Rogue (Rogue Angels MC #1)

Chapter 3

3

Rogue

I decided to help the Devil’s Nightmare MC guy Hunter get his girl back. I figured it’s the least I could do and besides, the guy who took her is the same guy my MC has been trying to put behind bars for years. But then one thing led to another and I made some hasty choices, which left me with huge gunshot wound in my side and the most beautiful doctor I’ve ever seen taking care of me. Not a bad deal after all.

We’re in one of the vacant rooms at the clubhouse, and I’m pretty sure the entire MC is out in the hallway, chattering and sighing, and sounding like they expect me not to make it. But she’s the only one I really see. Just like it was a couple of hours ago at the Flamingo Saloon when I first laid eyes on her.

“So, I’m gonna make it, right?” I ask her. “Dr. Melody?”

She gives me the most exasperated look I’ve seen since my mother last gave me such a look. It makes her big blue eyes ripple as beautifully as the Pacific Ocean.

“It’s Dr. Lockhart, actually,” she says soft, moving her long, light brown hair out of the way and continues stitching up my side. I don’t feel a thing. And I don’t think it’s just because of whatever painkiller she gave me. It’s also because she has such a gentle touch.

She hasn’t smiled at me since we left the Flamingo Saloon and I really wish she would.

“Wow, a pretty last name to go with a pretty first name,” I say. “You really are the whole package. But I already knew that.”

She purses her lips and shakes her head. “Hold still or the stitches will be lopsided and you’ll have a huge scar instead of a small one.”

“That’s fine,” I say as I lay my head back down on the pillow. “I’m used to carrying around big scars.”

Her eyes snap to my face but I don’t meet them. She keeps looking at me though, like she’s trying to read something more into my words. She won’t. I’ve already said too much.

I still have no idea what it is about this woman, but the moment I saw her, I wanted to talk to her, get to know her, touch her. She’s the first woman that struck me so strongly in that way in a very long time. A very, very long time.

I can’t explain it, and I don’t want to try anymore.

She’s right to be stand-offish. It’s nothing real. And nothing that will last. The women in my life come and go. Mostly they go. I don’t do relationships and I don’t form attachments. Not because I’m still hung up on Angel. She’s gone and I know that. It’s because I couldn’t handle losing another woman I love. My heart’s not strong enough for that. So, this desire for getting to know everything there is to know about Melody is just part of my residual giddiness left over from finally getting the revenge my soul yearned for these last ten years. It’s not anything more than that.

“Give me something to put me back in action as soon as you’re done stitching me up,” I tell her. “Tonight’s job’s not done yet.”

She scoffs. “That may be so, but it is done for you. You’ve lost at least a liter of blood, so you’re down for the count, I’m afraid. Sorry.”

“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.

As bullets start flying the shouts grow more panicked. What I hear of them before I start shooting at anyone that moves that’s not us.

The rest of our teams pour into the parking lot through the open gate, confusing the security guys even more. They’re quick on their feet though.

There’s not much cover behind the wall, just a few cars and vans. Luckily our side reaches them first. I plunged us into one hell of a fight. Good thing everyone on my side is highly trained.

We got nothing on the three Devils though. They’re moving around as though bullets weren’t flying everywhere, using their knives as soon as they get close enough to do so.

Hunter was downplaying how well trained they are. Each of them can take on at least three bad guys at once. So can I.

I run forward, ignoring Blade’s frenzied scream as he tries to stop me. Why would I stop? Two days ago, I finally got the revenge that was the only thing I lived for these last ten years. I’m a free man now. Free of my tethers to this world.

I’m back-to-back with Hunter for a while using my knife—Angel’s knife—to open a couple of throats. Then I’m on my own doing the same. Bullets keep missing me. Knife slashes do too. If I were still a believer, which I only sometimes am, I’d say God was on our side this morning. Finally. It’s been a while.

The cars we hid behind at first are moving now, security guys jumping in them as they flee the fight.

The sun seems no higher in the sky when I realize it’s just us and the Devils left standing in the lot.

“They’re all gone!” Blade shouts. “What now?”

“Now we check the building,” Hunter says and sprints for the door.

I look over the parking lot doing a head count, my chest constricting as I do. But all my men and women are still standing. Or at least looking like they could if they needed to.

Alice is down on one knee, stemming the blood that’s running out of a cut on her left arm. Blade is helping Creed regain his feet. There’s a cut across his forehead, but he’s grinning as Blade hoists him upright.

Minx is leaning heavily on Freak, but they both have nearly identical bright and alert looks on their faces.

I check the rest and no one seems to have suffered an injury that a couple of stitches won’t fix.

“There’s at least fifty women in there,” Blade informs me as he jogs up to me from the building. “They’re all chained up and some don’t look like they’re gonna make it much longer.”

“You gonna make the call?” Creed asks.

Dried blood is covering half his face, but the cut in his scalp seems to have stopped bleeding.

“Yeah, I’ll call Manny now,” I say. “LAPD’s finest will know what to do with the women. Round up everyone and start back to the clubhouse.”

Blade and Creed get to it, but I don’t make the call to my cousin just yet. Instead, I jog over to one of the Devils—Chance—who is frantically turning over the bodies of the security guys we’ve killed. Or almost killed since some of them still seem to be breathing.

“We gotta find the keys for the chains,” Chance says. “Else we’ll never get the women out.”

“I’m gonna call in the cops now,” I tell him.

The look he gives me could cut glass. “What the fuck? They’ll cart us away with all the rest of this scum.”

He kicks the security guy lying at his feet and a set of keys tumbles from his pocket.

“Try these,” I say as I pick them up and hand them to him. “And don’t worry, no one’s gonna come looking for you at the clubhouse. Rogue Angels MC has an arrangement with the LAPD.”

He scoffs. “Yeah, I’ll believe that when I see it. But it won’t come to that.”

He runs back into the building, the keys in his hand jangling.

I should be making the call to the cops, but I’ll hold off until the Devils and the woman I hope they find in there are out of the building.

“What’s the hold up?” Blade asks as he comes to stand beside me.

“Just waiting for the Devils to find what they came here looking for,” I tell him. “They’ve got strong reasons to stay off the cops’ radar.”

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.