Claimed By The Three Bikers I Swore To Hate

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

The silence after the heavy motorcycle engines died away felt much heavier than the sound itself.

I did not move a single muscle. My hand was still pressed hard against the stranger’s chest, and his warm blood was slowly cooling between my fingers. The tight pressure bandage I had wrapped around his wound held the bleeding back for now. His breathing stayed shallow, uneven, and weak. I started counting the seconds in my head, doing it the exact same way I used to count the endless minutes between footsteps in the dark during the worst months of my captivity.

Then the heavy front door opened without a single knock.

Three men stepped inside the clinic like they already owned the space and everything in it. The first one through the door was broad-shouldered with dark hair, his sharp eyes scanning the small room in quick, efficient sweeps. Dante. I knew the exact way he moved before I even fully registered his face in the harsh light. Next came the one with the wild, explosive energy, the one who never knew how to sit still or follow a plan. Jax. And right behind them, moving much more quietly, was the man who always watched everything and spoke very little. Cole.

Jax’s eyes locked straight onto me, and everything in his hardened face changed in a single second.

"Elena—" he breathed.

That name hit me harder and faster than the blood covering my hands. I was already moving before my brain could stop me. The sharp metal scalpel was back in my grip before I even consciously decided to reach for it. Muscle memory is a terrifying thing. Old survival instincts rose up inside me in a rush.

"Don't," I said. My voice came out completely flat and cold. "Don't you ever say that name to me."

Jax took a step forward anyway, right toward me. Of course he did. He never learned how to listen. I raised the scalpel and pressed the sharp tip directly against the center of his chest, right over the worn, dusty leather of his biker cut. I held it close enough that the blade would catch and cut if either of us took a breath that was too deep.

He stopped instantly. His large hand came up and closed firmly around my wrist. His palm was rough and covered in thick calluses. The intense heat of his skin bled right through my sleeve and onto mine, even though my fingers felt completely frozen. His eyes were entirely too full of emotion—shock, disbelief, and something much darker that looked like years of heavy, unfinished guilt.

I refused to lower the blade.

Cole stayed standing near the doorway, keeping himself half in the shadows. His cold gaze dragged slowly over the long sleeve covering my left arm, like he could see right through the thick fabric to the ruin underneath. He did not say a single word. He just looked at me, and that look was colder than it should have been for a man who used to patch people up for a living.

Dante moved last. He did not try to come any closer to me. He simply stepped sideways until he completely blocked the only clear path to the exit. His massive physical presence filled up the small space without any apparent effort. When he finally spoke, his voice was low, steady, and even—the kind of dangerous calm that made the air in the room feel thin and hard to breathe.

"Put it down, Lara," he said.

I hated that he used my new name. It meant he had been looking for me. It meant none of this random coincidence was an accident at all.

The injured man lying on the metal table made a weak, rattling sound in his throat. Not a single one of them looked at him. All the oxygen in the room had already been claimed by the four of us and the heavy years of history we carried between us.

Jax’s tight grip on my wrist squeezed a fraction harder. It was not enough to actually hurt me, but it was just enough to remind me that he was still much stronger than I was. His thumb brushed slowly back and forth across the inside of my pulse point, like he was checking to make sure I was real and alive.

"You disappeared," he said. His voice was quiet and rough around the edges. "We looked everywhere for you—"

"You left," the words burst out of my mouth before I could stop them. They were bitter, sharp, and poisoned. "That is what happened. You left me there."

Something flickered and broke across his face. I did not care. I told myself I could not afford to care about his feelings. The scalpel stayed steady in my hand, even though the rest of my body felt like it wanted to shake apart completely.

Dante’s eyes narrowed into dark slits. Cole shifted his weight from one foot to the other, one of his hands drifting closer to the inside of his jacket. The air in the clinic felt entirely too small for the massive amount of history packed into the four walls.

I opened my mouth to tell them to get out. I wanted to tell them to leave the exact same way they had left me behind all those years ago, to take their guilt and their stares and their sudden, unwanted concern and go back into the dark.

Then the glass window behind the reception desk exploded inward.

A wave of shattered glass sprayed across the clean floor in a glittering, deadly shower. The first gunshot cracked through the night air like the world itself was splitting open. Then another gunshot followed immediately. Then a whole string of them.

I dropped down low toward the floor on pure survival instinct, dragging Jax down with me by the tight grip he still had on my wrist. The scalpel slipped from my fingers and clattered away somewhere under the metal table. Dante was already moving with incredible speed, shoving the heavy treatment room door shut with his broad shoulder. Cole’s voice cut cleanly through the chaos and panic, sharp and completely under control, calling out defensive positions.

Bullets punched right through the thin drywall, sending a thick cloud of white plaster dust raining down over our heads. The injured underground man on the table did not even flinch from the noise.

Outside in the dark night, heavy motorcycle engines roared back to life all at once.

Victor’s men had found us.