My Four Biker Stepbrothers

[Emma POV] I always believed my life was perfect, or, at least, the kind of perfect a girl in the countryside is allowed to dream of. Simple things. Sacred things. Wildflowers against my window in morning sun, the sweet song of crickets to sleep by night, the gentle twitch of my mother's apron as she moved around our small kitchen, singing some old lullaby of happy days, and the sweet, warm aroma of fresh bread filling the rooms like the promise that all would be well. Our house wasn't much, a cabin pieced together by love and wood so old it was hard and grainy to the touch, but it was ours. It was safe. I didn't mind that I never knew my daddy. Cancer took him before I ever took breath, but Mama always said that I had his eyes. That was enough for me. Her smile had been my dawn sun, her voice the needle and thread that stitched me into place. And I believed, stupidly, that love such as that was unbreakable and eternal. But I was mistaken. I should have realized that fate doesn't knock, it smashes and consumes. It was on my eighteenth birthday. A day that I believed would be the start of something. Instead, it was the end of all that I knew. I can still envision the chocolate cake, my favorite, half-iced on the counter. Mama was running behind, but I wasn't concerned. She never missed a birthday. I'd only just lit the candles when the knock arrived. It was heavy, probably the last knock I’ll ever hear on my door. Two men in uniform were standing there, the porch light illuminating the angular planes of their sorrow. They didn't have to say a word. I sensed it in the marrow of my bones. I recall my knees giving way, the walls of our house suddenly too small to bear the weight of what they were going to tell me. A drunk driver. A broken windshield. Instant death. They were trying to be gentle, but what words can ever temper the sound of your soul shattering? I don't recall hitting the floor, but I recall the screams. Raw like an animal. Resounding through the house. Emerging from me and yet not. As though some alternate version of me, a version I did not know, had been unleashed. The pain was so broad it had no borders, no floor. Nights blended with days. I wandered through them like a ghost, looking for her in the wisps she had left behind, a scarf warm with the scent of her perfume, a lipstick mark on her teacup, the now faded grocery list stuck to the fridge with a ladybug magnet. I held on to them like lifelines, but the quiet engulfed me. The sort of quiet that makes you think the world has forgotten your name. And then I discovered it. Weeks later, dazed and purposeless, I pulled open the drawer of her desk simply to prove to myself she'd existed. It was then that I noticed it. A manila folder without any title. Brought forward by forgotten letters and recipes. What was inside, pictures that made no sense. My mother, young, beautiful, standing next to a man who was not the father I'd grown up believing in. He was tall, dark-haired, with eyes like frozen silver and a cruel, unreadable smile. My breath caught in my throat as I read. The marriage certificate. My mother’s name written in careful cursive beside his. Dated only a year before I was born. I sat there for hours, my hands shaking, the photos lying on my lap like pieces of a reality I had never requested. Anger burst in my chest, hot and piercing. Why had she lied to me? Why did she make me think we were the only two people in this world? Was I even the person I thought I was? When darkness descended and night shadows crept across the cottage like outstretched fingers, I sat in the middle of the living room, papers scattered about me like a storm's aftermath. That's when I heard it. The loud noise of the engine. It began low and raspy at first, like a hungry growl. One. Two. Three. Four. My heart skipped a beat. The rumble shook the floorboards, picking up speed, coming closer and closer until the walls themselves vibrated with tension. Headlights sliced through the blackness, cutting across the windows like blades. I came to standing on trembling legs and staggered to the door, heart pounding against my chest. And when I opened it, they were there. Four of them. Men who didn't fit in the world I was familiar with. All leather and ink, danger seamed into the way they stood, the way they looked at me. Their presence wasn't merely physical, it was force. As if they could command gravity with a glance. The tallest moved forward, his eyes an icy tempest, jaw clenched like stone. He didn't smile. He didn't have to. When he talked, it was my name he spoke. "Emma." That's all. One word. And yet it hit like a threat, an assertion. I held onto the doorframe as though it alone was keeping me from falling. "Who… who are you?" The second man moved closer, raking an untidy mass of dark hair back from his face, his smile wicked and amused. "Stepbrothers, sweetheart. Didn't Mommy dearest mention us to you?" Stepbrothers? The word punched the air from my body. My fingers turned cold. My heart fell through the floor. He couldn't mean, no. My voice broke as I tried to speak words, but nothing was sane anymore. The first man, the elder among them, regarded me with no softness in his eyes. Only intent. "Pack your bags," he said, his tone iron. "You're coming with us. Tonight." I shook my head, stepping back, all instincts screaming that this was lunacy. "No...you can't just show up here and..." The third one moved then, stepping into the light of the porch lamp. He had an old scar along his jawline, but his eyes… they weren’t cruel. Not exactly like his elder brother. They bore a burden I couldn't identify. He regarded me as if he already knew the pain in my heart, like maybe he’d carried it once too. "Your mom married our dad, Emma," he whispered. "You're part of our family now. Dad wants you home." The fourth stood beside his bike, ashing a cigarette with a wave of his hand. He didn't even glance my way at first, just exhaled smoke into the darkness and let his smirk curve like smoke. "Your life's over, princess," he told me. "You just don't know it yet." And in that instant, I realized he was right. I was standing there, barefoot inside my old house, surrounded by men I didn’t know, with truths I wasn’t ready to face laying at my feet. My mother had kept me hidden. Protected me. But from what? "Hurry up, princess. We’re getting late," the fourth one said, his loud voice pulling me back to reality.