Claimed By The Iron Reaper’s Son

Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight

By the next evening, my fever had finally broken, leaving me weak but functional. The raw scrapes on my palms had closed up beneath the neat white gauze Jake had wrapped around them. True to his word, the heavy wooden door was unlocked by five o'clock, and I found myself walking back down the quiet hallway toward the main bar room.

Tonight was the night of a major club event—a massive run that brought in Reapers from chapters across the state. The clubhouse was louder and more suffocating than I had ever seen it. The air was a thick, gray cloud of cigar smoke, exhaust from the bikes revving outside, and the heavy scent of spilled alcohol. Bass-heavy rock music blasted from the speakers, vibrating so intensely through the floorboards that my teeth rattled.

I was working completely alone behind the long wooden counter. Sarah was trapped in the back kitchen managing massive trays of food, leaving me to face a sea of loud, demanding outlaws. My hands flew across the bottles, popping caps, pouring heavy shots of dark whiskey, and wiping down the sticky surface. I kept my chin up and my eyes down, desperate to follow Jake's advice and not draw any unwanted attention.

But it was impossible not to look for him.

Every time the heavy front door swung open, my eyes automatically darted across the crowded room. I told myself I was just keeping watch for danger, but deep down, a terrifying truth was taking root: I was looking for the storm-gray eyes that had held me in the rain.

I finally spotted him past midnight. Jake was standing near the pool table, surrounded by several older, senior members from an out-of-town chapter. He looked impossibly large and lethal, his wide chest filling out his leather vest, his dark jaw tight as he listened to a rowdy older biker shout over the music. Even in a room full of dangerous men, Jake carried an aura of absolute authority.

Then, as if he felt the weight of my gaze, his head turned slowly. Across the smoky, chaotic room, his gray eyes locked directly onto mine.

The rest of the room seemed to fade into a blur. The shouting, the thumping bass, the clinking glass—it all grew quiet. Jake didn't smile, and his expression remained a perfect mask of stone, but his gaze traveled down to my hands, checking the white bandages on my palms, before snapping back to my face. The intense, suffocating focus of his attention sent a sudden, dizzying wave of heat rushing straight down my spine.

I forced myself to look away first, my face flushing hot as I quickly grabbed a clean glass and began wiping it down with a shaking hand.

"Hey! Bar girl! Give us a bottle of bourbon and four glasses!" a loud voice barked from the center of the counter.

I turned and saw Cole, the young prospect who had grabbed my wrist two weeks ago, sitting with three out-of-town members. Cole had a cocky, arrogant grin on his face. He knew the older members were watching, and he wanted to prove he wasn't scared of the Vice President's rules when the clubhouse was this packed.

"Coming right up," I said, my voice completely flat.

I reached for the expensive bottle of bourbon on the top shelf, my bandaged palms stinging slightly against the glass. I set the bottle and four clean shot glasses down on the counter. "That will be forty dollars."

Cole didn't reach for his wallet. Instead, he leaned forward across the dark wood, a mean sneer on his lips. "Why don't you just put it on your old man's tab, Ava? Oh, wait, Frank doesn't have a tab anymore. He traded you so he wouldn't have to pay."

The men beside him let out a chorus of ugly, rough laughs. A sharp, stinging wave of humiliation hit my chest, but I kept my posture rigid. "Forty dollars, Cole. I don't care about my father. Pay for the drinks or I take the bottle back."

"You've got a lot of mouth for a girl who belongs to us," Cole muttered, his eyes darkening as he reached out. He didn't grab my wrist this time, but his fingers deliberately brushed against the exposed skin of my forearm, a slow, provocative swipe meant to show his dominance.

Before I could pull away, a massive hand materialized out of the gray smoke, wrapping around Cole’s throat with terrifying speed and slamming his head down hard against the wooden counter.

Crack.

The shot glasses rattled violently, and the laughter instantly died out. I gasped, stepping back until my spine hit the liquor shelves.

