CLAIMED BY THE RUTHLESS BIKER KING

Chapter 6 — A Very Convincing Lie

Marlowe

His fist was still in my collar, and I had exactly one heartbeat to decide whether I was about to die of embarrassment or something considerably worse.

"What is that." Slower this time.

Behind him, Bear had gone very still — not the good kind. Reid, off to the side, had stopped pretending not to watch, which was somehow the worst part. I could survive King finding something. I was less sure I could survive Reid Kastellan finding it first, filing it away, and smiling about it later.

"Ribs." The word out before my brain fully signed off on it. "Cracked two of them in a bar fight before I got here. Wrapped it myself. Didn't exactly have time to unwrap it for a physical."

It wasn't even a bad lie, as lies went. My ribs *did* hurt, courtesy of the last twenty minutes with his forearm across my chest. The wrap *was* real, tight enough to explain a bruise. The only thing missing from the story was everything underneath it that actually mattered.

His eyes didn't move off mine. "In a bar fight."

"Guy said something about my father." A little heat in that, because it happened to be true in spirit if not in fact. "I didn't love it."

Something flickered across his face — not quite belief, not quite doubt, something caught in the middle that made my stomach drop. For one long second I thought he was going to reach for the collar again and finish what his hand had already started. I had no second lie loaded and ready to go.

Bear cleared his throat. "King. You want this one on kitchen detail or perimeter? Church starts in an hour, and Grady's asking who's covering the gate."

His jaw worked once, like he was chewing on the decision to let this go. He let go of my collar instead, straightened, stepped back with a look that told me exactly nothing about what he actually believed.

"Perimeter." His eyes cut to mine one more time. "Keep your ribs wrapped and your mouth shut about who did it. I don't need a war over a bar fight before we've even patched anybody."

"Copy that." I kept every ounce of relief off my face, because relief would have been its own kind of confession.

He walked off toward the warehouse without looking back, and I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding for what felt like a full minute.

---

Nova appeared at my elbow the second he was out of earshot, arms crossed, eyebrows somewhere near her hairline.

"Bar fight." She said it like the words tasted funny. "Really."

"It happened."

"Sure it did." She fell into step beside me toward the fence line, grinning in the specific way that meant she didn't believe a word of it and had decided not to care. "You're either the unluckiest guy I've ever met, or you've got a talent for landing in trouble that's honestly a little impressive. I can't decide which."

"Can it be both?"

"It's always both with you." She bumped my shoulder, and I laughed before I could stop myself — surprised, again, at how easy that was with her, how little it cost.

The gray-templed biker from the gate ambled past hauling a crate of gear, paused, looked me up and down. "Preacher's asking about you," he said, and kept walking without explaining who Preacher was or why that should worry me.

"That's Cricket." Nova didn't look worried at all. "Preacher's the medic. He asks about everybody who bleeds on his floor. You'll meet him eventually. He's terrifying and also makes the best coffee in this whole den, so."

Reid fell into step on my other side without being invited, uninvited being his signature move so far. "Cracked ribs from a bar fight." Conversational, like we were discussing the weather. "Funny. King usually asks for names when somebody puts a prospect in that kind of shape. Didn't hear him ask yours."

"Guess he trusts me."

"Guess so." His smile didn't move, but something behind it filed the moment away, careful and patient, the exact way I'd filed him the day before. "I just think it's interesting. New prospect shows up already injured, already lying about how, and King lets it slide first day. That's not how this club usually works."

"Maybe I'm just that charming." Nova snorted.

Reid didn't laugh. He looked at me a second too long — the kind of look that catalogues, that waits, that doesn't need to act today because today isn't the only day he gets — and peeled off toward the warehouse without another word.

Nova watched him go, arms still crossed. "He's going to be a problem."

"He's going to try." I meant it as a joke, and didn't entirely feel it as one.

---

Church started an hour later exactly on schedule, and I spent it on perimeter duty at the fence, exactly where King had put me — closer to the tree line than the clubhouse, further from prying eyes. I told myself that was a coincidence and not a decision.

I was wrong within the hour.

Bear found me at dusk, arms full of gear, expression unreadable. "King wants you bunking in the east wing." Like it was nothing, like it wasn't the exact opposite of nothing. "Says he wants eyes on the new blood personally. Something about not trusting a prospect with a mystery bar fight and a dead legend for a father."

My stomach dropped straight through the floor.

"East wing." Repeating it, like saying it slower would change what it meant.

"Right next to his own quarters." He was already turning to go, already missing the exact moment my whole careful plan started quietly, catastrophically, coming apart at the seams. "Congratulations, kid. You've officially got the King's personal attention."