Taken: A Steamy Reverse Harem Biker Romance (Claimed by Outlaws #1)

CHAPTER 1 ISABELLE I have enough demons hiding in my soul to sink a cruise ship, but I never expected to end up here. The dark is absolute, a heavy, wet void. I scan the basement, trying to ensure I didn’t miss some crucial bit of information; a clue that might lead authorities right to me. I know why it happened—I might have earned the barred door, truth be told—but what kind of i***t thinks they can lock me up? Jeff McCarthy, that’s who. And just look at him now. Jeff’s silvery hair sparkles in the moonlight that streams through the basement window. I was supposed to meet my ex at the amusement park to pick up the last box of my stuff. Instead, I meet Colonel Moneybags, the owner of a giant tech start-up, who acted shocked as hell that I looked at him twice, despite who he was. I saw it as an opportunity when I f****d his brains out on the Ferris wheel, still tasting metal from hours of roller coasters. My preppy-boy experiment. It had backfired spectacularly. Especially for him. His breath catches with a growly hitch, and I freeze, my heart in my throat, but then it starts up again. Slow—achingly slow. Just stop, I think at him. Just stop breathing. The hissing gurgling continues. But the poison his bodyguard gave me should kill him soon. It should look like natural causes. Luckily, Ronnie has a soft spot for women locked in dungeons… or maybe he just hates rich guys. Either makes sense, and I don’t really care which is true. I only care that he wanted to help me. I blink at the room once more. The metal support pole in the center glints. The bed in the corner is neatly made. The mini fridge has been wiped. I rub my aching wrist; it’ll bruise, but there are no scratches from where he grabbed me on his way to the cement floor. And I already took the keys, the metal sticky against my palm. Good—I’m good. While there might be some trace of me down here, it appears clean. He didn’t r**e me, so I don’t have to worry about my fluids being smeared all over him. I haven’t had s*x since the night he brought me here two months back, back when I thought I was playing him. Whoops. My father would be disappointed by that mistake—the man taught me everything I know about the long con. But he’s dead now. Just like Jeff will be within the hour. I shove my sandy curls off my face, trying to ignore the frantic thunking of my heart against my ribs. No, there’s nothing. No fluids, no sign of struggle. A single needle mark on him, sure, but I stabbed it into his hairline when he turned away from me—it won’t be immediately visible unless the coroner shaves his head. But if Ronnie screwed up, if I didn’t give Jeff enough to kill him… Go now, Isabelle; go. I have trust issues—being raised by a con man will do that—but I don’t have a choice here. I have to be as far away from this house as possible when day breaks. I back away from him and onto the dark landing at the bottom of the basement steps, blood whooshing in my ears—I can no longer hear him breathing over the thud of my own heart. I’m out of his sphere; finally, finally, I can’t see him, can’t feel him inside my chest, his energy dark and dangerous and suffocating. The door to the upper floor looms, the hazy darkness broken only by the line of yellowed light that shines beneath it. The carved wooden railing—too fancy for a basement—looks slick in the moonlight. I climb onto the steps. For one terrifying moment, I imagine him at my back, grabbing at my hair, tearing me off my feet to c***k my skull on the cement. I duck instinctively. No hands grab me. Enough. I race up the stairs, my shoes clutched tightly in one hand, the metal keys sharp in the other, biting into my palm. The first lock clicks open with the thready hiss of oiled metal, then the second. I feel my heart shudder and stop when the third key goes sticky in the lock—Is it the wrong one? Am I trapped with a dying man?—but then it turns, a loud clack that jolts my heart into hyperdrive. Free. I’m free. But not all the way. I’m still in his home. I’m still in trouble if anyone shows up now. My father trained me to be careful, to talk in code, to cover my ass, but this? I won’t beat a murder rap. The cold marble of the foyer chills my toes, but the front door opens without a lick of trouble. The air on the porch is sweet and damp. I shove my feet into my sneakers, thankful, at least, that he kept them after our fateful first date. That he left them in the corner of the basement, teasing me for the last two months. I swear that was part of the torture, filling my days with glimpses into a world I could no longer experience. Talking to me about his life outside in explicit detail—a tease. I think he liked that I was mouthy, that I was a challenge—I saw the fire in his eyes when he thought he broke me. I’ve been building to that mindset for the last month just so he’d let his guard down long enough for me to escape. The soles of my shoes make a wet noise against the sprinkler-soaked grass, but the leaves crackling at the edge of the emerald lawn are louder, skittering underfoot. The moment I step inside the tree line, the darkness cascades over me like a blanket, soothing my rattled nerves—so dark back here, but I know where I am. I know every inch of this town by heart. But the world feels different after months of captivity—bigger, almost too expansive. The woods have never felt so alive. Creatures rustle the underbrush, squirrels, maybe, but squirrels don’t come out at night. Raccoons? Bigger than squirrels for sure, and the way they’re skittering around, it sounds like they’re following me. For f**k’s sake, grow some ovaries, Isabelle. My feet shh-shh against the spring leaves; briars snag on my pants, then release. I have two miles to go to the main strip—I know where a back alley dead-ends at the forest that surrounds the town. A block or two, and I should have a vehicle; I’m adept at hot-wiring a car. Thirty seconds, and I’m on my way out of this town. And once I get out of town, I’m all set. Ronnie