Ares
I’m sure about you. I’ll pick you up at seven.
Me
Just dinner. Nothing else.
His answer was cocky and made my toes curl.
Ares
Whatever you need to tell yourself, baby. I’ll see you then.
I dropped the phone onto my towel and buried my face in my hands, breathing hard. It looked like my fantasy about dating him was coming true. And I probably shouldn’t be so happy about it, but there was no denying that I was.
3
TYRE
Ileaned back in my chair, stretching until I felt a satisfying pop in my spine. The numbers on the laptop screen blurred for a moment before my eyes refocused, but I didn’t complain. This was my zone—the rhythmic heartbeat of the club’s underground racing network flowing through numbers and neatly stacked columns.
A dozen spreadsheets stretched across two monitors, each filled with carefully tracked bets, payout records, and detailed totals from race after race. Underground races might seem chaotic from the outside with their makeshift tracks built from old shipping yards, abandoned warehouses, or dirt-covered rally stages deep in the woods. But beneath the adrenaline-charged chaos was a finely tuned machine. Money moved with precision, bets placed with subtle signals, every transaction accounted for. Not in legal records, but in my private ledgers, where nothing went unnoticed.
Unlike the sleek, organized atmosphere of Kane’s professional venues, such as Redline Speedway, our underground circuits, such as Torque Ridge and Burnside Circuit, had a gritty edge. Barrel fires crackled alongside thetracks, roaring crowds pressed against chain-link fences, and racers pushed high-risk engines well past their limits. But the risk was meticulously managed behind the scenes.
I knew exactly who was betting, how much they wagered on any given night, and who walked away with full pockets or empty wallets. I understood the rhythm of the money, felt its pulse in a way few others could ever comprehend.
Except today, something wasn’t right.
I scrubbed a hand roughly over my jaw, trying to refocus my attention, but my thoughts kept drifting back to Cecily. The sweet, fiery-haired beauty had thrown my carefully constructed discipline into chaos. It had been nearly impossible to concentrate since the moment I saw her at the compound pool.
Her plain swimsuit shouldn’t have been sexy, but on her, it made me rock hard. Even now, I felt a pulse of heat tighten low in my groin at the memory of how she moved so gracefully, confident in a way that had nearly made me lose every shred of sanity.
“Get a fucking grip,” I muttered to myself, shaking off the distraction again.
The numbers wouldn’t analyze themselves, and the entire financial health of all our club operations relied on me staying sharp.
Forcing my attention back to the spreadsheets, I leaned forward, scanning the data again. My eyes narrowed at one particular race last weekend at Burnside Circuit. The betting totals were lower than normal. Nothing drastic, just enough to catch my attention. Fewer high-stakes bets placed and smaller pots. The kind of anomaly that pricked uneasily at my instincts.
I flipped through the previous weeks, my eyes narrowing further when I spotted a similar dip in another race night at Torque Ridge. Subtle and easy to overlook—but there.
My pulse picked up a notch as I dug deeper, clicking through more records. Patterns formed like faint ripples on otherwise smooth waters. Three weeks ago at Brake Point Run, another small dip. And four weeks before that, at another Burnside Circuit race, the totals were slightly off again.
It wasn’t every race, only certain nights and locations.
But it wasn’t random. Patterns like this didn’t emerge by accident. These subtle shifts were controlled and deliberate.
With methodical care, I pulled up records of our regular high-stakes bettors—the heavy hitters who made or broke the success of any given night. My eyes tracked the familiar names, and irritation twisted in my gut as I noticed several prominent bettors either missing entirely from certain races or placing notably smaller wagers than usual. Men who lived for the rush of high stakes and didn’t skip nights without good reason.
“They’re not staying home,” I muttered to myself, leaning back in my chair, the leather creaking softly beneath my weight. I let the realization sit for a few minutes. If they weren’t betting with us, it meant they had found somewhere else to put their money.
Deciding I needed more data, I dove back into the numbers and discovered more disturbing information. Steady drivers were also skipping races. The same ones.
It looked like someone was pulling in high-stakes bettors, siphoning off drivers, and trying to do it right under our noses.
This was a possible threat I couldn’t afford to ignore. It wasn’t just about the lost revenue—the money was minor compared to the implication that someone was infringing on Redline Kings territory. Testing our control of the region.
I leaned back in my chair again, my fingers tapping on the armrest as I considered my next move. This wasn’t enough to take to Kane yet. I needed to get Jax on this first.