Page 1 of Rogue

PROLOGUE

Ten years ago

Rogue

The Santa Ana winds are blowing strongly today, making my skin itch and my soul prickle. Anything can happen when these winds blow.Anythingalready has.

The hot, dry wind is making even the tall cypress trees bordering this small cemetery nervous. They’re whispering as they shake and sway, urgency in their swashing. Urgency to feel rain, to be still, to get away. But they can’t. They’re rooted to the soil here. As am I.

The funeral’s been over for hours, but I can’t leave. Once I do, it’ll be over for good. Over forever. At some point between the priest saying his words and the lowering of Angel’s coffin into the hole in the ground that idea got stuck in my head and I can’t shake it. Complete nonsense though it is. Angel will always be with me. I will never leave her behind.

She lived fast but she didn’t die that way.

Anything can happen when the Santa Ana winds blow. I can ride out and find Ghost, the man who took her from me. I can cut him up the way he cut her… until there won’t be much left of him to bury. Just like he did to Angel.

I could burn his body, let the hot wind make the flames even hotter, make the fire burn bright. Until he’s erased from the earth. Until no one remembers him.

With no backup, with no friends, alone, I can do it. I will do it.

And after it is done, I will join Angel in the cold ground where no wind blows. Where no trees whisper. Where there is no light.

I should’ve insisted she be cremated. Then I could take her with me on this last ride. But her mother is Catholic and she hasn’t stopped crying since Angel died.

If I had her with me, we could walk together into the funeral pyre I will build for Ghost.

I have a lock of her hair in my breast pocket and her gold crucifix hanging next to mine around my neck. That will have to do.

Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.

Angel and Rogue, together forever.

Taken away by the winds.

1

Ten Years Later

Rogue

I spent a whole decade trying to find this man. And here he is, trying to make vegetables grow on his sorry little patch of arid desert soil. Ghost isn’t an old man yet, but he sure looks like one. He’s only fifty-five years old but all dried up by the desert heat and bent almost double. Skin and bones, with a gaunt, sunken face that finally makes him look like the monster he is. But I’d still recognize his face anywhere. Because, even after a decade, I can still see it every time I close my eyes.

We arrived hours ago. The sun is a ball of orange with jagged edges setting behind our backs.

I only brought Blade, Alice and Creed with me on this job. The only three that understand my need to do this. The only three that have been with me since the beginning. There’s some justice in what we’re about to do, because the bent and broken man down there in his little vegetable patch ruined a lot of lives in his hay day. Mine included, when he ended Angel’s. Butmostly, we’re driven by finally getting revenge for our dead lover and friend.

My club, Rogue Angels MC, is not in the killing for revenge business. Sure, we’re in the Wanted Dead or Alive fulfillment business, but mostly we err on the side ofalive. It keeps us honest, keeps our moral compass pointing due north, keeps us from becoming soulless. Because with the sheer number of grievances the members share between us, we’d never stop killing in vengeance if we went down that path.

But this grievance is older than the MC.

This grievance is personal.

From a time when it was just Angel and me, Alice, Creed, Blade and Zane trying to right some of the wrongs of this world. There was no MC yet. Just a group of old friends riding bikes. Isabella was still with us then. She survived Ghost, but not well. And Blade hasn’t smiled much since. None of us have. Maybe after we do this, we will. Probably not.

Zane was already gone by the time Ghost killed Angel. But he’d been by my side as I raced to save her, and he’d be here now, if he could. I know that.

Alice and Creed didn’t come with us when Blade and I rode to save Angel. I’ve forgiven them. But they never forgave themselves.

So much grief. So much pain. So much regret. All thanks to the man down in that vegetable patch, whose skin hangs off his bones like clothes he’d outgrown. He’s outgrown his life.

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