Page 1 of Nitro
1
NITRO
The shadows of Crossbend had their own pulse. You felt it in the humid press of hot air, in the greasy tang of exhaust hanging over cracked asphalt, in the way men leaned on hoods with smokes dangling and bets exchanged in low voices. Tonight wasn’t about the sanctioned tracks or Kane’s empire with polished sponsors and shiny press crews. This was the side of his empire that the Redline Kings MC ran. It was the underbelly—the kind of racing that sifted out posers, stripped flesh from bone, and showed you who belonged.
Drivers proved themselves at the Shadow Tryout.
And three of my recruits had just gotten their asses handed to them by someone no one fucking knew. Who drove like they had no sense of mortality.
I leaned against the chain-link barrier, one boot braced, arms folded across my chest. My jaw worked hard as the roar of the last lap thundered around the makeshift track carved out of an abandoned industrial lot at the edge of town. The floodlights mounted to scaffolding cut swaths through the night air, catching the haze of burnt rubber and oil.
My boys should’ve owned this. They’d been training on the circuit for weeks, memorizing braking curves, feeling out weight shifts. I’d tweaked their fuel mix myself, tuned the engines with precision. They weren’t Kane’s polished pros, but they weren’t wet behind the ears either.
But whoever the hell that “rookie” was had just smoked them. Not by an inch. By a full two car lengths. Clean. Precise. Like they’d been born behind the fucking wheel.
Beside me, Kane let out a low chuckle, beard twitching with the ghost of a grin and a flick of amusement in his green eyes as the checkered flag dropped.
“Tell me I didn’t just waste six months on those assholes,” I muttered as the last run clocked in on the big digital timer overhead.
The rookie’s numbers were brutal. Clean. No wasted motion. The kind of time you couldn’t fake.
“Looks like they need a remedial course, brother.”
His tone was casual, but there was steel underneath. As president of the Redline Kings, Kane was powerful, feared, and known for being merciless when it came to protecting his family—by patch, blood, or property vest.
But he’d already carried that power before he ever established our MC. He was a fucking billionaire who ruled the racing world—above and underground—like the Mafia. He could strip a man down with nothing but his silence, and right now, he enjoyed watching me lose. It rarely happened.
On Kane’s other side, Edge smirked. Leaning one shoulder against the chain-link fence, our club’s VP flipped his knife open and shut like a kid fidgeting with a toy. He wore that easy grin, the one that meant he was filing the whole thing away to needle me later. “Hate to say it, Nitro, but you look like someone kicked your puppy.”
“Fuck off.” I shot him a flat glare. “Maybe if you spent more time training instead of playin’ pocket-knife origami, you’d know what the fuck you’re talking about.”
It was a bullshit comment since we both knew Edge was one of the best drivers in the business.
His chuckle held no humor. “Careful, brother. Keep snarlin’ like that, and people are gonna think you care.”
I flicked him a side-eye, my mouth tightening. “Cute. Want me to build a charge for that mouth of yours? Bet you’d stop running it once your lips are on the ceiling.”
Edge grinned. “See? Volatile as ever.”
Kane’s smile widened, the cool amusement of a man who already knew he’d win whatever fight we tried to start. “Easy, Nitro. Don’t blow up the kid’s confidence before we even meet him.”
I exhaled slowly through my nose. Volatile—yeah, they liked to call me that. My road name was Nitro, for fuck’s sake. However, it was more about my tendency to make things go boom than a reflection of my personality. I could definitely resemble chaos incarnate in the workshop with my wire scraps, detonator switches, and grease-streaked schematics. But when it came time to flip the switch and set that motherfucker off, I was ice cold. Unflappable. And they fucking knew it. That was one of the reasons I was sergeant at arms for the Redline Kings.
It was the same when I raced. My precision came from street wars, not sponsors. When I drove, my vehicle was an extension of me—fast, sharp, and surgical.
Yet I’d somehow failed to teach it to these shitheads who’d possibly cost me a fucking grand. Axle, our road captain and a world-class driver, had bet me that at least one of my recruits would crumble under the pressure. A loss didn’t mean buckling…but if they didn’t take it like men, he’d be at my door to collect the second I got back to the clubhouse.
Engines cooled as cars rolled back into the pit zone, headlights cutting through the heat shimmer. A couple of people in the crowd pressed closer, hungry for a look at the new hotshot. My recruits climbed out of their cars, ripping their helmets off, expressions dark, as though someone had just pissed in their fuel tanks.
The runner-up ripped off his helmet and tossed it onto the hood, then tore off his gloves and threw them down hard enough to scatter the gravel. Sweat plastering his hair to his forehead, the cocky prick with more tattoos than brains stalked toward the timing table, face twisted with rage. He scowled at Kane, too stupid to realize our prez was the last man on earth you wanted to piss off.
“That’s bullshit,” Rodgers spat, voice carrying over the idling engines and murmuring crowd. “The clock’s rigged. No way some nobody walks in here and hits those times clean.”
Kane’s gaze cut toward him, eyes sharp as razors. Rodgers didn’t notice. Edge smiled wider, flicking his blade once more before snapping it shut. I just shook my head.
“Clock isn’t rigged,” I said flatly. “Your skills are.”
“Then it’s the track!” he spat.
