one of them had a tattoo on his forearm.”

“What was it off?” He stops in front of me and looks at me intently.

“Uh.” I need to think for a minute but it comes back to me. “He had two blades crossing behind a skull.”

“That motherf*cker piece of shit I’m going to f*cking kill him,” he roars. And at this point, I’m scared. Not because he just yelled a bunch of profanities, but because he really does look like he’s going to kill someone. I can’t believe he seems to know how did this.

“W-who did this?” I ask softly stroking his cheek.

He leans into my touch and sighs. “Someone we've been suspicious of for a while now, and it’s just been confirmed that he’s a f*cking piece of shit.” His tone is clipped and I think I get what he’s talking about.

“You mean behind what happened to Ayden.” He looks at me surprised and confused. “She told me what happened a couple of weeks ago.”

“You really are stronger than I thought you were,” he says softly.

“What do you mean?” It’s my turn to look at him confused.

“Nothing.” I raise my eyebrow at him. “The day I saw you in the hospital when you were going to visit Ayd, she told me you were stronger than I thought and she was right.”

“Okay?” I’m still confused at this point.

He sighs. “Maybe you won’t judge me as badly as I thought knowing what I’ve been through up until now or judge the bad decisions I’m bound to make in the future.” He shrugs.

“I thought you knew that no matter what I’d never judge you Aleck. I like you the way you are. All rough and caveman like. I know you’re not a saint and have done bad things, to what extent I have no idea, but considering the glimpses I’ve had of the club and what I know happened to Ayd and why, I have a pretty good idea of the shit you’ve been through. Does it matter to me what you did in the past? No. It’s in the past and it’ll remain there. Sure, it can still hurt us now, but we can deal. The future doesn’t exist yet, so I can’t judge you on something that hasn’t happened yet. If you do something bad, sure, I’m going to yell your ears off you can be sure of that. As long as you don’t do anything to deliberately hurt me, and yes rejection is included in there, we won’t have a problem,” I finish on a grin.

“Well, that’s good to know. So, you like me being all caveman like on you, huh?” He chuckles.

“Of all the things I just said that’s all you picked out? You’re an ass!” I punch his arm.

“You like me, you just said so.” He smiles softly and hugs me.

“I do.” I sigh happily.

“Feels really good,” he whispers.

“It really does,” I whisper back.

We stay like this for a few minutes, not talking, just hugging each other.

“That guy, he’s bad news isn’t he?” I look up at him and he nods.

“Yes, he’s been causing us trouble for years. Gabe hates his guts but I don’t know the story. Don’t worry about him though, I’ll take care of it myself and make sure they don’t bother you anymore. Was it the first time it happened?” He looks at me and I can see the muscles in his jaw clench when I nibble my lip. “Charline…”

“No.” I sigh.

“When?” He’s clearly containing himself.

“The BBQ for Cabe’s release was the first time. I was walking out of the compound and down the street when I saw them, they started to follow me. I walked into a store and they walked past at first, but then came back, looked at me and made the slitting motion across their throats. Scared the living hell out of me and I took a cab home. Then it happened on a few other occasions, at first I thought you were doing the same as Ant did for Ayden and had guys follow me, but it wasn’t happening every time I was taking my car. Today was the first time I really felt threatened though.” I swallow hard.

“You should have told me, Line. I don’t ever want you to feel unsafe ever again.”

“I promise I will if it happens again.”

“Good.” He kisses my forehead. “Where’s your perfect boyfriend anyway?”

I scoff. “He’s sleeping, he had a night shift.”