I feel bad that she’s being forced to get up close and personal with me when she probably thinks I’m a complete pervert, but I can’t have her falling off the back. Jack would kill me, and I’d feel like even more of an ass than I currently do.
She wriggles closer and wraps her arms fully around my waist. I’m happy to have her so near, and my cock gives a little jerk of approval. I just want the bastard to behave and go down.
We get moving, and she grips me harder. I’m justfollowing the dirt tracks around the compound, but I’m able to go fast enough that she’s soon holding on tight.
I fucking love being on a motorcycle. There’s nowhere else I feel so free. The first time I ever rode a bike, it was like discovering how to breathe again. I’ve been through so much shit in my life. Violent father, booze-addled mother, in and out of foster homes, and finally doing a stint in jail. It’s such an unoriginal story, I bore myself sometimes. But then I found the club, and things turned around for me.
I ride toward the outskirts of the compound, and finally up onto the hill on the south-west side which looks down onto all the buildings. I bring the bike to a halt, and we both climb off and take off our helmets.
“Thought we could sit here a while,” I say, dropping onto the ground. “The view is kinda pretty.”
She smiles and sits crossed-legged next to me.
“How did you end up in the MC, Rook?” she asks.
I shrug. “I guess you could say Jack took me in.”
“Why did he need to take you in?”
I don’t really want to tell her, which is dumb because I know what kind of family she comes from. It’s not as though she’s been sheltered from criminal activity. But still, the sort of crime her family is probably involved with is not the same as mine. It makes me feel like a stupid fuck, to explain to her what I got caught up in, but it’s not like it’s a secret. I guess it’s better to come from me than letting one of the other guys tell my story.
I blow out a breath. “I did jail time for my involvement in an armed robbery.”
Her pretty dark brown eyes widen. “Armed robbery?”
“Yeah, I was only eighteen at the time and dumb as fuck. I grew up in foster care, pinging around from onefamily to the next, so I never really had any decent father figure, not that I’m trying to make excuses. I fell in with the wrong crowd and let them talk me into doing some stupid shit. They got the idea they’d rob a gas station, and since I was good with cars and engines, they made me the getaway driver. I figured what would be the harm—the money was good—and so I said yes.” I cringe inwardly at the memory. “But things went wrong, and a guy got shot and was killed. We were arrested and served time for it. ’Cause I didn’t have a weapon, I was just driving, I received a lighter sentence than the other guys. They’re still serving time, and I think they’re pissed that I’m already out.”
Does she think differently of me now?
It’s a stupid concern. She doesn’t know me well enough to have formedanyopinion of me. And why should I care? It’s not like she’s sticking around, and even if she was, I’m pretty sure Jack has a thing for her, whether he’d admit it to himself or not. He’s got this whole possessive, growly thing going on around her, and I don’t think the only reason he wants to keep Ace away is because he’s worried about her being led astray.
I wonder where exactly Jack thinks he’s going to go with it, though. She’s his daughter’s friend, and I’ve met his daughter, if only briefly.
She’s not the kind of woman you’d want to piss off.
I can’t see her taking too kindly to the idea of her father screwing around with her friend.
12
GHOST
The tracks areeasy to follow. This Ledger kid clearly has no clue how to cover where he was headed. There are broken branches, snapped twigs, and clear footprints on some of the muddier ground. He circled around a fair bit before he finally returned to his vehicle. Then, once he was driving, the tire tracks out of the woods don’t follow the same path as those in.
I stare off into the distance and sigh. My bike isn’t far back in the woods, so I can jog back to it and follow the tire tracks. I’d dismounted when I wanted to follow the trail I’d picked up.
This little fucker needs to be caught. He tried to push a girl into having sex and, when she refused, he fucking shot at her. That’s not right at all in my books, and I’d like to give the motherfucker a taste of his own medicine.
I’m wearing camo trousers, instead of my usual jeans, and a dark olive t-shirt, along with boots. It’s easier to run like this, without anything heavy on my back, than in my military days. I used to jogfor hours then, carrying huge amounts of weight. Sometimes, depending on how deep we were embedded in enemy territory, we’d have to trek for days and sleep wherever we could.
My time in the military has given me the superpower of being able to fall asleep anywhere. Unfortunately, it’s also given me the fucking trauma response that means I wake up far too easily, and my sleep is shitty and nightmare-filled even all these years later.
Reaching my bike, I climb on and push the kickstand back before I roar out of the copse of trees and drive back to the place where the tire tracks begin. Once I reach them, I follow them carefully, leaning over the edge of the bike to observe which way they go.
It leads me to a part of the woods where the trees thin, before breaking wide open to reveal a double lane road. This is the kind of country road that, despite being well maintained, causes people to have accidents. Although it looks like easy driving, it contains lots of corners, switchbacks, and hairpin bends. It’s the kind of road I love to ride on, but today, there’s no sign of which way the vehicle I’m tracking went.
I imagine plenty of other vehicles have passed since that prick turned onto this section of asphalt, and the sun will have dried any marks left from wet tires.
Jack doesn’t think Ledger is back at the college because the dean says so, but what would have stopped Ledger from heading straight back there and sneaking in before news of what happened reached Dean Rossi? If the college wasn’t on high alert, how easy would it be to breach the boundary? Very easy is my guess.
