Claimed By The Biker Kings A Forbidden Queen

The charity gala was killing me slowly.

I stood beneath crystal chandeliers, watching Chicago's elite circle like vultures in designer gowns. Same faces. Same lies. Same suffocating performance.

"Smile, sweetheart." Dad's hand pressed against my back. Commissioner Marcus Hart commanded rooms, but right now I wanted to scream. I'm Twenty-one and still his trained seal.

Mrs. Pemberton descended like a shark. "Alina! I assume you'll be following daddy into politics?"

Everyone assumed my future was set. Law school, prosecutor, political marriage. My glass cage was beautiful, but it was still a cage.

The bathroom mirror showed my storm-grey eyes and perfectly styled hair that felt like a prison. I was dying by degrees.

"There you are!" Chloe burst in like salvation. "Jesus, you look homicidal."

"I know," I said with frustration. "Just planning my escape from this tomb."

"Perfect." Her grin was pure mischief. "What if we actually leave?"

"Leave? To where?"

"There's this place-underground. It's a little bit dangerous, the kind your daddy definitely wouldn't approve of. The Inferno Club."

My pulse jumped. "What kind of place?"

"The kind where we'd use fake IDs, and nobody cares about your last name. Real danger, Lina. But when's the last time you did something just because you wanted to?"

Never. Every moment was controlled, scheduled, suffocating.

"I've got clothes in my car. One night where you're Alina, not Commissioner Hart's perfect princess."

The smart thing was to refuse. Good daughters didn't sneak out to underground clubs.

But I was tired of being good.

"How do we get past security?"

----- 

Twenty minutes later, we stood outside a building with a single red door. No sign. Just bass thumping through concrete.

The bouncer's gold teeth gleamed. "First time? What's inside ain't for the faint of heart."

My heart hammered. This was insane.

Though it was exactly what I needed.

"Ready?" Chloe asked.

I nodded, though I wasn't sure for what.

The red door swung open.

Music exploded out-industrial beats, roaring crowd, something primal that made my blood sing. Smoke rolled past us carrying scents of sweat, leather, and danger. Heat spilled onto the room like an invitation to hell.

Through the haze, I caught glimpses of the world inside. Bodies pressed together. Energy that felt alive and wild and absolutely forbidden.

"Welcome to freedom," Chloe said.

I took a breath, tasting rebellion on my tongue.

Then stepped across the threshold into darkness.

-----

Heat and chaos swallowed me whole.

The Inferno pulsed with bass and sweat, every heartbeat syncing to something primal in the center. But it was the crowd surging toward the back that caught my attention.

"Fight night," a pink-haired girl explained. "You staying up here with tourists or going down to see blood?"

Down meant underground. Exactly where Commissioner Hart's daughter should never go. Where I should never go.

"Down," I said.

The staircase descended into a modern colosseum carved from Chicago's bones. Tiered seating surrounded a chain-link cage where two men destroyed each other while spectators screamed for violence.

I should have turned around.

Instead, I pushed closer, drawn to flames that promised to burn me alive.

"Next up, fighting out of the Iron Serpents MC... The Beast!"

The crowd exploded when he appeared.

Jaxon Ryder moved like violence personified. Six-four of lean muscle and predatory grace, olive skin gleaming, dark hair wild. But his eyes-gold and feral-found mine across the chaos.

The world went silent.