Page 103 of Claimed By the Biker Brothers

“I left the dark room key in here,” Knox tells Jagger.

“The dark room,” Jagger says, his gaze turning cold. “We’re really doing this?”

“Do we have a better choice?”

“No.”

“I need you to keep your cool,” Knox says to me. “I need you to be who you used to be back in the service, Diesel. In perfect control.”

I can’t help but smile. “Is that why you were trying to put me on lookout duty? You’re afraid I might’ve lost my edge?”

“I’m underestimating you, aren’t I?” he shoots back with a smirk.

“Our woman is in Calvin’s clutches. And our kid is with her. Both kids, actually. The one who loves riding with us, and the one who’s going to come into a better world because we’re going to make it better,” I tell my blood brothers. “We’re trying to save our family, so you bet your sweet ass I am who I’ve always been: in perfect control, and I need to check my M4s before we go out there.”

Knox chuckles lightly and fishes the key out from behind the till. “Got it. Fine, let’s go get your M4s personally checked, you ritzy motherfucker.”

The dark room is a secret unit on the ground floor of the clubhouse. Nobody knows about it because it was not in the building’s original blueprints.

“Here we go,” Knox says as he steps into the narrow hallway leading toward the back door. We stop halfway through between two large metal panels made up of motorcycle parts—they cover the walls from ceiling to floor—supposedly decorative elements. “It’s been a while since we’ve been here,” he adds, then sticks the key through a seemingly unrelated hole in between the spokes of a Harley wheel. Upon turning it, we hear a familiar low click. “Apologies for the dust.”

“Yeah, pity the cleaning staff never made it in here,” Jagger quips.

Knox pulls the panel open—it doubles as a secret door, perfectly masked. We go in and turn the lights on to reveal our carefully curated arsenal of combat weaponry. We brought home a lot of stuff while some of the items in here were purchased later over the years from different gun shows and independent sellers.

“We should use the ones with the serial numbers filed off,” I suggest. “Just in case.”

“That’s everything on the left side of the room,” Knox says, nodding in agreement.

We grab a few empty duffel bags and start loading them up. Automatic and semiautomatic weapons along with their respective boxes of ammunition— flash and smoke grenades aplenty, heat-scanning equipment and silencers, a couple of packs of C4, wiring and detonating devices, which would be Jagger’s specialty—while I check my M4s and pack my sniper rifle too. Chances are, I’ll use that first.

“How are we going to do this?” Jagger asks, and we both look at Knox, who picks out a Kevlar vest for each of us. “Which scenario? ’Cause we’ve dealt with hostage situations very differently in the past.”

“I’m thinking Bahra,” Knox replies. “Five-man job. We take two of our most trusted guys to work with us, maybe Jorge and Stellan. They’re both former Marines, albeit a decade older.”

“They saw their fair share of action, though, most of it in Iraq if I remember correctly,” Jagger replies.

I shake my head. “Remember Raqqa?”

Knox gives me a hard look.

“Shit, Diesel,” Jagger says. “That’s really fucking dark. This isn’t Raqqa.”

“But the location where Calvin wants us to meet is almost identical,” I say. “We’re probably dealing with fewer hostiles compared to the insurgents we had to take down back there. I’ll get the ball rolling,” I add, raising my sniper rifle to the front, “me and my friend here.”

“Jagger and I come in from the sides then,” Knox concludes. He doesn’t sound too happy about it, but I can see the grim realization written all over his face. “It makes more sense. It’s also riskier. The slightest delay—”

“We time it. We’ve done it before,” I insist. “Knox, Diesel, you’re the two people I trust most in this world. And Robyn, Kyra, the baby… they matter the most to us. We have to be the ones doing this. No one else gets dragged into it, especially if bodies drop. We’ve done it before. We know how to play it out.”

Knox nods slowly. “As much as I hate to admit it, yeah. Reason would dictate that we put a team together.”

“This isn’t about reason, though.”

“You’re right. It’s about us and Robyn, our family.”

Jagger sighs deeply. “You’re lucky I trust you to make that shot, Diesel, otherwise I’d never agree to this.”

“Your confidence is all I need, brother.”

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