Page 41 of Claimed By the Bikers

“We need to talk,” I say quietly. “All of us.”

The three of them exchange glances, that wordless communication I’ve learned to recognize. Whatever they see in my face has them on high alert.

“Now?” Garrett asks from the stove.

“After dinner. What I have to say…it’s going to change everything.”

Atlas steps closer, studying my face with uncomfortable intensity. “Ember, what happened?”

“I contacted my handler—well, his call came through the moment I turned on my other hidden burner phone.”

The temperature in the room drops ten degrees.

“What the fuck did you just say?” Atlas asks quietly.

“It happened an hour ago. I recorded the conversation.”

“And?”

I look between the three of them—these men who kidnapped me, claimed me, made me fall for them despite every rational thought. These men have shown me more genuine care in six weeks than my own agency has in three years.

“They want me to frame you,” I whisper. “They want me to plant evidence connecting you to crimes they think you committed.”

The silence that follows is deafening. Garrett even turns off the burner and sets down his spoon with careful precision.

“What did you tell them?” he asks finally.

“I told them to go to hell.”

Something shifts in his expression. “And then?”

“Then I smashed the phone and came home to tell you everything.”

Atlas moves closer, close enough to touch, but he doesn’t. “Do you understand what this means?”

“It means the FBI isn’t interested in justice. They’re interested in using me to destroy you, regardless of whether you’re actually guilty of anything.”

“And it means you’ve chosen a side,” Garrett adds from across the kitchen.

“I chose my side weeks ago,” I admit. “I just wasn’t ready to admit it until tonight.”

Atlas finally reaches for me, pulling me into his arms with gentle hands that shake slightly. “Are you sure about this? Once you cross this line, there’s no going back.”

“There was never any going back,” I tell him honestly. “Not from the moment you caught me at the track. Not from the moment I realized I don’t want to leave.”

“The FBI will come for you,” Silas warns. “When you don’t deliver what they want, they’ll assume you’ve been compromised.”

“Let them come.” I pull back to meet Atlas’s eyes. “I have the recording. I have proof of what they really wanted from this operation. If they want a fight, I’ll give them one.”

“We’ll give them one,” Atlas corrects. “You’re not alone in this anymore.”

“None of us are,” Garrett adds, moving to join our small circle.

Silas pushes off from the counter and wraps his arms around all of us, completing our strange little family. “Then I suppose we’d better figure out how to protect what’s ours.”

13

SILAS