Page 17 of Claimed By the Bikers (Black Wolves MC #4)

EMBER

Tuesday nights at Wolf’s Den are usually quiet, just locals nursing beers and the occasional trucker grabbing dinner before pushing on to Denver.

I’m wiping down tables when I notice Mr. Hendricks at his usual corner booth, deep in conversation with Atlas.

Nothing unusual there—Atlas talks to everyone—but something about their body language catches my attention.

Hendricks looks tired. More than tired. Defeated. His hands shake as he reaches for his coffee cup, and when he speaks, Atlas leans in to hear him better.

“…can’t afford another round. Insurance won’t cover it, and the VA keeps jerking me around with paperwork.”

Atlas slides something across the table. Small white bottle, the kind that holds prescription medication. “This should get you through the month. Same supplier, same dosage.”

“I can’t keep taking charity—”

“It’s not charity. You earned this.” Atlas’s voice is quiet but firm. “Twenty-six years in the Army, three tours in Iraq, shrapnel in your leg that still gives you hell. The government owes you a lot more than insulin.”

My rag stills on the table I’m cleaning. Insulin. Mr. Hendricks is diabetic, and Atlas is giving him medicine.

“What do I owe you?” Hendricks asks.

“Nothing. Just take care of yourself.”

They shake hands, and I watch Hendricks pocket the bottle like it’s made of gold. When he leaves, he stops to pat my shoulder.

“You’re lucky to work for good people,” he tells me. “Don’t see many like them anymore.”

After he’s gone, I approach Atlas’s booth. He’s making notes in a small leather journal, numbers and abbreviations I can’t read.

“Can I sit?” I ask.

He looks up, those gray eyes assessing. “Course. Slow night?”

“Atlas.” I slide into the booth across from him. “What just happened there?”

“Old soldier needed his medication. I helped him get it.”

“Where did you get insulin?”

He closes the journal, studying my face. “Does it matter?”

“It might. Depending on how you got it and why you’re giving it away.”

“You asking as our waitress or as Agent Natalie Hayes?”

The question hangs between us, loaded with implications. I’ve been Ember Collins for so long, I almost forgot there was another version of me. But Atlas hasn’t forgotten. None of them have.

“I’m asking as someone who cares about you. All of you. And wants to understand what I’m really part of.”

He’s quiet for a long moment, fingers drumming against the table. “It’s complicated.”

“I’m a smart girl. Try me.”

“Alright.” He signals Garrett behind the bar. “Close early tonight. Family meeting.”

Twenty minutes later, we’re in their living room. Atlas in his usual chair, Garrett and Silas on the couch, me curled up in the corner with a cup of coffee that’s already gone cold. The house feels different tonight, weighted with the importance of whatever Atlas is about to say.

“You want to know what we really do,” he begins. “Fair enough. But understand, what I’m about to tell you could destroy everything we’ve built. So I need to know you’re ready to hear it.”

“I’m ready.”

“Afghanistan, 2008. My unit was tasked with training local forces, helping them establish security in villages that had been overrun by Taliban fighters.” His voice takes on a different quality, distant and precise.

“Beautiful country, when it wasn’t being torn apart by war.

Mountain villages that looked like they belonged in another century. ”

Garrett pours himself a whiskey. Silas lights a cigarette despite usually smoking outside. They’ve heard this story before, but it still affects them.

“We worked with good people. Translators, local leaders, and families who just wanted their children to grow up in peace. For eight months, we made real progress. Built trust, established supply lines, trained fighters who actually gave a damn about protecting their communities.”

“What went wrong?” I ask softly.

“Politics. Some congressmen back home decided our mission was too expensive, too risky. Wanted us to wrap up operations and redeploy to a different sector.” Atlas’s hands clench around his coffee mug.

“We asked for two more weeks to arrange safe passage for our local allies. People who’d helped us, who’d be marked for death the moment we left. ”

“Did you get the extension?”

“We got orders to pack up and move out in seventy-two hours. No provisions for our allies, no protection for the people who’d risked their lives to help us. Just pack up and leave.”

