Page 10 of Rogue

I scoff. “I think you just wanted a nice big scar to add to your collection.”

He grins and I smile right back. “I like the stories scars tell. This will be a good one. I’m sure my grandchildren will like hearing about the beautiful lady doctor who stitched it up twice.”

“If you live long enough to tell it to them,” I say. “Or have children in the first place.”

The words just tumbled out of my mouth, complete with all the righteous indignation and worry that would be there if I was talking to Hunter, Jax, or Chance or any of the other Devils after they got hurt.

“Some days I want to have grandchildren more than others,” he says, his eyes still playful, but starting to frost over. “Today’s definitely one of those days. You have a lot to do with that.”

There’s something so familiar and so endless in his eyes that it makes it hard to breathe. So, I look away and get to work on his wound.

“I think you might be running a fever,” I say. “I hope your wound isn’t infected.”

“You’re probably right,” he says. “I’m talking crazy.”

“That’s right, running around getting shot at is crazy,” I say, although a part of me would prefer to still be flirting. But his face has gone hard and his eyes have turned so dark they’re almost black. Like the forest at night. Uninviting, maybe even a little scary. But still beautiful and natural and pure.

He doesn’t say anything. I think we’re done talking. I just focus on fixing his stitches.

There’s definitely a cold about him. But not the kind of cold that comes from being dead inside like some of the killers I know. His is coming from a very thick layer of ice keeping his fire and his heart safely hidden. But why I’m even thinking about the state of his heart I’m sure I don’t know.

Because as soon as I stitch him up and leave his clubhouse, I’ll never see him again. Nothing’s changed on that front. I’m still moving on from my life with bikers. As completely as I left my old life behind when I first joined them.

And I really hope he is the last biker friend that I ever have to stitch up.

5

Rogue

I called Council because we need to start planning what to tackle next. And maybe a little bit to explain my recent recklessness. Though I’ll avoid that for as long as I can.

I did what needed to be done helping the Devils.

All my execs know it. Even if they’re not saying as much. Blade is being especially quiet. He’s standing over by the window, drinking one of his green juice concoctions and casting me ominous sort of glances over the rim of his glass.

Today, there are no whiteboards covered with recon photos of our next target in the room, and the long, stainless-steel table that’s usually covered with files, folders and more photos is clear too.

Alice, our Sarge, is flipping through the file on Clive Krueger, the strip joint owner turned human trafficker whose warehouse full of abducted women we attacked last week. Our treasurer Creed is tapping his foot and looking at no one in particular. Judge, our Chaplain, has no trouble meeting my eyes as he stares at me from across the room.

We’re all old friends in here. All this titles stuff is something we didn’t bother with in the beginning, when Rogue Angels MC was just a group of likeminded friends working together to right injustices where we could. But that was back when there were only twelve of us. We’d get fed intel on who to go after from the LAPD and other law enforcement agencies that had exhausted their capabilities in a particular case and we’d get the job done.

But four years ago, what started as a man hunt for a high-ranking official who had a proclivity for child prostitutes, ended in us bringing down a nation-wide child trafficking ring. We got famous then.

We’d always been a club that welcomed anyone who had been wronged in some way, or lost a loved one, but after that our numbers swelled. To thirty members at last count and ten club girls who had nowhere else to go.

We started taking on bigger cases after that. Investigating from a distance, hiding behind computers and using fancy spy gadgets to track down our targets. Not going out into the streets as much as we once did. Until that’s all we’ve been doing lately.

But finally getting to kill the monster that hurt Angel broke something in me. It changed something. I’m not even sure what yet. But it was the reason why I had us attack that warehouse with virtually no pre-planning. And it’s the reason I want to do it over and over again now.

“So, the way I see it, we still have aways to go before this Clive Kruger guy and his sex trafficking operation is stopped for good,” I say. “Storming the warehouse and freeing all those women was just the start.”

Alice looks up from the file she’s reading and fixes me with her ice blue eyes. They go perfectly with her long platinum blonde hair, which she keeps braided like a Viking warrior woman. Her size and feminine appearance could and has fooled many into thinking she’s no threat. But of all my MC brothersand sisters, she’s the one I’d mess with last. Though that’s not the whole reason why she’s the perfect Sarge for the MC.

“The warehouse attack wasn’t a very good start on getting Clive,” she says. “We moved before we had all the intel?—”

“We succeeded in freeing those women though,” I interrupt. “That’s worth something.”

She gives me a bemused sort of look, complete with pursed lips.

---