Substitute Bride: Sold To The Ruthless Biker

Annelise POV:

The grandfather clock in the corner of my bedroom hammered out its relentless cadence. Two-fifteen.

I sat on the edge of the mattress, my fingers clasped tightly in my lap to keep the fine tremor of adrenaline from showing. The silk dress felt like a straitjacket, binding my shoulders and suffocating my ribs.

The bedroom door didn't open; it slammed against the wall with a violence that made the crystal chandelier tremble overhead.

Sean Roman filled the doorway. My older half-brother carried himself with the heavy, unearned swagger of a man who had never faced a consequence his father's money couldn't erase. His jaw was clenched, his knuckles red and raw from an earlier sparring session at his private gym. Behind him, Brielle slipped into the room like a shadow, clutching a square, velvet-wrapped box against her chest.

"Still sitting there like a goddamn statue?" Sean barked, crossing the Persian rug in three heavy strides. He stopped inches from where I sat, the sour smell of bourbon and sweat rolling off him in waves. "Don't get any clever ideas about slipping out the service entrance, Annelise. Dad has two private security guards posted at every gate. You're getting on that bike, or in that truck, or whatever the hell those grease monkeys drive. You're leaving this family today."

I looked up at him, keeping my breathing shallow and even. "I hear you, Sean."

My lack of terror always drove him crazy. His eyes narrowed, his chest heaving as if my calm was an insult designed specifically to mock him.

"Sean, please," Brielle purred, stepping between us with that sickening, doe-eyed grace she performed so well for audiences. She placed a delicate hand on Sean's muscular forearm, squeezing gently. "Don't yell at her. She's terrified. Anyone would be."

She turned toward me, offering a trembling, tear-filled smile that belonged on a daytime soap opera.

"I packed a few essentials for you, Annelise," Brielle murmured softly, holding out the silver-ribboned box. "I know those biker clubhouses don't have the things you're used to. It's... it's just a little sisterly token. To show there are no hard feelings."

I looked at the silver ribbon. Then I looked into Brielle's eyes.

I had treated enough back-alley sociopaths to recognize the faint dilation in her pupils, the subtle twitch at the edge of her lip. There wasn't an ounce of sisterly remorse in that box. It was a booby trap, a petty cruelty packaged in silk.

"Keep it," I said, my voice dead flat. "Where I'm going, I won't have room for garbage."

Brielle gasped, jerking back as if I had slapped her across the mouth. Tears welled up in her eyes instantly, glistening on her eyelashes with theatrical perfection.

"I... I only wanted to help," she whimpered, letting the box drop to the floor with a soft thud.

"You ungrateful little cunt!" Sean roared.

The shift was instantaneous. The air cracked as Sean's hand shot forward. He didn't use an open palm; he used both hands, shoving me with all the weight of his two-hundred-pound frame.

The momentum hurled me backward off the bed. My right side collided violently with the sharp, brass-edged corner of the bedside nightstand.

A sickening, wet crack resonated through my ribcage.

Pain exploded across my thoracic cavity, white-hot and blinding, stealing every drop of oxygen from my lungs in a single gasp. A hairline fissure I had sustained three days ago during my father's initial "persuasion" session snapped entirely under the blunt-force trauma. The jagged ends of the bone ground against tissue, sending shockwaves of agony straight up my spinal cord.

I collapsed onto the rug, curling around my shattered side, my fingernails tearing through the emerald silk as I fought not to black out.

Sean stood over me, his chest expanding with arrogant satisfaction. "That's just a preview of what King Watkins is going to do to you if you give him that lip. Be thankful I'm your brother."

Behind him, Brielle watched me struggle for air, her lips curving into a slow, satisfied smirk.

I bit the inside of my cheek until warm, copper-flavored blood filled my mouth. I didn't groan. I didn't scream. I forced my watering eyes open, staring up through the strands of hair falling across my face, carving Sean's smug expression into the back of my eyelids.

You broke my bone, Sean, I thought, the agony sharpening my focus until the world turned crystal clear. I will break your entire life.

A brisk knock sounded on the open doorframe. The elderly butler stood there, his eyes studiously avoiding my crumpled form on the floor.

"Mr. Sean. Miss Brielle," the butler said, his voice flat with forced neutrality. "The Iron Wraiths have just passed through the main gates. Watkins's enforcer is waiting in the courtyard."