Page 19 of Rogue’s Vow

I put the piece of siding material in my hand down and follow him around the back of the club house to the picnic table. Hayze climbs up on the table and takes a seat, placing his feet on the bench while I do the same.

“What’s going on?”

His eyes meet mine. “I hate like hell to be the one telling you this, but I went into the club game room a while ago. Angel was in there cleaning.”

The fact he was in a room alone with my Angel doesn’t sit well with me. He better tell me something that makes what I’m thinking disappear.

He shakes his head. “Nothing like that, Rogue. I was in there earlier, alone, making a few calls. One of the recruits needed something and I left, forgetting my phone on the chair. When I went back for it, she had it in her hand.”

The pumping of my chest slows slightly. “Is that all?” I don’t know what the fuck he’s going to tell me about the messages that she may have seen.

The look on my VP’s face tells me he’s thrown by whatever he saw or thinks. “I’m not sure what I saw, Rogue, but the look on her face when I asked her what she was doing, it was like stark fear. Like I had just caught her doing something that could get her killed. Rogue. I’ve seen that look on men who’ve infiltrated our club and got caught.”

I blow out a breath. After everything we’ve shared, everything I’ve learned about my Angel, I don’t fucking believe a word. “Fuck! Seriously, Hayze? I thought at least you had gotten over your first impressions. She’s no more a fucking traitor than you or I. Got me? I’m not sure what you saw but she’s been busting her ass trying to get this club cleaned up since those mother fuckers almost plowed it to the ground, because she feels guilty. That stops now. She’s not going to keep paying for the Scorpions’ debts, you got me? She’s not a fucking traitor. You’re wrong about Angel. I’m not sure what you saw but she’s not fucking working for the Scorpions or anyone else.”

My VP usually has my back unless I’m not seeing something he sees and then I expect him to push until we both see eye to eye. It’s what makes our crew better, looking at things from multiple lenses, not just mine, but in this he’s fucking wrong. “You’re wrong.”

Hayze exhales a deep breath but doesn’t change his position. “She’s a dancer, Rogue. She’s been working at the clubs for at least a couple months that we know of Maybe Angel’s someone else’s plant. Maybe not the Scorpions’. I don’t know but I do know what I saw. That look she gave me she is guilty of something. I just don’t know what. Punch me in the face, do what you need to do. I just don’t want to see you get hurt by someone pretending to be with you when she’s really loyal to someone else.”

My fist hits him right across the mouth, splits his lip, and sends blood pouring down his face. “Angel’s not a fucking whore or someone’s plant. She was a fucking virgin, man. She’s innocent in all of this. Whatever you saw, there’s an explanation and it’s not that she’s a danger to the club. You fucking got that?”

Hayze grabs the edge of his T-shirt and draws it to his mouth to stem the flow of blood. “Got it.” That’s all he says, no fucking apology, nothing else, just takes the hit he had coming but I can tell by his stance that he still believes every fucking word he said, and that just pisses me off. “Get the fuck away from me.”

I head to the front of the club as the carpenters are wrapping up, piling their equipment back into their trucks and heading out. I walk up the porch stairs and into the bar to grab a beer. I believe everything I told my second in command but still I can’t get that little warning bell in the back of my mind to go away. There’s something I’m missing, but Angel is no fucking whore or plant, that’s for damn sure.

A couple of the guys are already tipping a few and Drifter slides an ice-cold beer down the bar my way. “The club’s looking pretty good. A couple more days and it will look better than when the fuckers hit it. Lucky for us the Scorpions didn’t come in from the back or the entire club would have been shot to shit.”

His words hit me like a shit ton of bricks. I toss back my beer and set it down before grabbing the recruit by his T-shirt. His eyes tell me he already knows he slipped. “I wondered why the Scorpions wouldn’t surround us, wouldn’t come in from all directions. We had our men positioned around the entire fucking club, but they only came through the front. They would have gotten fried if they came through those fucking wires and the only mother fucker new to our club who knew that was you.”

The fucking rat turns white, because he sure as shit knows what’s coming next.

21

ANGEL

The commotion downstairs causes my blood to race. I’m not sure what’s happening but a loud commotion and lots of yelling means Rogue and his crew have to be distracted. This is the only chance I may have to leave and get to my sister while Rogue and his men are completely embroiled in something else.

I grab a few things, leave the room that’s become my home, and head down the hall to the top of the stairs, unable to make out anything but loud yelling. Rogue’s voice yelling above his crew’s. Whoever is on the end of Rogue’s temper though, he’s not having a very good day.

I slip down the stairs quietly. The guys are in a circle surrounding Rogue, who to my surprise is far too busy pounding one of his recruits to pay any attention to me. I don’t have time to wonder what happened. This is going to be my only chance, especially now that Rogue’s VP doesn’t trust me at all.

I make my way toward the back door and quietly slip out into the night, hoping no one heard the squeak of the screen door as I leave the clubhouse behind. They have guards out in the perimeter though. I know they’re watching for the Scorpions but they’re not anticipating the enemy to come from the club instead of toward it.

I circle around to the front, trying to stay away from the windows or lights, hiding in the shadows until I reach their bikes and wish like hell I knew how to ride.

The alley is quiet. I have no idea how I’m supposed to get to the Scorpions because they’re so far out of town and I don’t remember how to get there, but the bars they brought me to, maybe I can find one of them. It’s the only shot I’ve got so I head back the exact way I came.

I work my way into the dark, avoiding the scouts, and then come out onto the street a few blocks down the road, working my way back up the city street and through the darkening alley and into town, down the street to the bar where the Scorpions used to bring me to dance.

The lights of the city flash. Memories of the first time they brought me here cause my blood to race. I was so scared, but night after night, it became routine. The Scorpions wouldn’t touch me because I was a hot commodity, a virgin, but as long as I danced, they didn’t hurt my sister either. The realization that they were keeping their word night after night, that was the motivation to do the unthinkable, halfway stripping and dancing for a bunch of horny men.

A neon sign of the nude female silhouette flashes in a window in the distance as I approach. I glance around the front of the bar looking for the van they always brought me in. A big white cargo boxy looking thing that had nothing but a bench seat and a tool rack in the back. I see it and a couple of bikes that look familiar and send shivers of fear racing right down the length of my spine. The Scorpions are here, and they’ve brought someone else here to dance.

The heat at night, while much cooler than the midday sun, has still permeated the concrete streets and buildings that don’t allow much of a breeze.

Maybe I should have thought this out a little more but after Hayze caught me on his phone, there wasn’t any other play. Maybe the element of surprise will help me in some way. The alley between the bar and the next business is dark, with no lights at all except for the slight overhead that comes from the lamppost by the street and that neon sign.

No one is going to expect me to come into the bar. My thoughts revolve around one thing and one thing only and it’s trying to get the Scorpions at the club caught off guard and then get them to take me back to Ari.