Claimed By The Iron Reaper’s Son

Chapter Six

Chapter Six

The next two weeks were a slow, agonizing blur of grease, smoke, and suffocating isolation. I quickly learned that life inside the Iron Reapers compound was a test of survival, and I was failing it miserably.

Every morning at seven-thirty sharp, the heavy wooden door to my bedroom was unlocked from the outside. I would spend the morning in the sweltering heat of the kitchen with Sarah, washing massive metal pots, prepping food, and enduring the crude, booming voices of the bikers who drifted in and out. By evening, I was moved back behind the long, sticky wooden counter of the clubhouse bar.

I had a hard time fitting in. The club women—the wives and girlfriends of the patched members—treated me like a contagious disease. When I walked past them to restock the liquor shelves, they would lower their voices, smirk, and whisper vicious comments just loud enough for me to hear. To them, I was just a civilian stray, a piece of debt collateral traded in by a cowardly father. The prospects, still stinging from Jake’s violent warning about touching me, made it their personal mission to make my life miserable in other ways. They would purposely knock over drinks just to watch me clean them up, or bark orders at me like I was a dog.

Every muscle in my body constantly ached. But the physical pain was nothing compared to the psychological trap. Every time I looked out the barred window of my room or the reinforced glass of the bar, I saw the high chain-link fences and the loops of sharp razor wire gleaming under the floodlights. I felt like I was drowning in a world of leather, ink, and lawlessness. I missed my quiet apartment. I missed my college textbooks. I missed a life where I wasn't constantly looking over my shoulder.

By the fourteenth night, something inside me snapped.

It was raining heavily, a torrential downpour that thudded violently against the metal roof of the clubhouse. The main room was unusually chaotic; a huge shipment of parts had arrived, and most of the senior members, including Stone, were locked away in the executive boardroom for an emergency meeting. The bar was packed, the music was blasting, and everyone was distracted.

Sarah had gone down to the basement supply room to pull extra kegs, leaving me alone at the far end of the bar. My hands shook as I wiped down the counter. I looked toward the side exit—the heavy metal door I had first been dragged through. The enforcer who usually stood guard there had stepped away to grab a drink from the main floor.

It’s now or never, my mind screamed.

My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird as I dropped my damp towel. I didn't think about the razor wire. I didn't think about the cameras. I only thought about the dark road outside the gates and the desperate need to run. I slipped out from behind the bar, keeping my head down, and pushed through the heavy metal side door.

The freezing rain hit my face instantly, soaking my black t-shirt within seconds. The air smelled of wet gravel and ozone. I sprinted through the darkness, my sneakers splashing through deep puddles as I aimed for a small blind spot in the chain-link fence near the back storage sheds—a place where the wire had looked slightly loose during my daytime kitchen shifts.

Water blinded my eyes, and my breath came in ragged, terrified gasps. I reached the fence, my hands gripping the cold, wet metal. I began to push against a loose flap at the bottom, trying to scrape my body underneath the sharp wire. I was so close. Just a few feet of mud, and I would be on the outer road.

Suddenly, a massive, iron-like grip clamped down around my ankle.

"Going somewhere, princess?"

A violent sob caught in my throat as I was forcefully yanked backward, my hands scraping against the rough gravel. I thrashed wildly, kicking out with my free leg, but it was completely useless. A heavy, dark shape towered over me in the pouring rain, cutting off the dim light from the compound floodlights.

Jake.

He didn't look angry; he looked lethal. The rain soaked his dark hair, causing strands to plaster against his forehead, and water dripped down the sharp, rigid line of his jaw. His stormy gray eyes were entirely pitch-black in the night, filled with a cold, terrifying authority.

"Let me go!" I screamed, thrashing against the mud, my voice cracking over the sound of the thunder. "Let me go, Jake! You can't keep me here! I hate this place! I hate all of you!"

Without a word, Jake reached down, grabbed me by my waist, and hoisted me off the ground as if I weighed absolutely nothing. He slung my dripping, shivering body over his massive shoulder. I pounded my fists against his hard, leather-clad back, kicking my legs wildly, but he didn't even flinch. His grip on the back of my thighs was firm, possessive, and entirely unyielding.

He walked with slow, steady strides back toward the clubhouse, ignoring my furious protests. He didn't take me back to the main room. Instead, he carried me straight down the quiet, dimly lit back hallway and unlocked the door to my bedroom, throwing it open.

He set me down on my feet, but before I could even take a step to run past him, he stepped into the room and slammed the heavy door shut behind him, trapping us both inside the small space.

I stumbled backward against the twin bed, soaking wet, shivering from the cold rain and pure adrenaline. My chest heaved as I stared at him, my dark hair clinging to my face, tears mixing with the rainwater on my cheeks.

Jake stood by the door, blocking the only exit with his massive, intimidating frame. Water dripped from his leather vest onto the carpet. His jaw was clenched so tightly that a muscle jumped in his cheek.

"Are you completely out of your mind?" Jake growled, his deep voice dropping into a dangerous, gravelly register that vibrated through the small room. "If the prospects had caught you out there instead of me, they wouldn't have brought you back to a warm bed, Ava. They would have broken your legs to teach you a lesson. My father would have doubled your debt just for the disrespect."

"I don't care!" I shouted back, my voice trembling with a mix of fury and despair. "Let them break my legs! At least then I wouldn't have to stand behind that horrible bar and watch all of you treat me like a slave! I don't belong here, Jake! I am a student. I have a life. You are all criminals!"

Jake took a sudden, long stride forward, closing the distance between us so fast that I flinched, my back hitting the wall beside the bed. He loomed over me, his physical presence completely overwhelming, trapping me between his massive, ink-covered frame and the cold drywall. The scent of wet leather, tobacco, and pure danger radiated off him, filling my senses.

"Listen to me very carefully," Jake murmured, leaning in so close that his hot breath fanned against my cold, wet neck. His gray eyes burned into mine with an intense, suffocating focus. "I told you on day one to keep your head down and do your job. I am the only thing standing between you and the wilder men in this club. If you try to run again, I will personally tie your wrists back together and lock you in this room for the rest of the year. Do you understand me?"

"Why do you even care?" I whispered, my voice losing its anger, replaced by a raw, fragile vulnerability. My eyes briefly dropped to his lips before snapping back to his dark gaze. "You keep saying I'm just club property. If I'm just a number on a ledger, why didn't you let me go?"

Jake’s expression hardened, his gray eyes darkening to the color of a stormy sea. He didn't move away. Instead, he leaned a fraction closer, his chest almost brushing against mine, his gaze trapping me completely.

"Because you belong to the Reapers now, Ava," he growled softly, a strange, possessive hunger flickering in the depths of his eyes. "And nobody leaves this compound until the debt is settled. Especially not you."

He turned on his heel and walked out of the room, the heavy door slamming shut behind him. A second later, the sharp, definitive click of the key turning in the lock echoed through the silence.

I sank down onto the edge of the bed, burying my face in my trembling, wet hands. I was shivering, cold, and entirely trapped. But as I listened to the rain thudding against the bars of my window, the terrifying truth hit me: I wasn't just running from the club anymore. I was running from the dangerous, electric pull of the man who had just locked me away.