“You didn’t follow orders.”

“I couldn’t. These weren’t just assets or intelligence sources.

They were friends. The translator who taught me Dari, the village elder who invited me to his daughter’s wedding, the shopkeeper who always saved us the best tea.

” He takes a sip of coffee, buying time.

“So I made a decision that destroyed my career and probably saved my soul.”

“What decision?”

“I told my team we were going to evacuate our allies, whether the command approved it or not. Garrett and Silas backed me up, said they’d rather face court-martial than leave good people to die.”

Garrett speaks up for the first time. “Wasn’t even a hard choice. You don’t abandon family, no matter what some politician in Washington decides.”

“We spent two days moving people to safe houses, arranging transport, and getting families to the border. Dangerous work, but we got sixty-three people out. Men, women, children who would have been tortured and killed for helping Americans.”

“That sounds heroic, not criminal.”

“Command didn’t see it that way. When we finally reported to the extraction point, they arrested us.

Court-martial proceedings, charges of disobeying orders, unauthorized military action, and endangering American personnel.

” Atlas’s laugh is bitter. “Funny thing about military justice is the results don’t matter if you make your superiors look bad. ”

“What happened to the charges?”

“Dropped, eventually. Turns out the Taliban overran our old position three days after we left. Killed every local they could find who’d cooperated with us. Suddenly, our ‘unauthorized evacuation’ looked a lot more justified.”

Silas exhales smoke toward the ceiling. “But the damage was done. Atlas got a general discharge, and Garrett and I got written reprimands. All of us got blacklisted from any future military contracts.”

“So you came here.”

“Not immediately,” Atlas continues. “First, I spent six months trying to help the families we’d evacuated. Navigating immigration paperwork, finding housing, connecting people with jobs. Used my savings, my connections, everything I had.”

“That’s when you realized how broken the system was,” I guess.

“Exactly. Bureaucrats who didn’t give a damn about people they’d never met.

Agencies that treated refugees like problems instead of human beings.

Veterans coming home to find they couldn’t get basic medical care or housing assistance.

” His voice grows heated. “The same government that sent us to war abandoned us the moment we became inconvenient.”

“So you decided to fix it yourself.”

“Started small. Met a guy at the VA hospital, a diabetic veteran who couldn’t afford his medication. Insurance wouldn’t cover it, benefits were tied up in red tape, and he was literally choosing between food and insulin. So I used my contacts to source medication at cost, gave it to him for free.”

“Contacts?”

“Military suppliers, overseas manufacturers, people I’d worked with in Afghanistan. Turns out there’s a whole network of folks who are tired of watching good people suffer while bureaucrats count pennies.”

Garrett leans forward. “Word spread. One diabetic veteran became ten, then twenty. Insulin led to other medications, then medical equipment, then housing assistance.”

“The restaurant was supposed to be a simple business,” Silas adds. “Legitimate income, quiet place to live. But it became our base of operations.”

Atlas nods. “Perfect cover. Who questions supply deliveries to a restaurant? Who thinks twice about people coming and going? We could help dozens of families and look like we were just running a small-town diner.”

“How many people are you helping?”

“Currently? About two hundred families across three counties. Veterans, single mothers, elderly folks who can’t afford prescription drugs, kids who need medical equipment their insurance won’t cover.”

I stare at him. “That’s…that’s incredible.”

“It’s also completely illegal,” Atlas says bluntly. “Unlicensed distribution of prescription medications, operating an unregulated medical supply network, and tax evasion on charitable donations. We break federal laws every single day.”

“But you’re saving lives.”

“We’re helping people the government failed. Sometimes that means bending rules.”

“What about the Black Wolves? How do they fit into this?”

Atlas and Garrett exchange a look. “That’s more complicated,” Garrett says.

“The MC provided security, muscle when we needed it, connections for sourcing supplies,” Atlas explains. “But about fifteen years ago, the leadership started pushing for more lucrative operations. Drug distribution, protection rackets, the kind of criminal activity that brings federal attention.”

