Substitute Bride: Sold To The Ruthless Biker

Collier POV:

The phantom fire in my right leg was chewing its way up through my hip, hot as battery acid and relentless as a drill.

I leaned forward in the leather high-back chair behind the heavy oak desk of my office, grinding my molars until my jaw ached. Outside the reinforced windows, the roar of twin-cam V-Twins echoed off the corrugated steel of the Iron Wraiths Clubhouse garage. The steady, deep bass of sixty idling Harleys was usually enough to drown out the noise in my skull.

Today, it wasn't doing shit.

I grabbed the heavy tumbler of neat bourbon from the desk and threw it down my throat. The alcohol burned going down, but it didn't touch the cold, venomous ache deep inside my marrow.

The heavy steel door swung open without a knock.

Cipher walked in. My Sergeant at Arms didn't bother with pleasantries. He was six-foot-four of scarred muscle and bad intentions, his leather Cut hanging heavy over broad shoulders, the Grim Reaper center patch gleaming against the worn cowhide. On his left breast, the diamond 1%er patch sat pinned above his road name. The grim reaper tattoo creeping up his throat seemed to twitch in the dim overhead bulb.

"Prez," Cipher rumbled, shutting the door behind him with a dull thud. "The advance team just radioed in from the Roman estate gates."

I set the heavy glass down on the wood with a sharp clatter. "Did Gregory deliver the collateral, or am I sending the crew to burn his commercial docks to the waterline?"

"He's delivering," Cipher said, though his scarred brow furrowed. "But the old snake pulled a switch."

I stopped rubbing the stiffened tendons above my ruined knee. I looked up, letting my gaze settle on my enforcer. "Explain."

"The deal was Brielle," Cipher said, his voice dropping into that gravelly tone he used before breaking fingers. "The pretty, blonde trophy daughter he parades around his country club. Our contact inside says Gregory is pulling a last-minute switch. He’s trying to stash the blonde and dragged out the other one. Annelise."

I stared at him for three long seconds. A harsh, humorless laugh tore from my chest.

"Does Gregory think I give a fuck which piece of his bloodline sits in my house?" I growled, leaning back against the leather. "Brielle. Annelise. A pedigreed Roman mare or a stray. They're all the same. Collateral on a seven-figure debt his crooked shipping firm owes this club. As long as she breathes, she pays the interest."

"There's something else," Cipher added, his posture tightening. "Our boy tapped the second-floor intercom twenty minutes ago. The brother, Sean. He put hands on her."

The throbbing in my leg suddenly took a backseat. The room went dead, absolute quiet.

"He did what?"

"He slammed her into a piece of heavy furniture," Cipher said plainly. "Heard the bone give way through the mic. Right side. Sounded like cracked ribs. The girl didn't scream, but she's fucked up. Can barely pull a breath."

A cold, blinding fury ignited behind my eyes, fast and violent as a backfire.

My fingers, thick and calloused from twenty years of wrenching steel and cracking skulls, clamped onto the armrests of my chair until the wood groaned under the pressure.

"Gregory thinks he can send me broken goods?" My voice dropped to a lethal whisper, vibrating with a venom that made Cipher's shoulders square up. "That girl became the property of this club the second the debt defaulted. Her life belongs to the Wraiths. Her blood belongs to me."

"Say the word, King," Cipher said, his hand dropping casually toward the grip of the Glock 21 tucked into his tactical vest beneath his Cut. "I'll take four patched members and tear Sean's arms out of their sockets on his own front lawn."

"Not yet," I snarled, the possessive rage gnawing at my gut like a rabid dog. "Bring her here first. Put her in my truck, not on the back of a bike if her ribs are shattered. If she dies on the interstate, Gregory gets off too easy."

"Understood."

"And Cipher?" I called out just as he reached the steel handle.

He paused, looking back over his shoulder.

"Tell Gregory that if a single hair on that girl's head is out of place when she reaches the clubhouse steps, I won't just foreclose on his docks. I'll nail his son to the warehouse floor."

"Consider it done, Prez."

Cipher vanished into the hallway, leaving the door swinging.

I reached into the top drawer of the desk, grabbed a bottle of unlabelled white pills, and dry-swallowed three of them. Hollis, our club medic, called them experimental nerve blockers. I called them poison that barely kept the dark from taking over.

I leaned back, closing my eyes as the rumble of Cipher's bike fired up outside, tearing toward the highway to bring the girl in.

Annelise.

A broken throwaway. A damaged toy.

Let them bring her. In this house, broken things either learned how to heal, or they learned how to kill.