3. Angel
ANGEL
We’re almost to the stairs when shots ring out, permeating the entire facility and white-hot lightening tears through my skin.
The Sgt at Arms’ rough hands push me onward, and just as I’m about ready to collapse, Rogue scoops me into his powerful arms. “Cover us!” he yells, racing downward with me in his arms, one step at a time until we’re in the lower level.
“Let me in and secure the door once we’re in,” he says to the tall, bearded man who’s come down with him, covering us from behind.
A couple of his crew are yelling upstairs but the gunfire that rocked the entire building starts to slow down, at least for a little while. My arm feels like it’s on fire with red hot searing pain as blood leaks down to my hand.
We were so close to safety, seconds from those stairs when the bullet ripped through the flesh of my upper arm.
Rogue’s eyes graze over me, assessing me as blood seeps onto the floor. I try hard to keep it together, to keep my head from swimming but the dizziness is coming fast.
“You need to tell me who you belong to over at the Scorpions, why you left, and most importantly why you came to my fucking club,” he says, laying me down on one of the three army cots in the room.
I can’t answer that question. At least not without putting my sister in jeopardy and I’m not fucking doing that.
The Scorpions and I both know it but after the stunt I pulled tonight, I can only hope that Arianna got to the place I told her to go and is safe.
Somehow, I’ll pay these guys back for all the damage.
Maybe they would let me dance and protect me at the same time.
They could make money, and I would be protected, and Ari is safe. That could work.
My breathing should be settling by now, but it’s not. If the menacing sentry who wanted to intimidate me and make me cave wasn’t bad enough, the badass prez who everyone in this entire region knows, is looking at me waiting for a response.
He stopped his men from hurting me by barking at his men to safeguard me and now watches me intently with those bright blue eyes.
His dark hair hangs over his eyes and those rugged muscles flex down the length of his corded arms, making the expansion of his breath so much more pronounced beneath the white T-shirt with grease stains stretched over broad shoulders that he wears.
Rogue assesses me, grabs a white towel from a cabinet along the side of the wall, and wraps my arm.
“Keep pressure on it,” he says, moving my hand to replace his on my arm.
Those bright blue eyes so much like the Arizona sky penetrate me with their gaze.
“Why my club?” he asks again. “The truth, Angel.”
He doesn’t believe me and I don’t blame him for being mad about his club.
I only hope none of his crew got hurt. I swallow through the lump in the back of my throat.
“I heard the Scorpions say they were taking me to the buyer tonight. I didn’t have a choice but to run or to be sold. I’m sorry, but I chose to run.”
He doesn’t respond, just looks at me as cold as ice as he pulls out his cell phone and pounds out a message.
I’m positive that doesn’t mean anything good for me but at least for now the Scorpions don’t have me.
The Royal Bastards aren’t going to let the Scorpions into their clubhouse without a deathly fight after what they did, that’s for sure.
I pray that if Rogue was going to hand me over, he would have done it to prevent the damage.
But I’m not dumb. There’s probably one reason this guy let me in and is safeguarding what he can capitalize on.
I know exactly what that means. The Royal Bastards’ prez, Rogue, known as one of the toughest bastards around, he knows I’m worth bank and he wants the dollars for himself and his crew.
As long as they protect me, I’ll dance topless, nude, whatever the cost, I’ll do.
Hopefully that’s all they will expect me to do.
I can just feel the danger and all that there is to fear in the air.
I glance down at my arm and see the blood seeping through the towel.
My heart pounds faster than it should and as much as I try to get it under control, there’s no slowing this runaway train that keeps pounding under the skin of my chest.
Because no one who knows Rogue would ever go up against him without a hell of a crew because the man standing in front of me is known to be the deadliest bike prez in all of the land. Far more deadly than any Scorpion around.
My heart pounds with angst as he shifts his gaze back to his cell phone and begins pacing the lower-level dungeon. “You’ve created a shit ton of issues for me and my crew.”
But when the Royal Bastards’ prez stops walking, and points his weapon of choice, a Glock, straight at my head I know that I’m going to spill, tell him everything that he wants to know. “Last time, Angel. Why my club?”
Only when the sound of bullets upstairs stop flying am I able to take in a large breath of air.
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t have anywhere to go.
I snuck out the back of the strip club down the street, and they were so close behind.
I almost got hit in the road, but even the traffic didn’t stop them.
They just kept closing in. I ducked into an alley and when I got to the other side they were behind me and I saw your club. I promise, it wasn’t intentional.”
His piercing blue eyes look right through me as my breathing shallows and my energy wanes. All the running, the adrenaline, no food, and pure unadulterated fear take over and my entire world fades to black.