The Biker’s Forbidden Temptation

The Woman He Could Not Command

Roman’s expression hardened.

“No.”

Elena kept one arm around Maya while meeting his stare across the ruined courtroom.

“You heard the message.”

“I also heard myself tell you that you’re not going.”

“And Knox dies if I don’t.”

“Knox knew the risks when he joined the Kings.”

Maya lifted her tear-streaked face. “They said everyone Elena loves.”

Roman’s jaw tightened.

He turned away and checked the chamber’s entrances, as though an armed attacker would be easier to handle than the argument waiting behind him.

Elena helped Maya stand.

Her sister’s wrists were bruised from the restraints, and a thin cut marked her throat where the knife had rested.

Anger burned beneath Elena’s fear.

The Hollow Saints had taken Maya because of her. Now they had Knox and the evidence her mother had died protecting.

Elena refused to let Roman lock her away while everyone else paid the price.

“We need to leave before they return,” Roman said.

He pressed a finger to the radio in his ear.

“Reaper to Kings. Respond.”

Only static answered.

He tried again.

Nothing.

“The tunnels are blocking the signal,” Maya whispered.

Roman glanced at her. “Can you walk?”

“I think so.”

A sound echoed from the passage behind them.

Metal scraping against stone.

Roman immediately stepped between the women and the darkness.

“We move now.”

He guided them toward the opposite side of the courtroom, where a narrow staircase climbed to an old judges’ corridor. Broken lamps lined the walls, leaving only Roman’s flashlight to guide them.

Elena kept Maya ahead of her.

“Did they hurt you?” she asked.

“Mostly scared me.”

“Mostly?”

Maya glanced over her shoulder.

“They kept asking where Mom’s music box was.”

“You had it?”

“It was in one of the boxes from Dad’s storage unit. I didn’t even know it mattered.”

Elena remembered the carousel-shaped music box sitting on her childhood dresser. Their mother had wound it every night until the accident.

After Lillian died, Elena had packed it away because the song hurt too much.

“When did they take it?” Elena asked.

“Before they grabbed me. My apartment was already torn apart when I arrived.”

Roman stopped at the top of the stairs.

“How did they know where to look?”

Maya swallowed. “Someone called me last week asking about Mom.”

Elena stared at her. “You never told me.”

“I thought it was one of those ancestry websites. The man said he was researching courthouse employees.”

“What did you tell him?”

“Only that we still had some of Mom’s things.”

Roman’s expression darkened.

“Did he give you a name?”

“David Mercer.”

Roman and Elena exchanged a look.

She had never heard the name.

Roman clearly had.

“Who is he?” Elena asked.

“A dead man.”

Maya’s face paled. “He sounded alive.”

“David Mercer was a Kings member,” Roman said. “He disappeared seventeen years ago.”

“The man in the photograph?” Elena asked.

Roman nodded once.

The second biker standing beside her mother.

The corridor opened into a records office filled with collapsed shelves and rotting paper. Roman crossed to a boarded window and pulled back one corner.

Rain streaked the glass.

They were still below street level, but Elena could see the faint glow of headlights through an opening above.

Roman checked his phone.

No service.

“We need to reach the western stairwell,” he said. “It connects to the courthouse basement.”

“And then?” Elena asked.

“We take Maya somewhere secure.”

“Then we go to the cathedral.”

“You are not going.”

Elena laughed without humor.

“Do you believe repeating it will eventually make me obey?”

“I believe keeping you alive matters more than whether you hate me.”

“You cannot protect me by letting Knox die.”

Roman turned toward her.

“Knox would tell me the same thing.”

“That doesn’t make it right.”

“It makes it necessary.”

Maya shifted uneasily between them.

“Could you argue after we leave the murder tunnels?”

A faint click sounded behind her.

Roman lunged.

He pulled both women down as a gunshot ripped through the boarded window.

Wood exploded across the room.

“Stay low,” he ordered.

A second shot struck the filing cabinet beside Elena.

A laser sight swept across the wall.

Sniper.

Roman crawled toward the doorway and fired into the corridor, forcing the shooter to retreat.

“Move!”

Elena grabbed Maya’s hand.

They ran between the shelves as bullets tore through the office. Roman stayed behind them, returning fire.

They reached a heavy steel door.

Maya pulled the handle.

“Locked.”

Roman slammed his shoulder against it.

The door did not move.

Footsteps approached from the corridor.

More than one attacker.

Elena searched the walls.

A rusted fire axe hung behind cracked glass.

She struck the panel with her elbow, grabbed the axe, and swung it into the old lock.

Roman looked at her.

“What?”

She swung again.

“You were busy.”

The lock broke.

Roman kicked the door open.

Cold night air rushed inside.

They emerged into a narrow service alley behind the courthouse.

Two Kings vehicles waited at the end of it.

Relief lasted less than a second.

One SUV burned near the curb.