Jake stood over the counter, his massive frame casting a long, dark shadow over the entire bar. His face was completely calm, but his gray eyes were entirely pitch-black, filled with a lethal, quiet fury that made my breath catch in my throat. His large, tattooed fingers were squeezed tightly around the prospect's throat, pinning him to the wood like a bug.

"I remember telling you what happens if you touch club property again, Cole," Jake murmured. His voice was a very low, gravelly whisper, but it carried a terrifying weight that made the entire corner of the room go completely silent.

"Jake... please..." Cole choked out, his face turning a dark shade of red as he gasped for air, his hands clawing weakly at Jake’s iron forearm. "We were... we were just joking..."

"I don't like jokes," Jake growled softly, leaning down closer to the young man’s face. "And I don't like prospects who think they can ignore my orders. Get out of my sight before I take your vest and throw you into the gravel myself."

Jake released his grip, and Cole collapsed backward, coughing violently and clutching his bruised throat. He and his friends grabbed the bourbon bottle and practically sprinted away from the bar, disappearing into the crowded room as fast as they could.

The space behind the counter suddenly felt incredibly small, charged with a thick, heavy energy. Jake didn't leave. He stood right there, his hands resting on the edge of the dark wood, looking down at me. The scent of leather, wood smoke, and pure danger radiated off his skin, completely overwhelming my senses.

"Are you okay?" he asked rough, his gray eyes searching my face with an intense, raw focus.

"I'm fine," I breathed, my heart hammering wildly against my ribs. "You... you didn't have to do that. He was just trying to scare me."

"He was testing me," Jake corrected flatly, his jaw clenching. "And nobody tests my authority in this clubhouse. Least of all over you."

He moved around the side of the long counter, stepping into the narrow workspace behind the bar. He shouldn't have been back here; this was the staff's area, but nobody in the room was brave enough to question the Vice President. He closed the distance between us until he was towering right over my smaller body, trapping me completely between his massive, muscular frame and the cold brick wall of the back room.

I couldn't move. I could barely breathe. The distant, heavy thud of the clubhouse bass vibrated through the floorboards, matching the frantic, racing rhythm of my heart.

"You shouldn't be back here, Jake," I whispered, my voice trembling, though my eyes helplessly dropped to the sharp line of his lips before snapping back to his dark gaze. "And you definitely shouldn't be looking at me like that."

"Your job is behind the bar, Ava," Jake growled softly, a sudden, fierce hunger flickering in the depths of his stormy eyes. He reached out, his large, warm hand landing flat against the small of my back, pulling my body a fraction closer to his chest. The contact sent a powerful, electric jolt straight through my skin, making my knees feel weak. "My job is enforcing order. But right now? Looking at you... all I want to do is break every single rule my father set."

"Jake..." I breathed, my hands automatically rising to rest against his wide chest, my bandaged palms feeling the rapid, heavy thud of his own heart beneath his leather vest. "We can't. If Stone sees..."

"Let him look," Jake murmured, his voice dropping into a deep, dangerous growl as he leaned his head down.

He didn't kiss me, but his lips brushed agonizingly close to the sensitive skin of my neck, his hot breath fanning across my collarbone and causing a wild shiver to rip through my entire body. His grip on my waist tightened, firm and entirely possessive, holding me so close I could feel the intense heat radiating from his large muscles.

For two weeks, I had told myself I hated him. I had told myself he was just my captor, a monster from a lawless world. But as I stood trapped in his shadow, breathing in his scent, I knew I was lying to myself. The fear in my chest had completely melted into a dark, undeniable hunger.

He pulled back slowly, his gray eyes burning into mine with an unspoken promise that left me completely breathless. "Keep your head down for the rest of the night, princess," he whispered, his thumb brushing against my hip one last time before his hand dropped away. "We're just getting started."

He turned on his heel and walked out from behind the bar, disappearing back into the smoky crowd before I could even find my voice. I stood frozen against the cold brick wall, my chest heaving and my lips parting as I watched him go. I was still a prisoner to a massive debt, but as the loud music pounded through the room, I realized a terrifying truth: I was no longer running from the monster. I was falling straight into his arms.