Page 6 of Rogue

“No, never,” I say.

The thing is, Hunter still desperately needs my help to save his girlfriend and I’m gonna give it.

When Angel was in trouble, when she bit off more than she could chew by going after Ghost on her own, I begged everyone I could think of to help me find her. My uncle the detective, the cops from my dad’s MC, friends in a gang who had the manpower to help. None of them believed that I needed their help as badly as I did. They all thought we were going after some innocent history teacher and not a deranged serial killer. So she died.

I’m not gonna let Hunter get killed trying to save his girl on his own. Not after he told me where to find the man who took Angel from me—the only present I ever wanted. And he gave it without asking for anything in return.

This is what I’m giving him in return. The aid of my entire MC to do whatever he needs.

“Why do you bikers always have to be so damn stubborn?” Melody asks as she ties off the last of my stitches. “You’re all the same.”

“Nah, I’m not like any biker you’ve ever met before,” I tell her with a smirk. She’s a very beautiful woman, especially when her eyes are shooting these angry little sparks of lightning like they’re doing just now.

She scoffs and shakes her head as she peels off her latex gloves. “I very much doubt that.”

A part of me wants to just grab her, lay her down on this bed and show her I’m telling the truth. And I haven’t had that kind of reaction to a woman in a very long time. It’s worth pausing over it. But not doing more than that.

“I’d love to continue bickering with you, but I have some unfinished business to take care of,” I say and swing my legs over the side of the bed, wishing that merely sitting up in bed didn’t make my head so fuzzy and my vision so blurry. I bite the inside of my cheek to steady myself. “And your friend Hunter will be very grateful to me when it’s done. So will you give me the shot of adrenaline or whatever, or do I have to ask the paramedics to do it?”

She shakes her head and stands up, moving the chair she was sitting so I can stand up easier.

“Have the paramedics do it,” she says. “I’m done with bikers and your crazy strong death wishes.”

“Do I detect a hint of worry for me in your voice?” I ask. “Don’t worry. I’ll be back soon.”

She scoffs again, but not before her eyes locked on mine and grew a whole lot softer.

“I’m sure your friends will be very happy about that,” she says.

I would honestly love to keep bantering with her for hours to come, but she prevents it by striding out of the room, her hair swinging and her hips swaying. I wish she wasn’t walking away from me. But only a small part of me is wishing that. The rest knows nothing can come of it if she stayed. And that’s exactly as it should be.

The sun’s coming up blindingly bright somewhere behind the tall wall that we’re trying to breach. The wound in my side is throbbing slightly, but otherwise I feel more alive than I have in a good long while.

For the first time in over five years, the MC is set to take on an enemy in an actual battle. Behind this wall is a warehouse and in that warehouse are many trafficked women being held against their will, probably including Hunter’s girlfriend. The warehouse is guarded by a bunch of hired security dudes. One of them shot me earlier and another might finish the job now. But I’m not thinking about that. There’s no point. We’re here and we’re attacking. They don’t know we’re coming, so surprise is on our side.

“We shouldn’t be doing this,” my VP Blade keeps muttering to himself while we wait for a gate in a metal wall to open. He’s wearing shades that reflect the gate perfectly and he’d be a dead ringer for Shaft as played by Samuel L. Jackson if it wasn’t for his constant complaining and grumbling lately.

He’s been saying it for the last couple of hours, and definitely since I decided we will be attacking the warehouse this morning. That’s why he’s just muttering it now, while probably thinking I can’t hear him. I shot him down so many times he’s sick of hearing it. Good. Because we’re doing this thing.

We’re just standing out in the open on a sidewalk in a derelict industrial zone. My team of six and the rest of our men and women in teams of five. We’re just waiting for the gate to open. Then we’re swooping in.

Blade is right in that this is the most reckless and impulsive thing Rogue Angels MC has done in a very long time. But we’re all trained for it. And we’re all brave enough for it.

We don’t have a good visual on how many guards are behind the wall, but we do know they’re highly trained, armed to the teeth and won’t blink before putting a bullet between a man’s—or a woman’s—eyes. In the early days of the Rogue Angels MC, we’d fight bastards like that on principle. Nowadays we’ve been playing it safe, relying on high tech gadgets and letting the proper authorities pick up the worst of the fighting.

That’s probably a big part of the reason why there’s currently thirty-five of us and not just the ten we were five years ago.

But I’m thinking it’s time we return to our roots. Starting with this battle. Blade will see it my way in time. He’s my VP for a reason. Used to be, we lived for this type of thing.

The three Devil’s Nightmare MC guys on my team all have faces hard as stone and everything about their stance says they’re ready to fight to the death in there. Expect maybe Hunter, whose eyes hold a touch of worry too. He’s got the most to lose if we fail. He doesn’t know if we’ll even find his woman here and even if we do, we might not find her alive. I know the feeling. It’s currently spreading from the pit of my stomach into my limbs, even though it’s actually originating from a very old memory.

A memory of crawling through a basement window of an abandoned movie theatre hoping I’ll just find an empty building, fearing I’ll find Angel dead inside it. The reality was much, much worse than anything I feared. Before or since. But this is no time to remember any of that.

The gate in the metal wall is starting to slide open, controlled by Skye, our intel officer and the best hacker I’ve ever met. Good thing she’s on our team, because she could probably hack into Fort Knox and get away undetected.

Shouts start coming from the other side of the gate. Men wondering why it’s opening. Not panicked yet. Not scared. In a moment they will be.

My team runs forward, Hunter the first through the gate, followed by his two friends, Jax and Chance.

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