Page 34 of Racer

Jude whistled. “He must be a hell of a driver to hold it together that long with this kind of sabotage in his ECU.”

I sniffled. “The best.”

Jude sent me a sideways look but didn’t argue.

“He drove like a motherfucking champ.” Kane jerked his chin toward the laptop. “They also tampered with the data feedback loop. Fed false data to the dashboard to mask the damage. The Mustang thought it was fine, so Axle got no warning until it was too damn late.”

Jude exhaled slowly, shaking his head. “By the time he noticed the late braking, bad shift timing, and oversteering, it was already too late.”

“Not only was the crash not Axle’s fault…but his skills at the wheel probably prevented anyone else from getting hurt,” Kane pointed out.

I slumped against Jude’s side, relief coursing through my veins.

Kane studied me in silence, then pushed back from the desk and circled to my side. “Deviant also recovered some of the video feed. It’s shaky and fragmented. But enough to see what happened from Axle’s perspective.”

My breath caught in my throat.

“Do you want to see it?” Kane asked.

Jude’s hand tightened on mine.

I forced myself to meet Kane’s gaze. “Yeah. I need to see what he saw.”

Jax clicked the file and hit play. The screen flickered once, then stabilized, displaying the split feed: forward camera and dash telemetry. My breath caught when the view from the front of Mason’s Mustang filled the frame, tearing around the first curve with familiar grace.

He was so smooth behind the wheel. Confident. In control.

RPMs climbed. The engine roared. The telemetry numbers stayed in perfect rhythm. There was no warning before everything went to hell. The dash readings remained normal, but Mason swore, “What the fuck?”

Then the Mustang’s front end twitched as if the car had suddenly gone light. Mason fought it, but the car veered, the tires catching just enough to yank the whole frame sideways.

My hand flew to my mouth as the video spiraled. The camera jolted as the car spun, metal screeching. For a split second, I could hear Mason yell. Then the feed cut to static upon impact.

The room was silent.

I sat frozen, my lungs refusing to work, tears slipping free as the stillness stretched. Kane shut the laptop without a word, his mouth drawn tight.

Jude didn’t say anything. He just stood and gently lifted me into his arms as though I weighed nothing. My fingers curled into his shirt as I buried my face in his chest.

The hallway blurred past us.

He didn’t stop until we were back in his room—or ours since I’d stayed in it almost as long as he had. He eased us both down onto the bed without letting go. His back hit the pillows first, and I followed, curled up in his lap as the dam broke.

Sobs tore out of me, harsh and ragged, weeks of fear and guilt pouring out all at once. Jude held me tighter. One hand cradledthe back of my head, and the other wrapped securely around my waist, grounding me.

He didn’t speak. Didn’t try to fix it.

Just held me.

And that was everything.

Long minutes passed before I could form a coherent thought.

My voice cracked on the whisper. “He wasn’t at fault. It wasn’t his fault. Or mine. And now I finally have proof.”

Jude’s arms tightened.

And for the first time since that awful night, I felt like I could breathe.

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