Hunter (King’s Men MC #1)

8. Roman

8

ROMAN

She didn’t do much for the entire semester.

I didn’t even think she had any friends. It wasn’t like she didn’t want friends or thought she was too good on her own.

I thought it was more about the fact that she didn’t know how to make friends.

Didn’t know how to connect to people.

I shouldn’t pity the girl.

I shouldn’t have had this urge to fix everything for her, but I did.

So fucking bad. I was a hairline trigger away from asking Kai to be her friend.

Probably wouldn’t have been such a good idea.

She might not have recognized me on sight, but I had no doubt she still remembered it was the VP of the King’s Men MC that she sent to jail. The club that Kai was set to inherit from his old man one day.

She wouldn’t want to be friends with Kai, no matter how badly she might need one.

A silly voice in my head whispered that I could be her friend .

I could laugh over that.

As if I would make good friends with anybody, but least of all, with her.

She was the girl I wanted to hurt and fuck.

I wouldn’t make a good friend.

I followed her on foot as she walked out of the arts building late at night.

The days were getting longer now that summer was almost upon us, but she had gotten out pretty late, and only a hint of daylight was left.

I wanted to shake her until she understood just how dangerous it was to walk around campus so late in the day when hardly anyone was around.

Anyone could stalk her and hurt her.

Like me.

She barely looked around at her surroundings as she walked back to her apartment.

I wondered if this had anything to do with her sheltered upbringing. Even after witnessing a murder, was she really so na?ve to think this world was good, filled with good people who would never harm her?

I kept my distance and stopped about five feet away when we got to a crosswalk.

A man bumped into my shoulder as he passed me, standing between me and my target.

I couldn’t see his face, but awareness made its way across my skin, and I watched the man a little closer.

He was standing too close to Ryleigh for my liking.

I narrowed my eyes at him when he stepped even more into her personal space and, leaning down, sniffed her hair.

My fist clenched, and I would have grabbed the bastard if that wouldn’t draw attention to me. Since my release, the cops had kept a closer eye on me. They didn’t believe the new “evidence” that came in was legit, and they shouldn’t .

I would have no faith left in the police force of this city had they fallen for it, but there were no holes in it, and the fuckers couldn’t hold me.

That didn’t stop them from hoping I would fuck up once more.

I wouldn’t.

The light turned green, and the three of us made our way across the street. The fucker followed Ryleigh for about half a block, unaware of the monster that was right behind him.

I looked around my surroundings, and when I was sure no one was around, I grabbed the fucker by the back of his neck with one hand. The other, I used to cover his mouth so he couldn’t scream out, and dragged him into the mouth of the alley, into the darkness with me.

I pushed him onto the ground, and he turned and took me in.

“Who the fuck are you?” he asked, unable to hide the fear that seeped in his voice.

I smiled, even if he couldn’t see me clearly. “Your worst nightmare.”

He tried to back away with his legs.

I followed him, stomping on his ankle until I heard the satisfying crunch beneath my boot.

He screamed, which was cut off when I climbed on top of him and covered his mouth with my hand.

“Shh,” I said. “You don’t want to draw attention to us, do you?”

The moon glinted just the right way. I could make out his wide eyes, pupils dilated from whatever drug he was on.

He shook his head, and I tightened my grip.

“You followed the wrong girl,” I said smoothly. “You dare to target what’s mine? Don’t worry. You won’t be able to target anyone else. ”

I pulled out the knife from the inside of my boot, and the man let out a pathetic whimper.

Before he could beg, I slashed it across his throat until blood spurted out, warming my hand.

I let him go and watched as he struggled for a beat before I used his shirt to wipe my dirty hands. It wouldn’t clean them up thoroughly, and I needed to go home and burn these clothes.

But that meant I wasn’t able to walk Ryleigh home tonight.

Fucking bastard.

He ruined my routine.

I pulled out my phone, ordered a clean-up, and stayed hidden in the alley until I heard my crew coming in with the white van.

I nodded to the man in the driver’s seat before walking away and going back to her apartment.

She should already be home.

Sure enough, I could see the light coming from her apartment windows.

I stayed there and watched her, fighting against the urge to go to her apartment and take her away.

The only thing saving her from me right now was that she was Judge Hudson’s daughter, not some random woman off the street.

But her old man was as corrupt as they came, and it was only a matter of time before her father’s prominence couldn’t save her from me.

I could be patient.

After all, most hunters were when it came to their most desired prey.

My sunglasses were on to fight off the glare of the sun and hide my eyes as I sat on the bleachers outside the UC Berkeley, along with other people watching the graduation.

