Page 6 of Saved By the Rogue

"Will do," he replied, his eyes fixed straight ahead. And, after another long silence, the men finally made their way to the door – and I breathed a sigh of relief. I heard the bell chime to announce their departure, and the man who had emerged from the back watched until they were out of sight, before he turned his attention to me.

"Now," he remarked, frowning in my direction. "Will someone explain to me what the hell she’s doing here?"

I straightened up fearfully, glancing this way and that to make sure the coast was clear. Jaxon shredded the card they had given him and tossed it in the trash without so much as looking down at the number.

"I – I'm sorry for all of this," I blurted out. "I know it’s not fair of me to ask you to – I mean, I know that-"

"Where did she come from?” The man demanded of Jaxon, turning his attention to him.

"She came in for a tattoo," Jaxon replied, nodding down to my wrist, wrapped in clingfilm. "And then those guys came in looking for her."

"And you decided to hide her?" he asked.

"I wasn’t just going to hand her over, Chuck," he replied, sounding exasperated. "Not knowing the kind of shit that’s out there."

I glanced between them. Oh, I got the feeling I was in trouble. But at least they hadn’t handed me over to those guys – at least they hadn’t hung me out to dry. That had to count for something, didn’t it?

Chuck turned to me and looked me up and down, a frown on his face.

"You look familiar," he remarked. "Do I know you?”

"You – you might," I confessed. "I’m Sal Salina’s daughter."

"Salina?" Jaxon replied, eyes widening. "The city councilman?”

I nodded, dropping my chin to my chest.

"Yeah, that’s him."

"What the fuck are you doing here?" Chuck demanded. "Does he know you’re here?"

"No," I whispered. Jaxon took a step towards me, concern written all over his face.

"You need to tell us what’s going on," he ordered me. "Right the fuck now."

I parted my lips. Where did I even start? Would they believe me, even if I told them? What if they were working with Lombardi? This tattoo shop could easily have been a cover for something...

But what other choice did I have right now? It wasn’t as though I had a whole lot of allies to choose from. No, I needed to take the chance that was right in front of me – and pray to God that they weren’t going to use this against me.

Because they were the last hope I had.

Chapter Four – Jaxon

"What the fuck are we going to do with her?" Lee demanded, as he paced back and forth in the clubroom. The place was pretty quiet for a change; the rest of the Dark Dogs were out performing their duties, touring our territory, putting down any trouble that might have come up, and clearing out any of the rival gang members who had made the bad decision to move into our area.

This left Chuck, the leader of the Dark Dogs, Lee, his second-in-command, and me to figure out what to do with the city councilman’s daughter who happened to be sleeping upstairs in our place right now. Normally, they were reserved for the other Dogs who worked shifts at the tattoo shop, but when I saw the dark rings under her eyes, I offered her my bed for the night. I doubted Chuck was going to put up with having her much longer than that, but shit, it seemed the least I could do after everything she had clearly been through.

"We have to get her out of here," Chuck replied, shaking his head. "Can’t risk having someone that hot in our compound."

I knew it wasn’t the kind of hot he was talking about, but damn, she was that too. And that meant she wasn’t going to go under the radar easily. She was known in this city – known enough that even Lee, who kept his head in the sand regarding anything that wasn’t directly related to the club, knew who she was.

And those men who were looking for her, they were just the tip of the iceberg, I was sure of it. They were going to be the first in a long line of people sent to track her down and bring her back, so her father could see through this marriage to Lombardi.

Lombardi – that fucker. We’d had run-ins with him over the years, and it didn’t surprise me one little bit that he would have been willing to use a girl the way he seemed to threaten to be using her. Forcing her into marriage? Yeah, it was very much in his MO. I could see from the look on her face when she recounted the truth to us just how terrified she was at the thought of being his wife, and she had good reason to be. I’d run into a few of the women Lombardi had used and discarded over the years, and none of them had been the same since. Most of them I’d met during my junkie days, when they had been using just to deal with the pain of what he had done to them.

"You think she’s telling the truth?” Lee asked.

"I think she’d have to be one hell of a liar to come up with something like that if she wasn’t," I replied. Chuck cocked an eyebrow.

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