Page 64 of Claimed By the Bikers
“Ember.” Garrett appears at my other side, blood on his shirt but moving normally. “You hurt?”
“No. You?”
“Flesh wound. Nothing serious.” He looks down at the dead cartel soldier, then back at me. “That was brave as hell and stupid as fuck.”
“Thanks?”
“He’s right,” Silas says, joining our little group. “Brave and stupid. Perfect combination for this family.”
“Is everyone else okay?”
“Customers are shaken up but unharmed. Finn’s having a minor breakdown in the walk-in cooler, but he’ll live. Mrs. Hernandez is demanding we reopen so she can finish her birthday dinner.”
“Seriously?”
“Her exact words were ‘I’ve been planning this party for weeks, and I’ll be damned if some young hooligans are going to ruin it.’”
Despite everything—the blood, the bodies, the adrenaline still coursing through my system—I laugh. “I love that woman.”
“She’s something special,” Atlas agrees. Then his expression grows serious. “This isn’t over. This was a probe, a test of our defenses. They’ll be back with more men and better tactics.”
“How long do we have?”
“Hard to say. Maybe days, maybe hours.”
I look around the restaurant—shattered windows, bullet holes in the walls, blood on the floor. The place where I’ve served coffee and taken orders and learned to be part of a family. Now it’s a battlefield.
“What do we do?”
“We clean up, we prepare, and we get ready for the real fight.” Atlas reaches over to take my bloodied hand in his. “But first, we take care of each other.”
“I’m okay.”
“You killed a man with a broken bottle to save a family you don’t even know. That’s not something you just shake off.”
He’s right. The adrenaline is starting to fade, leaving behind the reality of what I’ve done. The weight of taking a life, even one that deserved it. The knowledge that this is my life now—violence and blood and the constant threat of war.
But looking around at these men who’ve become my world, at the customers they protected, at the community we’re all part of, I realize something important.
I’m not sorry. Not about the killing, not about the choice, not about standing my ground when innocent people needed protection.
This is my family. This is my home. And I’ll spill blood to defend both.
The cartel wants a war? They can have one.
But they’re going to discover that some families fight back harder than others.
And we’re just getting started.
19
SILAS
Blood dripsfrom the broken bottle in Ember’s hand, each drop hitting the floor with a sharppatin the sudden quiet. She stands over the cartel member’s body, her breath hitching, eyes locked on the jagged glass. Her face is pale, but her posture is all steel, like she’s forcing herself to stay upright.
“Chérie,” I say, stepping closer, voice low over the distant wail of sirens. “You good?”
She glances at me, eyes sharp but unsteady. “I killed him,” she says, voice low, tight with an edge of something raw. “I fucking killed him.”
