Page 12 of Claimed By the Bikers (Black Wolves MC #4)

EMBER

Two weeks of playing house have settled into a routine I never expected to crave.

I wake up in Garrett’s arms, shower while he makes coffee, help Atlas with morning paperwork, and work my shifts at Wolf’s Den like the obedient girlfriend they’ve convinced the town I am.

Every morning, I tell myself I’m just surviving. Every night, I fall asleep a little deeper into the lie.

This morning starts like all the others. Garrett’s hand traces lazy circles on my bare shoulder as sunlight filters through his bedroom windows. His breathing is even, peaceful, nothing like the tortured sleep he had those first few nights when nightmares of Sarah and Katie would wake us both.

“Morning, lass,” he murmurs against my neck.

“Morning.” I turn in his arms, studying his face in the golden light. Two weeks of this, and I still feel that flutter in my stomach when he looks at me like I’m some delicate flower.

Which is the problem. I’m not supposed to feel anything for these men except professional interest. I’m not supposed to notice how Atlas leaves my favorite coffee creamer on the counter every morning, or how Silas hums French songs while he works in his forge, or how Garrett’s eyes soften every time I laugh at his terrible jokes.

I’m not supposed to be falling for with my captors when for all the government knows, I’m still on duty!

“What’s got you thinking so hard?” Garrett asks, thumb brushing across my cheekbone.

“Nothing important.”

“Liar.” But he says it fondly, like my evasions are endearing rather than suspicious.

This is the dance we’ve perfected. They ask, I deflect, they pretend to accept my nonanswers while I pretend I don’t notice them cataloging every micro-expression. We’re all excellent actors, but the lines between performance and reality blur more each day.

Downstairs, Atlas sits at the kitchen table with his laptop and a stack of invoices. He looks up when we appear.

“Sleep well?” he asks, the question directed at both of us but his attention focused on me.

“Better than I have in months,” I answer honestly.

It’s not a lie. Despite everything—the kidnapping, the forced cohabitation, the complete destruction of my life—I sleep better here than I have since my mother died.

Something about being surrounded by their protection, their constant presence, quiets the restless energy that’s plagued me for years.

Which should terrify me more than it does.

“Good.” Atlas returns to his paperwork, but I catch him watching me from the corner of his eye as I butter toast and arrange bacon on Garrett’s plate. “You’re working lunch shift today?”

“Eleven to four.” I settle into the chair across from him with my coffee. “Lizzy’s covering dinner so she can take her kids to some school thing.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“The restaurant is literally a stone’s throw away.”

“I’ll go with you,” he repeats, tone brooking no argument.

Two weeks, and they still don’t trust me alone. Not completely. They’ve given me freedom within certain boundaries—work, home, supervised trips into town, but I’m never truly unsupervised. One of them always knows where I am, always has eyes on me.

An hour later, Atlas drops me off at Wolf’s Den with a kiss that tastes like possession and a reminder to call if I need anything. I watch him mount his bike and disappear toward the storage facility before I push through the restaurant’s front door.

“Thank God you’re here,” Lizzy greets me, tying her apron with frantic movements. “We’ve got a bus tour coming through at noon, and I just found out the dishwasher called in sick.”

“I can handle it. How many people?”

“Thirty-five senior citizens from Phoenix, plus whatever locals show up.” She grabs her purse from behind the hostess station. “Finn’s got lunch prep covered, but you’ll be handling the floor solo until two when Jenny comes in.”

“Got it.”

The next three hours pass in a blur of orders, refills, and the kind of cheerful small talk that comes naturally after weeks of practice.

The bus tour drops off sweet elderly couples asking about local history, taking pictures of the mounted wolf skin, and leaving generous tips despite ordering the cheapest items on the menu.

I’m clearing their table when I overhear Finn talking to one of the delivery drivers in the kitchen.

“Yeah, the big shipment’s coming in tonight instead of tomorrow,” Finn says, voice carrying through the pass-through window. “Atlas wants everything moved by midnight, so we’re all working late.”

“What time you need me there?” the driver asks.

“Eleven thirty. Use the back entrance, and for Christ’s sake, keep the noise down. Half the town will be asleep by then.”

My hands still on the water glasses I’m collecting. Shipment. Tonight. Back entrance. Midnight. Every instinct I’ve spent years training screams at me to pay attention, to gather details, to report what I’ve learned.

This is what I came here for—concrete evidence of their operations.

But as I stack plates and force myself to keep moving normally, I realize I don’t want to know what they’re moving. Don’t want to confirm that the men I’m falling for are the criminals the FBI believes they are.

Two weeks of domesticity hasn’t just blurred the lines between my cover and reality. It’s made me hope that maybe, somehow, I was wrong about them from the beginning.

Which makes what I’m about to do the ultimate betrayal of everyone involved.

I finish clearing the table and head to the kitchen, mind racing. I need to report this.

It’s my job, my duty, the reason I’m here. Ben has been silent for two weeks, no check-ins, no contact, and I’ve told myself it’s because he trusts me to handle things. Plus, the brothers destroyed all the means for Ben to reach me. But tonight’s shipment changes everything.

“Finn,” I call out, sticking my head through the kitchen door. “I’m taking my break. Need some air.”

“Sure thing. Take a half hour.”

I grab my jacket from the staff area and slip out the back door, mind already calculating distances and timing.

The racetrack is a twenty-minute walk from here, but fifteen if I hurry.

I can retrieve the phone I hid there, send a quick message about tonight’s shipment, and be back before anyone notices I’m gone.

The walk to the track feels longer than usual, every step weighted with the knowledge that I’m about to cross a line I can’t uncross.

For two weeks, I’ve been living in a fantasy where maybe this situation could work, where maybe I could have both my job and these men who’ve somehow captured pieces of my heart.

But fantasy ends when duty calls.

The racetrack is empty this time of day, just dusty ground and tire marks under the afternoon sun.

I make my way to the large oak tree on the far side, the one with the distinctive split trunk that I memorized during my first visit here.

My fingers find the small hollow I carved out that first day, after I’d met Evie and started to understand just how complicated this assignment was going to become.

The burner phone is exactly where I left it, wrapped in plastic and tucked deep enough to avoid weather damage. My hands are steady as I unwrap it, muscle memory from countless similar operations warring with the guilt that sits heavy in my stomach.

I power on the phone and wait for it to connect to the network. One message. That’s all I need to send. Intel about tonight’s shipment, location, timing. Let Ben and his team handle the rest while I figure out how to extract myself from this mess before anyone gets hurt.

Before I hurt the men I’m supposed to be investigating.

The phone finally connects, and I open a new message to Ben’s emergency number.

My fingers hover over the keypad, and for a moment I can’t make them move.

Sending this message means confirming that everything I’ve felt these past two weeks was a lie.

That the life I’ve been building here was just another cover story.

That I’m exactly the kind of person who destroys the people stupid enough to trust her.

“Having second thoughts?”

I spin around so fast I drop the phone. Atlas stands twenty feet away, hands in his pockets, expression unreadable in the afternoon light.

Shit.