Claimed By My Outlaw Stepbrother

Chapter 6

GAGE pov~

The heavy iron door of my private office inside the clubhouse locked behind me with a cold, solid click. The bright morning sun was trying to bleed through the dusty window blinds, but the room stayed dark, smelling of stale tobacco, gun oil, and the bitter scent of old coffee. The only real light came from the green lamp on my desk, casting long shadows across the concrete floorboards.

Jax stood by the metal filing cabinet, his leather cut covered in road grime, his face a hard mask of stone. He wasn't smiling. He hadn't slept a single wink all night, and it showed in the tight, exhausted line of his jaw. He held a small, black canvas pouch in his split knuckles, his fingers clamping down on the material until his skin went completely white.

"When was this found?" I asked, my voice dropping into a low, gravelly register that made the quiet room feel even tighter.

"Ten minutes ago," Jax spat, stepping forward to drop the black pouch onto the heavy wood of my desk with a dull, sickening thud. "We found this at the north side border. Gage, someone from inside this charter is tampering with these things and feeding information to the devils' club."

A sudden, violent knot deep in my gut. I didn't open the pouch. I didn't need to look inside to know the level of ruin it represented to our territory. If the Iron Reapers had a rat sitting at our own table, our entire shipping line was already compromised. Creed Vance wasn't just testing our fence lines anymore; he was buying our secrets from the inside, systematically tracking our movements while the sun was coming up.

"I want this taken care of discreetly," I growled, my gray eyes pinning Jax to the spot, my pupils blown so dark they almost swallowed the gray.

"Scatter all our patched members across the border line immediately. Make it look like a standard morning security patrol. Nobody leaves their post, and nobody talks to the other charters. If anyone asks, we’re just tightening the perimeter after last night’s mess."

"What about the source?" Jax whispered, his jaw locking into a tight line as he leaned over the desk.

"Send a spy into the Iron Vipers, not the devils' club," I commanded, my hand dropping to the heavy iron tool-wrench on my belt. "We need to know who is brokering the papers on the neutral ground. And Jax? Get rid of the body. Nobody should know. If a single senior patch finds out we have a leak before we catch the rat, the table will turn on us. We need to bury the evidence before anyone smells the blood."

Jax nodded once, his face completely pale as he grabbed the black pouch off the wood and vanished through the side door, leaving the office in total silence.

This was beginning to shift into a dangerous political cage, and I had to move the pieces before my father's presidency was burned to the ground. I grabbed my custom chopper keys off the desk and marched out into the bright, blinding California air. The cold morning wind hit the sweat on my forehead as I tore down the highway toward the outer border line, my engine roaring like a predator in the early hours.

I didn't head to the residential house. I rolled straight into the commercial machine shop, the heavy thump of my engine shaking the tin roof as I kicked the kickstand down right by the main bay. The morning light was hitting the grease on the floorboards, making the old oil slicks look like broken glass.

Sienna was underneath the chassis of a dismantled truck, her heavy leather work boots sticking out from the rubber dolly. She rolled out the exact second my boots hit her concrete, wiping a fresh layer of dark grease off her jaw with her forearm. Her blue eyes scanned my face, flashing like flint under the dim shop lights.

"A bike will be coming in soon," I said, stepping directly into her personal space, the scent of my asphalt and tobacco crowding out the clean oxygen in her lungs. "I want you to handle it secretly. My guys will take you to the underground warehouse at the rear edge of the compound. You do everything down there, behind the locked steel doors."

Sienna didn't back down. She stood up, her fingers tightening around her heavy iron wrench, her white work tank top slick with sweat from the heat of the morning tools.

"What made you think you can boss me around, Vandal?" she hissed, her voice steady and sharp as a blade. "I run this shop. I don't take secret cargo into the club's dark spaces just because you wear a Vice President patch."

"This is important, Sienna," I whispered, leaning down until my chest almost brushed her shoulder, forcing her to feel the absolute weight of my grip. The physical tension between us was thick, suffocating, and heavy with the memory of her breathing across the hallway hours ago. I could feel the rapid thump of her heart against her ribs, but her eyes never wavered. "I will have my guys guard the door. You don't ask questions, and you don't look at the serial numbers on the block. Just fix the steel and keep your mouth shut."

"You're using me," she spat back, her chin tilting high, her lips so close to mine I could taste the grit in the air. "You're playing a political game with your father's patch, and you're dragging my tools into the mud."

"I'm keeping you alive," I growled, my large hand wrapping around her wrist just tight enough to pin her wrench in place. The heat off her skin was burning right through my leather cut, making my blood turn to liquid fire. "Do the job, Sienna. Don't try look for things and just do what you are told.

I didn't wait for her to swing that wrench. I turned back and started walking towards my chopper, mounted my chopper, and tore back across the compound yard.

I marched into the back parlor of the residential house, where the morning light couldn't reach the heavy velvet curtains. My mother, Vera, was sitting in the dark corner chair, a cold glass of whiskey resting untouched between her fingers even though the morning was just starting.

Vera didn't look like a mother today. She looked like the woman who had survived twenty years of outlaw bloodlines. She handled the club’s discreet cases the messes that had to disappear into the dirt before the federal police or the senior patches ever smelled the smoke. She knew every secret grave in the high desert, and she knew exactly how to quiet a big mouth.

"The north border is leaking, Ma," I said, my voice dropping into a tight, hard whisper as I stood by her chair, my boots clicking against the dark floorboards. "Jax found the pouch. I think someone is trying to get rid of the President."