Page 17 of Angel

There were so many things she wanted to say to her daughter then, but she didn’t. She needed Bree to be strong a few minutes longer. Once she was free, Bree did not need to be.

The boy was tall and did not need a step stool or ladder to reach the ropes binding her to that damn light fixture.

“Carefully,” Angel cautioned him, “or she shoots.”

Thankfully, the boy did not look back at Bree and see her worried look. Instead, he believed Angel’s warning and started to saw his way through her bondage. As soon as she felt slack in the rope, Angel wrenched her arms apart and broke the remaining connections herself.

Not the typical woman, Angel’s first move once free was not to cover herself. She held her hand out for the pair of scissors like she wasn’t standing half dressed, battered, and bruised. The kid handed them over. She could see the shame and the fear on his young face.

That did not make her hook to the side of his jaw any lighter.

The kid’s eyes rolled back into his head and he dropped like a ton of bricks.

Angel rushed over to Bree. She pulled her pants up enough to run properly but did not take the time to close them. She pulled the gun out of Bree’s trembling hands. With one arm training the gun back on the tied unconscious, dead, or bleeding men in the room, she pulled Bree against her with the other.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

Bree clung to Angel’s open shirt. She nodded against her chest but did not speak.

The sound of a loud crash rang out from the front of the store as heavy boots thudded on the floor of her shop. Angel threw Bree to the floor and fell back on top of her, the muzzle of her gun trained on the open doorway before her.

Cage stared up at the ceiling of his clubhouse apartment. When he’d first come to Mount Grove, he’d loved this room. He was a simple man with simple needs, but damn did he enjoy having a room to himself. There was no privacy in the military. Especially on the submarines he’d served on.

Over the past year, though, Cage had come to hate this room. It wasn’t where he wanted to be. It wasn’t where he wanted to sleep.

You are not and never will be Bree’s father.

Cage flinched at Angel’s harsh words. If someone had told him a year ago that he’d be pining away for a single mom with an amazingly strong teenage daughter, that he wanted to be a father, he’d have laughed his ass off. But now?

He wasn’t sure when his feelings for Angel had started. He’d always found her to be passionate, stubborn, and so fucking sexy there were times when Cage couldn’t breathe around her. There was something so tantalizing about strong women, but it was more than that. It was how she held herself, how she never hid who she was. She wasn’t pretty in a Hollywood, model sort of way. It was more of an internal beauty that flowed from her confidence and her swagger.

Fuck, he could look at her ass all day long.

Despite being a unisex club, there was nothing in the bylaws that prohibited dating between members. The only bylaw regarding sex was restricting the prospects from being able to sleep with the Honeys. Only patched members got to do that.

Cage ignored his phone when he heard it ring. Angel should be home by now and Cage meant to go see her. He didn’t want to interrupt Bree and Angel’s dinner, so he’d been waiting until after eight to head over. He wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone else.

Hell, most of the men on his construction crew had been steering clear of him over the past two days. Cage considered himself to be a good boss, but he certainly wasn’t acting like it this week.

He understood that Angel had been sick and feverish when she’d said those hurtful things to him. He was too much of a man to cry about it, but that didn’t stop the heartache. Fuck, he was pathetic.

His phone rang again.

Cage pulled it from his pocket with the intention of throwing it across the room, but stopped when he saw it was Steel who was calling him.

“Damnit,” he cursed. Then he answered the call.

Fear made him drive faster than he ever had before. He weaved his way through the small-town traffic and flew down Main Street, ignoring their single red light. He saw the flashing red and blue lights outside of the tattoo shop and thought his heart was going to burst right out of his chest.

His hog skidded to a stop and he didn’t even bother to set the kickstand. He let it fall as he ran past the police officers and paramedics and into the shop. His eyes landed on his girls, and he let out a choking gasp.

Bree was in her chair with a blanket over her shoulders and one on her lap. She had a nasty bruise on the side of her left temple and a bandage on her arm. Bulldog was kneeling down next to her, holding her securely to his large chest. Cage saw the tears running down Bree’s cheeks and had never wanted to kill someone so much in his life.

Angel stood next to Steel at the counter. She had a split lip and multiple bruises on her face. As she pointed to something for Steel, Cage saw the rope burns on her wrists. Rage made him start to shake and tremble.

Angel turned back towards Steel, but her eyes caught Cage’s. Did anyone else see the fear in her eyes or did they only see the fury? Cage saw it. Both she and Bree were alive, but he knew that there’d been a moment, maybe even more than one, when Angel had believed they would not survive.

That fear nearly broke Cage.

---