Page 112 of Claimed By My Biker Daddies

The metal clicks have the right pitch. Some men find music in engines. I find it here.

Roman steps in from the hall. He looks at the bag, then at me.

We do not need ceremony.

“It is one of ours,” I say. “Or it used to be.”

22

MARISA

A few days later, Day of Ravenwell Pastry Competition

Competition day.

The words run through my head as I pin my hair up and tug on the apron I have carried like armor.

My stollen waits in its crate, brushed and wrapped, the sugar crust firm as a promise.

Cara has the twins already bundled, bottles lined in the cooler, formula stash in place.

The men move through the lodge like they are readying for war, but in my chest it feels like a holiday morning, nerves threaded with cinnamon.

Nico calls before I can lace my boots.

The screen lights up with his name and a photo from two Christmases ago where he is smiling like a man auditioning for nice.

I answer anyway because part of me still thinks if I walk toward the fire with a glass of water, I can change the ending.

“Morning,” I say, balancing the phone on my shoulder while I zip my coat.

“I heard,” he says. His voice is already tight, like he started this call mid-argument. “Ravenwell. Cameras. A competition instead of a respectable life. And I heard about your arrangement.”

“My arrangement,” I echo, because sometimes you have to let a person show you their thesis.

“Gallivanting with three men,” he says. “Do you have any idea how that sounds? People talk. Our family has a name in this city. You were raised better than this.”

“I was raised to work,” I say. “I was raised to make the table and then feed everyone who came to it. I was not raised to be polite to someone trying to flip the table over.”

“Spare me the poetry,” he snaps. “You think anyone will take you seriously when they know what kind of circus you are running? You have babies with a question mark for a father. You are embarrassing us. You should come home, settle, marry a decent man, and stop chasing attention.”

I close my eyes and count to three, because I do not want to say something that will cost me more later. “Attention would be shaving my head on a livestream. I am baking bread. I am feeding people. I am standing in a town square with a centuries-old recipe and a clean kitchen towel.”

“You always think you are clever,” he says. “You forget who got you into culinary school. Who helped with applications. Who told you which scholarships to apply for.”

“You also told me ambition was ugly in women. You said I needed a man to settle me down. Consider me settled. Consider me fed. Consider me not answering you when you use the word gallivant.”

“Listen,” he says, voice dropping into that slow careful tone he uses when he is about to lie with a straight face. “There are people in Ravenwell who do not want trouble. I know them. They know me. You do not belong in that world. You will get hurt. You will embarrass yourself and you will embarrass us.”

“Nico,” I say, and my voice comes out soft and fierce together, “you are not us. And you do not get to tell me where I belong.”

The silence on the line is short and sharp. Then he says, “You always were ungrateful,” and hangs up.

I set the phone face down.

Cara catches my eye from the doorway, twins already swaddled like two smug burritos.

She lifts a brow. I shake my head like a person shaking off rain.