Even though people didn’t know who I was, I guessed my presence was intimidating enough that most of them left me alone.

There was an empty space on either side of me—or there had been until another large figure took a seat.

I didn’t jump from his presence.

I should have known the fucker would have followed me.

Despite repeatedly proving how capable I was at taking care of myself, the fucker still acted like I needed my big brother to come to the rescue.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“Following you. What are you doing here?”

“Seeing Kai graduate.”

He grunted. He knew it was a lie.

Dominic and Braxton were somewhere on the bench as they watched Kai graduate from college, something Dominic was fucking proud of, considering he barely graduated high school. And most of the brothers were here with them.

I should have been sitting with them, but I had separated from the crowd, wanting to get a closer look at Ryleigh.

I had thought we would run into Judge Hudson and his wife, but neither of them had shown up for her graduation, and I didn’t know why.

No one had shown up for the girl, and something about that just didn’t sit right with me.

So I separated myself from the group, as if to convince myself that by doing so, I could say I wasn’t here for Kai but for her, that she had someone here to watch as she passed this important milestone, even if she didn’t even know.

She looked… sad today.

And I fucking hated that .

“This is going to come back and bite you in the ass later,” Micah said gruffly.

If left to Micah, he would have killed the girl, made it look like an accident, and called it done.

He didn’t like that I was drawing this out.

He didn’t know of my obsession. He would have called me stupid.

Perhaps he would have been right.

“I know what I’m doing,” I answered.

“Do you?”

I grunted.

“What do you want to do with the girl?”

Hurt her. Use her. Fuck her.

Keep her.

Fuck, but I wanted to keep her.

I wanted to hate her or for her to not mean anything to me. Although some part of me hated her for putting me in that hellhole for the past two years, I didn’t hate her as much as I thought I would—or should.

I didn’t answer him.

He let out a small sigh. “Fine, do whatever the fuck you want to do with her. But once you’re done, get your head out of your ass and focus on the club, yeah?”

“I’m always focused on the club,” I defended.

Fuck, but I had lived and breathed the club for the past seven years since I joined and helped Dominic make it into what it was.

“No, you’ve been distracted, and I know it has everything to do with the girl. Get over this obsession, little brother. If you want a nice pussy to sink into, there are plenty around the club who would want to be your old lady. But this girl should be off limits to you, for more reasons than the fact that she sent you to prison.”

I had never heard Micah sound so passionate about anything, and though he didn’t speak very loudly, it was hard to miss the anger in his voice.

Micah was about as emotional as a fucking tree.

Our bastard dad had called him a psycho since he was sixteen, when Micah broke our cousin’s legs as punishment for pushing me out on the street just as a car was about to drive by.

The fucker was fourteen and knew what he was doing.

He wanted to kill me.

Our dad wasn’t far off on the nickname.

Micah would make the worst enemy to anyone, but he was fucking crazy when it came down to shitheads who hurt his family, and at that time, I was his only family.

But I wasn’t that little boy who needed my big brother to protect me anymore.

I was a man.

A fucking big man at that, and I had a fucking obsession I couldn’t let go.

“She’s mine,” I said, and it was as simple as it sounded. “This revenge is mine. I decide what happens to her.”

“She’ll ruin you.”

“What a way to go,” I said, only half joking.

He turned to me, his pale silver eyes flashing in the afternoon sun. I resisted the urge to move away.

I was probably the safest person on the planet from Micah. I knew that, and he knew that, too.

Didn’t mean I didn’t find him to be scary as hell.

I kept my gaze on him, and he let out a tired sigh and looked back into the sea of blue and black.

“Fine, keep your little toy. That just means I will have to keep a closer watch on you. Lucky for you, I won’t let anything happen to you.”

It was my turn to sigh. “You don’t need to keep an eye on me. I know how to take care of myself. ”

He shook his head and stood up, probably walking back to where Dominic was. I didn’t watch him.

I kept my eyes on the girl not too far away from him.

She had her head down, her eyes on her lap.

I wondered what she was thinking.

It looked like she was barely listening to the speeches.

I didn’t blame her.

Everything about the ceremony was fucking boring, but I really hated the dejected look on her face right now. I was hit with the sudden urge to find out why she looked like that and how to eliminate the problem to wipe that look away.

I wanted to pick her up and take her away, somewhere far from here.

Probably to my cabin, where the only thing she needed to focus on was me, and ignore everything else that was going on.

Where her only problem was to ensure she pleased me.

And with the way I was feeling, I didn’t doubt it would be oh so fucking easy for her to do.