booked me a spa appointment; he checked in himself last night so it’d look like I was there. Just in case. He’s a good man, which is probably why I’m not attracted to him. I have a soft spot for bad boys, and my preppy boy experiment with Jeff only solidified this instinct—from now on, a polo shirt will be enough to make me puke. But I am thankful that Ronnie leans tight-laced and proper. It made him help me, for one, but it also skewed his view of the world—and of me. He saw a kidnapper in Jeff, but he didn’t see what I was. Because while I was down for a fling with a handsome silver fox I met at the amusement park, that certainly wasn’t why I went home with him. I had plans for him before he locked me in that basement. I still might be able to use the information I was able to find that first night. If not, I have another contingency plan. It does no good to be unprepared. My breath burns in my lungs; my ribs ache. I hurry faster, slipping on dead leaves and the slime mold that proliferates beneath the rotting vegetation. Snap! I freeze—the sound is not me, nor is it squirrels. The crackling of branches. Is Jeff after me? Ronnie screwed up. I f*****g knew he’d screw up. The rustling crackle comes again. Big—so big. Probably a deer. If it’s a bear, it’ll have to eat me before I’ll go back to that house. Same if it’s Jeff. I steel myself and creep forward past low-rising brambles encased in a glittering thicket of thorns. In the distance, I can see a hazy lightening at the horizon, the sodium glare of streetlights along the strip. Half a mile away. Probably less. I run toward the light—toward freedom. But the sound at my back follows. Snap! Snap! Crunch! So close now. I chance a look at my back, but I see only the dark void of the trees, and though I do sense movement, I cannot make out any distinct shapes hidden in the velvet night. Less than a quarter mile. I can see the brick retaining wall that separates the woods from the city proper, the edge where it drops off into cobblestones. I run harder, my back slick with sweat, my ribs vibrating with panic. The edge of the retaining wall approaches. I can’t just run over the side; I’ll have to jump. I feel the dirt give way to cement beneath my sneakers. I leap out into the alley, my feet landing hard against the street. I tumble to my knees; skin rips, my knees tattooed by the cobbles, but it doesn’t hurt, not with the way my heart is throbbing in my ears. I shove myself to my feet, still feeling as if the thing at my back is in pursuit, but when I whirl around, I see nothing in the shadow-blackened trees. I made it. I made it. But of course I did. I’m Isabelle f*****g Cain. I’m a goddamn survivor. The breeze hisses soft and sweet against the brick and brushes hard at my feverish flesh. No more noises come from the trees, but there is another sound now, too, scraping like claws on stone. I turn back to the alley—to freedom. At first, I only see the blackness of the cobbles, the world hidden from streetlights, which is exactly why I chose it. Quiet here—isolated, as none of these businesses are open after five o’clock. But I am not alone. Amorphous shapes move through the inky haze—people? Yes, people, I realize as my eyes adjust. Delivery men, based on the boxes near their feet. I squint, trying to force the scene to solidify. Four large men huddle in a knot against the right building, two of them crouching near the boxes. And now that my heart isn’t thundering so violently, I can hear their agitated voices and the hissed scraping sound of the containers as they move them toward the vehicle—a truck, four now-dead running lights glinting in the moonlight that filters dimly between buildings. I was not expecting to see anyone here, but unless I want to backtrack through the woods to the opposite end of town, I’ll have to walk straight past them. And to walk all the way around will set me back thirty minutes that I do not have. I frown. I don’t think they can identify me here in the dark, and I don’t think they’ll connect me to Jeff—I’m two miles from his home, and my presence here is circumstantial at best. These men are very unlikely to hear about Jeff’s death at all if they don’t live in Haling Cove. And even if they do, I’ll be long gone before they can tell anyone. I square my shoulders and head in their direction, but between the wind and the rumble of their truck’s idling engine, and their own raised voices, I don’t think they can hear the dull patter of my rubber-soled footwear. None of them are facing me—their heads are all turned away, two of them crouched near the boxes at the wall. I pick up my pace. Thirty feet away. My mouth is packed in cotton. Twenty feet. I freeze. This close, I can see what they’re loading. I had thought they were moving boxes, but it’s not boxes, the shapes too misshapen—bags. And what I thought was a running board isn’t the back lights of a waiting truck. Motorcycles, four of them, lined up in a row. The other images come in slowly pulsing flashes. The back door beside them is a dull, hazy silver. Something glitters on the ground like a string of diamonds. Actually… maybe it is diamonds. A necklace? The jewelry store. They’re robbing the jewelry store. They don’t acknowledge my presence. But then… one does. The man nearest me stands slowly. They’re all in black, head to toe, which is why I thought I was looking at the back of his head, but now I can see the glitter of two eyes beneath his mask. A ski mask? No, a helmet, visor up. He steps toward me, away from the fray, and as he moves from the knot of men, I can see beyond him. I can see what lays at their feet. The man on the ground isn’t nearly as large as the robbers, and not nearly as alive. His eyes were wide to the moon, his gaze dull—unseeing. The puddle beneath his head is still spreading, inky black, but I can smell it now, the metallic reek of blood. And the bikers—the murderers—are all staring. Straight at me. The biggest of them points, his body silhouetted by the light from the main drag—impossibly far away. “Take her.”