Page 8 of Rogue

He shakes his head and exhales loudly. “After this, we might too. It’s a bloodbath. This isn’t what we do.”

I eye him sideways. “It’s exactly what we set out to do. Tell me these bastards didn’t have it coming? Look at the state of those women.”

Some of them are coming out of the building now. They’re so dirty I can smell them from ten feet away, wearing clothes that a lifelong bum would consider too soiled and shielding their eyes from the sun like they’ve spent a lifetime in the dark.

“It does make my blood boil,” Blade says quietly and finally stops arguing with me.

A few moments later, Hunter comes out, carrying the blonde that was with him the first night we met.

Her hair is dirty, but still has a golden sheen. Thank God we weren’t too late.

“Come on, let’s get outta here,” I call to him. “Follow us.”

“We can make it on our own from here,” Chance calls out.

“But thank you. Couldn’t have done this without you,” Hunter adds. “I owe you.”

“Nonsense,” I say. “You’ll be safe at the clubhouse. The cops won’t come looking for you there.”

“They might though,” Blade grumbles beside me.

“You sure?” Hunter asks.

“You have my word,” I answer both him and Blade.

Then I wait until they reach their rides before sliding the metal gate shut on the women again.

“No! Let us go!” one of them shouts in Spanish.

“You came to save us,” another yells. “Save us!”

“We want to be free!” yet more shout.

“You are free,” I assure them in Spanish. “Help is on the way.”

“No police,” one of them shouts and more and more of them take up the plea.

And then I do what I probably wouldn’t even think of doing three days ago. I open the gate.

Many of these women are probably here illegally. Which means they’re leaving this cage to be put in another by the authorities.

I came here to save them. So I should give them a chance to run away.

“The police are coming,” I tell them. “You should let them take care of you. But if you want to leave on your own, you can.”

Then I run to my bike and only call Manny when I reach it.

I just give him the address, tell him what he’ll find and end the call while he’s in the middle of yelling at me for doing what we did.

It was the right thing to do.

I see it on Hunter’s face and on his woman’s.

I even see it on Blade’s.

And it’s definitely what Angel would’ve wanted us to do.

4

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