Page 18 of Rogue’s Vow

Because when I find him, that fucker is going to wish he had never run across anyone wearing a Royal Bastard color. There’s one thing not one man on my crew will tolerate and that’s trafficking women. You mess with them and we find out, you’re going to deal with us. It’s just taking them some time to believe Angel after seeing her coming in and out of the clubs with the Scorpions, but now we know who we’re dealing with at the end of the day.

Someone way up in the food chain, but that’s okay, we have our own connections and ways of making people pay.

19

ANGEL

Ishould have told Rogue the truth when he asked about my sister, but right now, I just can’t tell anyone where Ari is hiding. Rogue seems to trust his entire crew but there’s something about a couple of them who make my chest tighten with concern and my sister’s life is in the balance if he’s wrong about any one of them at all.

I’m not going to take any chances with her freedom or life until I know for sure that they can all be trusted.

But the not knowing if she made it to the cabin safely or not is starting to get the best of me. I just need one phone call but it’s impossible to get to a phone around here. The crew keep them in their pockets, and I don’t have one to use.

The only way to reach her is through my stepdad’s sister and that’s only if I remember that number the way I think I do. The numbers in my head seem right, but it’s been over two years since I dialed it and spoke to our aunt.

I blow out a breath, finishing the dishes in the kitchen as the guys continue pounding on the outside of the club trying to get it back in shape. I decide to make myself useful and clean the shared rooms, grabbing a bucket and filling it with a couple dust cloths, some spray, and other cleaners to get the job done. Anything to keep busy while Rogue and the guys are working and keep my mind off worrying about Ari.

The little black cell phone sitting on one of the recliner chairs catches my eye the minute I walk into the game room. I grab a bottle of dusting polish and a rag and begin wiping down the back of the recliner which appears to have seen better days and no dusting at all.

One swipe across the back of the chair leaves my rag full of dust. I eye the old-style cell phone with wariness, weighing the odds of calling and getting through to the right number and worse, getting caught.

I keep polishing, glancing around the room, looking from corner to corner to make sure cameras don’t exist and they don’t. This may be my only chance, and if I don’t take it, I may never know if my sister is alive or be able to tell Rogue exactly where she is.

I inhale a deep breath, move to the side of the chair, stroke the polish down the length of the oversized brown arm and toward the seat, then scoop the phone up and bring it to dialing reach. One last furtive glance around and I hit the buttons hopefully stored to memory in the right way. I swear if she’s safe, if she’s okay, I’ll never call her again. I just need to hear her voice, just once.

The phone barely rings twice before my aunt’s voice answers. “Hello?”

“Auntie Bree? It’s me, Angel. Is Arianna there? Did she make it to you?”

There’s a long, worrisome pause on the other end of the line. “She was taken by the bikers yesterday. Don’t call back.”

I close my eyes and squeeze back the tears that threaten to fall. I know exactly what happened. The fucking Scorpions got to my snake of a stepdad and to save his own skin he gave up his sister’s cabin up in the mountains. It’s the only other place either she or I would have to go, and he was the only one besides my aunt who knew it existed. I disconnect the call and the voice behind me makes my blood run cold.

“What are you doing in here?”

I jump, turning to find Hayze glaring at the cell phone in my hand. I hold up the phone and the dirty dust cloth. “Just trying to get this place cleaned up. When was the last time someone took a cloth to anything in this room? I swear it’s like a dust storm went off in here.”

Rogue’s VP takes the phone from my hand. “You look at my messages?” he asks.

Fear of the worst kind floods my chest. I answer as evenly as I can trying to keep my voice from shaking or betraying me. “Of course not. What the hell do I care who you call?”

I can tell he’s not convinced. Right back to not trusting me anymore, that’s where he is, damn it all to hell. There’s no way he’s not going to go running to Rogue with what he found and then Rogue’s going to tighten up my security to keep me safe.

My heart clenches with pain knowing that our best efforts just weren’t enough. Ari should have been safe if she made it to the cabin. Where I was supposed to meet her once I got free. But that’s never going to happen if the Scorpions have Ari. I have to go find her and in order to do that, I have to find a way out of the protection of the Royal Bastards and walk right back into the poisonous Scorpion’s den.

20

ROGUE

All day in the heat trying to get the rest of the siding in place while intermittently taking calls that don’t give me the answers I want is pissing me off. But I plan to get them tonight from the fucking recruit who overheard me talking about those electric fences. I shove my cell back into my pocket and go back to helping my crew and Johnny’s carpenters to get the rest of the outside shored up.

Hayze finds me working on one of the pieces of siding. “Gotta minute, Prez?”

I scowl. My VP has known me for a long fucking time. My best fucking friend and a brother. While everyone else in this club calls me Prez, the only time he addresses me that way is in front of the crew and no one is around me now.

Hayze averts his eyes the minute I look his way, causing me to wonder what the fuck is going on.

I’ve seen a lot of guilty looking people in my day, but I’ve never seen this look on him.