“We refused,” Silas says. “Told them we weren’t interested in anything that hurt innocent people.”

“That caused problems?”

“Understatement,” Atlas replies. “The club leadership said we were either fully committed or we were out. So we chose out.”

“You left the Black Wolves?”

“We stepped back from active membership, kept our patches, but stopped attending meetings, stopped participating in club business. Created some distance between our operation and theirs.”

“That must have been hard.”

“Like cutting off a limb,” Garrett admits. “These were our brothers, our family. But we couldn’t compromise what we’d built to keep them happy.”

I look around the room at these three men who’ve just told me they sacrificed everything—careers, military honors, brotherhood, financial security—to help people nobody else cared about. The FBI wants to frame them as criminals when they’re actually heroes.

“This is what you didn’t want me to find,” I say quietly.

“This is what we couldn’t let the FBI discover,” Atlas corrects. “If federal agents raid our operation, they don’t just arrest us. They shut down the medication network, the supply chain, and the housing assistance. Two hundred families lose their lifeline.”

“Because you’re operating outside the law.” My throat tightens with emotion. “Funny how the FBI told me you were drug dealers. Weapons smugglers. Dangerous criminals who needed to be stopped.”

“We are dangerous,” Atlas says seriously. “We’re armed, we’re organized, and we’re willing to break any law that stands between us and protecting innocent people. That makes us a threat to a system built on keeping people desperate and dependent.”

“They wanted me to gather evidence. To build a case that would justify taking you down.”

“What would you have found? If you’d dug deep enough, what evidence would you have gathered?”

I think about the maps in the garage, the supply lists, the careful records Atlas keeps. “Medical supply purchases. Medication distribution routes. Financial records showing money going to families instead of being reported as income.”

“More than enough to destroy us and everyone we help.”

“But not evidence of the crimes they told me you committed.”

“No. Because we’ve never sold drugs to kids or smuggled weapons or hurt innocent people for profit. We’re guilty of caring more about human lives than federal regulations.”

The room falls quiet except for the ticking of the mantel clock. I stare into my cold coffee, trying to process everything they’ve told me. The scope of their operation, the risks they take, the lives they’ve saved, while my own agency paints them as villains.

“I need you to understand something,” I say finally. “When I chose your side over the FBI, I thought I was choosing love over duty. But now I realize I was choosing right over wrong.”

“Ember—”

“No, let me finish. The FBI sent me here to gather evidence against criminals. Instead, I found people doing the job my government should be doing. Taking care of veterans, helping families, providing medical care to people who can’t afford it.

” I look up at Atlas. “You’re not criminals. You’re patriots. Real ones.”

“The law doesn’t see it that way.”

“Then the law is wrong.” I stand up, pacing to the window where I can see the lights of Wolf Pike spreading out below us.

“All those nights I lay awake feeling guilty about betraying my oath, about choosing personal feelings over professional duty. But I wasn’t betraying anything important. I was discovering what really matters.”

“What’s that?” Silas asks softly.

“Family. Community. Taking care of people who can’t take care of themselves.” I turn back to face them. “You three have built something beautiful here. Something worth protecting.”

“Worth going to war for?” Atlas asks.

“Worth everything.” I move back to the couch, settling between Garrett and Silas. “So what happens now? When the FBI comes looking for their missing agent and the evidence she never provided?”

“Now we figure out how to protect what we’ve built,” Atlas says. “All of it. The operation, the families depending on us, and the woman who’s become the center of our world.”

“I’m not helpless in this fight. I have training, resources, connections of my own.”

“We know. But we also know you’ve already sacrificed enough for our cause.”

“It’s not your cause anymore. It’s ours.” I reach for both Garrett’s and Silas’s hands, holding tight. “I’m not going anywhere, and I’m not letting anyone destroy what we’ve built together.”

Atlas studies my face for a long moment, then nods. “In that case, we’d better start planning for war.”

“Good thing I know how the enemy thinks.”

“Good thing we know how to fight.”