I tug open the door and melt into the seat, inhaling the scent I missed so much. “Tonight?”
“Twenty grand up for grabs. Some wannabe assholes from across town trying to prove their dicks are bigger. So…I signed us up.”
I grip the steering wheel and grin. “Well, since you twisted my arm?—”
A loud metallicclankechoes through the garage.
We freeze.
Remi’s already drawing her Glock before my brain fully registers the sound. I’m out of Ivy in an instant, taking her six. We weave through the cars, weapons aimed and ready.
“You think someone snuck in here?” I whisper.
“For their sake, they’d better fucking hope not.”
Another noise, but lighter this time, like something shifting under weight.
I grab her wrist and yank her behind a G-Wagon’s front tire. “Remi…what if it’s them? The Six?”
She chews on her lip, eyes drifting between me and the noise. “This doesn’t seem the type of place they’d come looking.”
Paranoia is setting in, but she has a point. No one is expecting us here. And I have a feeling that The Six knows exactly where to find us if they want to.
“Then someone’s here to sabotage us. Fuck with our cars. And somehow got past the alarms.”
A slow grin curls up Remi’s cheek. “Looks like you might be helping me bury a body after all.”
My pulse spikes, not with fear, but with the rush I’ve been craving all damn day.
“On three,” I whisper. “Stay close.”
We move in synch, low and steady.
But we barely take two steps before a blur launches out from behind a Jeep and tackles Remi. They hit the concrete hard, rolling, limbs tangled, and the attacker clawing for her gun. She grunts, driving a left hook into his ribs, then another into his jaw, but the fucker won’t loosen his grip.
“Remi, hold still!” I try to aim, but they’re thrashing too wildly. One wrong angle or a slip right or left, and I could hit her instead. That's not a risk I’ll ever take.
“Asshole,” I snarl, ripping a blade from my boot.
I sprint, drop, and drive the knife into his gut, burying it to the hilt and twisting. Warm blood splatters across my knuckles. It takes him two seconds to register the damage and two more shallow breaths before he's scrambling back, both hands flying to his side as blood pulses between his fingers.
I’m deciding whether to finish him off or interrogate him when a single shot rings out and strikes the intruder’s forehead, knocking him back.
Remi stands over him, arm steady, smoking barrel pointed at his skull, ready to fire again.
“He’s dead,” I say, gripping her wrist gently. “No sense in wasting bullets.”
“Bitch busted my lip,” she mutters, swiping her thumb across the small cut, then crouches and rips off his ski mask.
The face beneath is unsettlingly young. We look at each other briefly, confirming no recognition in either of our eyes.
“Who sends a barely-legal idiot to ambush us?” she growls, lifting his shirt with the barrel of her gun and exposing just a few meaningless scars and shitty tattoos.
I crouch beside her and roll up his sleeve, where I find a scorpion inked across the underside of his forearm. Latin scrawled beneath like a signature or a brand. A racing crew, maybe, but not one I’ve ever seen.
Shit like this happens often in the street racing circuit. One crew tries to fuck with another, messing with their cars and inventory, but something about it feels…off.
“Remi…” I rise, scanning the garage. “We need to run perimeter in case this guy isn’t alone. Then call in a clean-up crew.”
