“I swing onto the Yamaha, and the engine screams to life beneath me. The vibration climbs my spine and settles in my teeth. I pull up between Logan and Ethan at the starting line. I have my helmet on and my visor down. I am anonymous.
“So,” I say through the comm system. “What are we betting?”
“Loser buys breakfast,” Ethan suggests.
“Booooring,” Logan counters. “The loser has to admit the other two are better riders. In writing. Posted to the group chat.”
I grin inside my helmet. “You two are going to regret this.”
“Big words from someone who's about to eat my dust,” Logan shoots back.
The start girl steps forward. She raises the green flag, and the world narrows to the track ahead and the moment between here and gone.
The flag drops.
I twist the throttle, and the Yamaha slams me back. It is a beautiful violence of controlled power. I hit the first turn doing ninety. It is too fast. It is exactly fast enough.
I lean into it, my knee nearly scraping the asphalt. The bike responds to my weight and my muscle memory. The turn opens up, and I gun it down the straightaway. The wind tears at my jacket, and the engine howls. This is what I needed. Speed that demands everything.
Ethan pulls ahead on the straight. Logan tucks in behind him, drafting and waiting. I stay wide, taking the outside line into the next turn. It is riskier and longer, but I nail the curve. The Yamaha holds the line as if she is on rails. I come out of the turn with momentum that launches me past both of them.
“Show-off,” Logan’s voice crackles in my ear.
“You are just jealous,” I shoot back.
We weave through obstacles at speed, oil drums and wooden pallets left in the industrial zone. This is the illegal part, the part that would get us arrested if the police patrolled this far out. It is the part that makes it worth coming here.
Logan makes his move on the back stretch, cutting inside on a turn I didn't think had an inside line. Suddenly, it is the two of us neck and neck, engines screaming. We cross the finish line at over one hundred miles per hour.
I don't know who won. I don't care.
The high is still singing in my blood as I ease off the throttle. We coast to a stop, and I pull off my helmet. My hair is soaked with sweat. Logan and Ethan are already off their bikes, grinning.
“Photo finish,” Ethan announces, checking the race footage on his phone. “You and Logan crossed within a tenth of a second. I came in a full two-tenths behind.”
“So are you writing the confession?” I ask.
Ethan flips me off. “Yeah, yeah. Logan and Kai are superior riders and I am but a humble peasant on two wheels.”
“Don't forget the group chat,” Logan adds.
“I hate you both.”
“No, you don't,” I say.
“True. But I reserve the right to complain.”
The adrenaline carries me all the way home. I shower, pour a whiskey, and sit in the darkness of my living room. Maddox’s email is still sitting in my inbox. I have been avoiding it, telling myself I would rather learn who she is from her own lips.
I open it.
The first page is the standard employment history, education, and credit score. Nothing flagged. I scroll down to the family section.
I set down my glass and read the lines again.
Shit.
CHAPTER 10
