Page 107 of Claimed By the Bikers

The front door opens before I can respond. Atlas appears in the doorway, probably coming to check on my status or coordinate evening plans.

He stops dead when he sees me.

“Ember?”

“Hi.”

His eyes travel from my new hair to my changed clothes to the confident way I’m standing. Behind him, I hear Garrett’s voiceasking what’s wrong, followed by footsteps as both he and Silas join Atlas in the doorway.

Complete silence as all three men take in my transformation.

“Mon dieu,” Silas breathes finally.

“You look…” Garrett starts, then stops, apparently speechless.

“Different,” Atlas finishes. “You look completely different.”

“Good different or bad different?”

“Stunning different,” he says, moving toward me with predatory grace. “Absolutely stunning.”

“The hair,” Garrett adds, reaching out to touch the copper strands. “It’s beautiful.”

“Everything’s beautiful,” Silas says, his accent thicker than usual. “You look like you belong here now. Really belong.”

Atlas cups my face in his hands, studying my features like he’s memorizing them all over again. “This is who you really are, isn’t it? Not the federal agent, not the waitress. This is Ember.”

“This is Ember.”

He kisses me then, soft and claiming and full of promise. When we break apart, his eyes are dark with want.

“We need to talk,” he says. “About the cartel meeting, about security arrangements, about keeping you safe while we handle this situation.”

“But first,” Garrett adds, his voice rough with desire, “we need to properly appreciate this transformation.”

“The meeting can wait an hour,” Silas agrees, already leading me upstairs toward a bedroom. “Some celebrations can’t be postponed.”

As three pairs of hands reach for me simultaneously, I realize that becoming Ember Bishop-McKenzie-Delacroix isn’t just about changing my appearance.

It’s about accepting that I’m exactly where I belong.

With the men who love every version of me, even the ones they haven’t met yet.

32

SILAS

The abandoned truck stopon Highway 67 looks like the end of the world under gray morning clouds. Cracked asphalt stretches between rusted gas pumps and broken windows, weeds pushing through concrete like nature reclaiming what civilization abandoned. Neutral ground for a conversation that could end with all of us dead.

I check my rifle one more time, chambered and ready despite the supposed ceasefire. Trust goes only so far when dealing with cartels who’ve already tried to kill the woman I love.

“Movement on the east access road,” Rico reports through my earpiece. “Three vehicles, moving slowly.”

Los Serpientes arrive exactly on time—black SUVs that gleam despite the dust coating everything else in this place. Their convoy stops fifty yards from our position, engines running, waiting.

Teller rides his Harley between our two groups, the neutral mediator who volunteered for this thankless job. At sixty-five, he’s survived more MC wars than anyone else in the state, whichmakes him the only person both sides trust to keep this meeting from becoming a bloodbath.

“Both sides disarm for the duration,” he calls out, his voice carrying across the empty lot. “Rifles stay with your vehicles. Sidearms only, safeties on.”