Page 16 of Ruthless Angel

Riot and Daire glared hard at one another. Felix and Cash exchanged a look that said they weren’t interested in whatever those two had going on.

“Ten grand,” Riot said. “And a favor to be done tonight. In fact, a favor to be done by your girlfriend.”

“She is not fucking you,” Daire hissed.

Riot chuckled. “That’s not what I was going to say.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. The tension in the room felt thick. Ominous. We had enough problems without beefing with the Sinners.

“Then what do you want?” Daire eyed Riot with obvious distrust. He’d angled himself closer to me, taking a protective stance.

“We’ve been trying to find a way to lure this creep that’s been finding young girls online. He gains their trust and gets them to meet him. Obviously, that doesn’t end well for them. We’ve been carrying on a conversation with him pretending to be a fifteen year old girl. But he won’t meet up until he video chats with her to prove she’s real. That’s where Clover comes in.”

“You want me to be the girl,” I filled in, seeing where this was going.

“Bingo.” Riot pointed a finger at me. “Get him to meet you. We’ll come along and beat his ass.”

“Fuck no.” With a shake of his head, Daire dismissed the idea immediately. “Find someone else to lure your creep.”

Felix spun around on his chair to face us. Steepling his fingers, he cocked his head to one side. “I thought doling out justice to guys like this was kind of your thing. Why wouldn’t you want to stop him from raping young girls?”

I didn’t love the idea of luring a creep off the internet. However, I was willing to do whatever it took to get Blaze back, and I didn’t want this guy to hurt more girls.

“I don’t want to risk Clover,” Daire said, his eyes meeting mine. “She’s been through enough.”

Riot sipped from his drink before saying, “Then I guess we’re done here.”

That was enough to set Daire off. “You’re a real piece of shit, you know that.”

He took a step toward Riot. Cash stepped in between them, pushing Daire back with a hand on his chest. Riot openly grinned like the Cheshire Cat.

“I’ll do it,” I volunteered, hoping to keep the peace. “It doesn’t sound that dangerous. Especially if you guys will be there.”

Riot’s face lit up with satisfaction. The Angels sure did seem to make a lot more enemies than they did friends.

“You don’t have to do anything,” Cash insisted. “It’s not on you, Sunshine.”

“We need to find Blaze. We’re running out of time. Let me do something to help. Otherwise, how will we find him?” All I could do was appeal to their good sense.

Daire’s jaw twitched. “Get us something to work with first. I’m not sending her out there if you can’t get us anything.”

“Fair enough.” Felix spun his chair back to face his computer screen. “What are we looking for?”

“Anything and everything related to a Brady Rollins,” Cash supplied.

Felix began clicking around on his computer. Riot grabbed a phone from the long table that stretched along the wall and held it out to me.

“Here. I’ll get the guy to call this phone. Go over there in the corner where the light is dimmer and do whatever it takes to get him to meet you. Tell him to go to the park on Cherry Street. Nobody lives close enough to hear anything.”

I took the phone, staring uncertainly at the blank screen. I wasn’t sure I passed for a fifteen year old, although if people in their mid to late twenties could play teens on TV, maybe I’d be able to make it work.

Riot took a seat at the long bank of computers. He pulled up a chat window and began typing.

Next to me Daire muttered angrily beneath his breath. Louder he said, “Just for the record, I am completely against this plan.”

Not sure if he would be receptive, I took his hand in mine. He didn’t shake me off like I expected. Instead, he held tight, like he didn’t want to let go.

“We have to do something,” I said softly. “We have to save Blaze.”

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