Page 25 of Lust

“You sure, he was apart of it?”

“Don’t defend him. He stood by her when I went to his house.”

“I’m just saying Ivy, that the man you described, doesn’t sound like he would want to hurt you.” She squeezes my hand under the table. “Perhaps you should let him explain.”

“Or,” And I looked at the boys. “I can help destroy everything he holds dear.” For some reason that was appealing to me more.

She rolled her eyes, and then turns to face the boys. I pull my hand from hers, and walk out of the room. I had let Gabe lick his wounds for long enough. Time he faced me. After all, it had been two days. He was hurting I got that. But now we needed to come together as a family.

So I headed for Gabe.

14

Ivory

Walking into the garage of Mom and Dad’s house. I see Gabe working on his ‘project’. I was guessing the only reason this car wasn’t taken was because Olivia didn’t know about it. He had been working on since he was sixteen. Every time he got close to finishing it, he’d pull it apart again.

“You still working on this bomb?” I say to him, and his eyes go off the motor and on to me. I see the shame in them. He had been tricked by a good con artist.

He gets out from under the bonnet. Wiping his hands on his jeans. Finally he reaches for his beer, taking a sip of it and not saying a word. My brother is a proud man. So right now would be hard for him.

“So, what are we going to do?” I say and close the door behind me.

“You were right Ivory.” He looks me dead in the eye. “I was wrong. Is that what you came to hear?”

“No.” I frowned. “I’m your sister Gabe. I care about you. I’m not here to rub it in your face.” I wasn’t that type of person.

“She took everything.” He scoffed. “But she did leave the engagement ring.” He muttered and brought the beer back to his lips, “Fucking whore.”

“Now that we can agree on.” I said jumping up on the bench. “So what are you going to do about it?”

“Ain’t shit I can. Not going after her for shit. She took the NASCAR too.” He looked at me for a reaction when he said that sentence.

I shrugged. “Nothing we can’t replace.”

“Come off it. That was a one of a kind machine.”

“Like I said nothing we can’t replace.” I looked him in the eyes. “Money is no object for us Henderson’s. You have four billionaires up there in the lounge room, ready to pay for a new NASCAR.”

He shook his head.

“Hear me out Gabe. We race, we beat them. You start to build your money back up.”

“You really think you can rebuild a car, within five days?” he looks at me with disbelief. “Come on Ivory, ya good but not that good.”

“I’m not going to lie. It will be close to stock. But you can race stock, and you’d win with a stock car. You always have been more talented.” I then look at him with reassurance. “You can do this Gabe if you want to, everyone is in your corner.”

He tilts his head. “What about you and Kace? Is that over?”

“It never started.” I was honest. Because if Kace and I were a thing, he would never do this to me. To my family. There is a reason he is an outlaw. “Can I ask you something?” I hesitated. “It’s about Olivia.” I give him a heads up and he nods his head, looking me in the eyes. “When did she change?”

“After you agreed to be Kace’s crew chief. She was jealous. I just didn’t connect the dots.” He frowned and looked at me disappointed and embarrassed. “I’m an idiot Ivory. I let her control me.”

I shrugged. “We all make mistakes.” And I forced a smile. Because I was right. We all did make mistakes. But it was how we came back from them, that defined us.

KACE

No fucking sleep was a problem.But it didn’t even make the list on my current list of problems. I waited parked in a sedan outside the Clove street apartments. This was the third night in a row I had been waiting for her. Each night she hadn’t come home. I knew which apartment was hers, because I asked the junkie neighbors. They gave her up in a heartbeat.

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