“Any deaths?” Edge asked flatly.
“Not that I’ve heard,” Racer answered. “But it’s only a matter of time.”
My stomach tightened. This wasn’t just somebody skimming money off our territory anymore. This setup was eventually going to leave bodies behind.
Midnight shifted closer to one of the betting groups while Racer casually worked another cluster of drivers near the staging area. I watched him smoothly work his way into conversations, dropping names, laughing occasionally, and letting people relax around him.
Then something shifted. I saw it immediately.
“Shit,” I grunted.
One of the organizers—a thick-necked jackass in a black tank top—started watching Racer too closely. There was suspicion in his eyes instead of casual curiosity.
Racer’s voice came low through comms. “You see him?”
“Yeah,” Gauge confirmed quietly from remote surveillance.
The guy approached Racer slowly, arms crossed, his expression hard. Even from this distance, I could feel the tension tightening. Midnight drifted subtly closer but didn’t interfere. Racer stayed relaxed while the guy spoke to him, leaning lazily against his ride—a car he’d borrowed from Edge. Much to Kane’s frustration.
We called it Reaper's Edge.
He’d custom built it himself. A Frankenstein mix of outlawed parts: a McLaren carbon fiber frame, modified Hellcat twin-charged V8, and his custom gear-shift override. It had illegal mods too. No limiter, manual override of traction systems, stripped down to the bones. It even ran on a proprietary fuel mix he’d invented that added speed and risk in equal measure.
Nobody had ever raced it but our VP. Kane had even banned it from the official circuit—claiming it was to keep up Edge’s life expectancy. The car was too fast and too unpredictable.
It had taken some serious convincing to get Edge to let Racer use his ride. And even more for Kane to agree. But it wasthe smart play. Made Racer fit into this crowd even more by appearing to be a little reckless—hence his willingness to race in a pop-up like this.
The guy eventually walked away, and Racer’s voice came through again, quieter this time. “They’re wondering why I showed up but didn’t enter.”
“Walk,” I replied immediately. “We’ll find another angle.”
“No,” Racer disagreed. “You know I gotta race, or it’ll blow this operation.”
I swore under my breath and heard several other murmured curses from the group.
“You know they know who I am. My reputation,” he continued calmly. “And showing up with this ride…if I leave now, they’ll smell something’s off. We lose the race, the crowd, and the organizers. Whole thing disappears before we can pin it down again.”
“Racer—” I started.
“He’s right,” Edge cut in through comms from the clubhouse. “But you put one fucking scratch on my ride, and you’ll never satisfy your wife again.”
I hated it. Because I knew they were both right. But this track was a fucking death trap and I wouldn’t want anyone—except maybe the fuckers who built it—racing on it.
I scrubbed a hand over my jaw, irritation grinding hard through me before I finally exhaled. “Fine. But keep your damn head on straight.”
Racer chuckled low. “Always do.”
Edge’s growl reverberated through the comms. “I’m serious. If you put one fucking scratch on my ride, you might as well crash the whole thing and make sure you go out in the flames.”
Racer snorted. “Don’t fucking insult me, asshole.”
Twenty minutes later, he rolled toward the start line in Reaper’s Edge. The race started ugly and only got worse fromthere. There were no clean lines and too many undisciplined drivers who had no respect for the road or each other. It was fucking brutal.
Drivers shoved each other through corners, clipped bumpers intentionally, forced bad passes, and treated every turn like attempted murder. One bastard nearly sent another car directly into a barrier just trying to gain half a car length.
From his muttering over the comms, it was clear that Racer was pissed, but he adapted fast.
That was the thing about him—he drove like the machine belonged to his nervous system. Aggressive when necessary, but precise when it counted. He slid through chaos smoother than anybody else on the track, threading impossible gaps while everybody around him drove like rabid animals.