Page 19 of Racer

Jude’s green eyes had darkened to nearly black, rage clearly boiling inside him. “And if they messed with anything else…”

As he trailed off, I was even more determined to find every single thing wrong with my brother’s car. “Let’s keep looking.”

He nodded. “As long as it takes.”

After a couple more hours of both of us going over the Shelby with a fine-tooth comb, I remembered the injector housing I’d been checking out. I reached in and tugged the injector loom farther out, my eyes narrowing. “This isn’t right.”

Jude rounded the hood of the mangled Mustang to peer over my shoulder. “Holy shit. Whoever did this dialed back the injector cycle. Just enough to lean the mix under load.”

My mind raced. “Too much air, not enough fuel…”

“Engine runs hot,” he muttered. “Real hot. You’re cooking pistons before you even know something’s wrong. At top speed, that kind of strain?—”

“He’d lose power coming into the turn,” I finished, breath shallow. “No warning light. No dash alert. Just a stall or a knock right when he needed control.”

Jude sat back on his heels and stared at the wreckage like he could see Mason in the seat. “They built a fucking trap,” he said flatly. “Did just enough to make it look like Axle screwed up. No code, no fail-safe, no brake warning. Everything set to fry the car at the worst possible second.”

“And now the data’s gone,” I added, my mouth going dry. “No digital proof. They got exactly what they wanted.”

“Except for one thing.” Jude looked up at me, his expression unreadable but intense. “This wasn’t just about making your brother lose. They wanted to make sure he didn’t walk away.”

My stomach dropped, the truth settling in my chest, sharp and cold. We found what I’d suspected all along. But hearing it out loud made the ground shift beneath me.

“They wanted him dead,” I whispered.

The words hung in the air between us, too heavy to take back. Too real to ignore.

I braced my hands against the frame of the car, trying to steady myself. “I knew it wasn’t an accident. But everyone kept telling me to let it go. That Mason must’ve made a mistake. Except for Kane. And you.”

“You were right all along.”

Something in me cracked at the quiet, hard certainty in his tone. But my reaction didn’t make me any less resolved. Only more so.

Someone had tried to kill my brother, and we were going to find out who. Together.

The weight of it all should’ve felt crushing, but I somehow felt…hopeful. And exhausted.

I’d barely slept since Mason’s crash. We’d been working on his car for hours, plus the time we’d spent at the race earlier tonight. My body ached, and sweat clung to the back of my neck. I leaned against the edge of the Mustang, too wired to sit and too raw to pretend we hadn’t just uncovered proof that someone tried to murder my brother.

“Fuck, it’s hot as hell in here, even in the middle of the damn night.” Jude reached behind his neck and tugged his shirt over his head.

I looked away, but not for long. Even with what we’d just discovered, his pull was too strong.

The overhead light caught the sweat beading on his chest, the ridges of muscle across his stomach, and the checkered flags inked on his right pec.

He reached for a rag, wiping his hands, then glanced up. And caught me staring.

A smirk curved the corner of his mouth as he slowly stalked closer, his gaze fixed on mine as though he could see straight through me.

His voice was low and rough as he murmured, “You keep looking at me like that, angel, and I’m gonna bend you over this car and show you exactly what happens when you tempt a man who doesn’t play fair.”

My breath caught at the sensual threat.

I didn’t move. Didn’t look away. And I definitely didn’t deny that I was looking at Jude as though I wanted to eat him up.

I should’ve said something—anything—to defuse the heat rising between us, but my tongue was dry and my brain had short-circuited somewhere between the tattoo I hadn’t already seen and the way he called me angel.

My gaze dropped to his mouth, and it took me a moment to realize how big of a mistake that was. Now, all I could do was think about what his lips would feel like pressed against mine, his tongue sliding into my mouth. The heat of his bare skin. The weight of him. The rasp of his voice in my ear as he made good on that threat.

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