The second had been abandoned with its doors open.

Roman raised his gun.

“Stay behind me.”

A body lay beside the burning vehicle.

Elena recognized the Kings jacket.

Roman crouched to check the man’s pulse.

“Alive.”

He pressed his fingers to the biker’s neck, then searched his pockets.

The man’s phone was missing.

“So are the keys,” Roman said.

Maya wrapped her arms around herself. “How are we leaving?”

The roar of a motorcycle answered her.

A black bike turned into the alley.

Then another.

Five riders approached, their headlights cutting through the rain.

Elena expected Roman’s men.

The red symbols on their jackets proved otherwise.

Hollow Saints.

Roman shoved Elena and Maya behind the abandoned SUV.

“Keep your heads down.”

The riders separated, blocking both ends of the alley.

Their engines idled like growling animals.

One biker removed his helmet.

He appeared to be in his late forties, with silver threaded through his dark beard and an old burn scar covering one side of his neck.

Roman went still.

“Mercer.”

The man smiled.

Maya gripped Elena’s arm.

“That’s him. That’s the voice from the phone.”

David Mercer looked directly at Elena.

“You have your mother’s eyes.”

Roman aimed his gun at him.

“You’re supposed to be dead.”

“You never looked hard enough.”

“I buried what was left of you.”

“You buried another man and called it loyalty.”

Mercer dismounted.

The other riders remained on their bikes, weapons visible beneath their jackets.

Elena stepped out from behind the SUV.

Roman caught her arm.

Mercer’s smile widened.

“Lillian’s daughter. Exactly where she belongs.”

“You knew my mother,” Elena said.

“I loved your mother.”

Roman’s grip tightened.

Elena looked at him, but his attention remained fixed on Mercer.

“What did she steal?” Elena asked.

“Proof that Vesper City’s most respectable men built their fortunes by selling women through these tunnels.”

“And Vale Dominion?”

Mercer looked at Roman.

“Ask your billionaire.”

Elena’s stomach dropped.

Roman’s face revealed nothing.

Mercer continued.

“Ask him whose money purchased his first company. Ask him why Lillian died days before she planned to expose the network.”

Elena pulled free of Roman.

“Is he telling the truth?”

“Not all of it.”

“Which part?”

“This isn’t the place.”

Mercer laughed.

“He still thinks he can control what you know.”

A distant siren echoed through the city.

Mercer glanced toward the street.

“Midnight. The old cathedral. Bring Elena alone, or Knox bleeds out beside her mother’s secrets.”

Roman raised his weapon higher.

“You’re not leaving.”

Mercer opened his jacket.

A detonator was strapped to his chest.

Red lights blinked across the device.

“If my hand releases this switch, the courthouse comes down with everyone still beneath it.”

The wounded Kings member lay only feet away.

Roman could not shoot without risking him.

Mercer climbed back onto his motorcycle.

Before lowering his helmet, he looked at Elena.

“Your mother trusted the wrong king. Don’t repeat her mistake.”

The Hollow Saints accelerated out of the alley.

Roman remained motionless until their engines faded.

Then he turned toward Elena.

Rain ran down his face, mixing with the blood still staining his skin.

“Whatever Mercer tells you, remember that he needs you to doubt me.”

Elena searched his eyes.

“Did the money that created Vale Dominion come from those tunnels?”

Roman did not answer quickly enough.

Maya whispered Elena’s name.

Elena stepped away from him.

“You knew.”

“I knew the Kings had dirty money. I did not know where all of it came from.”

“And my mother?”

“She discovered the truth before I did.”

“Did you know she was in danger?”

“Yes.”

The single word broke something inside her.

“You let me work beside you for two years without telling me that you knew the woman who raised me.”

“I told you I didn’t recognize the connection.”

“But you knew what happened to her.”

Roman’s expression tightened.

“I knew she was murdered.”

Elena stopped breathing.

The accident report had been a lie.

Her mother had not simply lost control of her car.

Someone had killed her.

Roman stepped toward her.

“Elena.”

She backed away.

“Do not touch me.”

His hand fell to his side.

She had never seen Roman look wounded before. Not during gunfire. Not while hanging above an elevator shaft.

Her rejection accomplished what bullets had not.

Maya came to Elena’s side.

“What happens now?” she asked.

Elena looked toward the city skyline.

Somewhere beyond it, Knox waited beneath the old cathedral with the evidence her mother had died trying to protect.

She wiped the rain from her face.

“We find out the truth.”

Roman’s voice hardened.

“You are not meeting Mercer alone.”

Elena finally looked at him.

“You’ve made enough choices for me.”

She took Roman’s spare gun from the back of his waistband before he could stop her.

Then she stepped away, holding it carefully at her side.

“At midnight,” she said, “I’m going into that cathedral.”

Roman’s eyes darkened.

“And this time, Reaper, you’re going to follow my orders.”