The air in the garage smells like sweat and motor oil and empty beer cans.Eau de Maverick.It’s not nearly as nice as jasmine, rose, and patchouli.
“Have you been racing again?” I growl. I’m not in the mood for Mav’s bullshit.
Maverick is my best friend. With no living family, he was more or less adopted into the Rozanov clan. At this point, he’s as good as blood. He’s loyal, he’s dumb as a brick, and he’s reckless. The latter two are the reasons he’s almost died multiple times. The first is the main reason I keep him around.
The thick-headed moron keeps me grounded. He also keeps me permanently irritated.
“Racing? If you mean driving no less than twenty over the speed limit on any given road just to keep my edge, then yes, you caught me. If you mean low-key dueling for pinks with Chadovich slime in the less patrolled streets of NYC… then also yes. Guilty as charged.”
He’s about to stick his head back into the guts of the hot rod he’s working on, but right before he does, I slam the hood down, nearly decapitating him on the spot.
“Yo! What gives?”
“You need to cool it,” I warn.
Maverick squares his shoulders. “What’s got you in such a sour mood?” he asks, slumping away to grab a beer from the garage fridge. He offers me one, but I don’t take it. A filth-covered IPA isn’t going to take the edge off. Not this time.
I used to love being in here with him. Right now, though, everything about this place makes my skin crawl. My nerves are raw. My chest is tight.
I used to spend hours in the garage with Mav and Baron…
And Nik.
But those days are gone. Those days are dead. Those days are, quite literally, six feet under and growing cold in one of the city’s most expensive cemeteries.
“I don’t see why you get so bent out of shape about it.” He pops the cap off his beer and takes a long slug. “We have the cops in our back pocket. They don’t even jump when they hear a car backfire anymore. And it feels good making Tristan and his dumbass friends eat gravel.” He grins and leans back against the work bench.
“You know why.”
Maverick studies me. Blinks. Takes another sip. “Your brother died years ago, Ransome. And it was an accident.”
The mention of Nik’s death feels like stitches being ripped from skin that never healed. I grit my teeth.
“You think Nik’s accident was an accident? You’re really that fucking dense?”
He shrugs. “We got no proof otherwise. Shit like that happens, especially when you’re us.”
“Which is exactly why you need to stop fucking around. My dad’s playing me like a puppet right now in an attempt to keep the peace with the Chadovichs.”
“What peace?” he scoffs. He tosses his empty bottle towards the trash and misses. It bounces off the rim and rolls across the floor toward me until I stop it with my foot. Then I scoop it up and toss it into the can. “As long as Tristan is roaming the streets, making a fuckin’ mess of things as he is wont to do, there will be no peace.”
I grimace when I see the residual grease on my hands from touching the bottle. “We had drinks today,” I tell him. “My parents, me, the Chadovichs.”
“And?” he asks, opening the hood of the car again.
“And they want a truce.”
Maverick stops. As much shit as I give him, he’s notactuallystupid. He knows the game. And he knows how things work when one city has two families fighting to be on top.
“Let me guess. You’re getting married, aren’t you?” He says it like it’s a joke. It makes me want to put my fist through those pearly whites. “So who’s the unlucky bride?”
“Jenica.”
Maverick lets out a low whistle. “Goddamn, brother. I mean, hey, look at the bright side—that’s not the worst bullet that could have come out of this li’l game of Russian Roulette. She’s a fox.”
“She’s a Chadovich.”
“Seeing as how this is about a truce between us and the Chadovichs, yeah, I’d say that makes a fair amount of sense, ol’ buddy. That’s how these truces usually work.”
