Page 13 of Nitro
He’d placed his hands over mine and taught me to feel the bike instead of fighting it. That was the only good lesson he’d ever given me. The only time I’d felt like he actually wanted me to succeed.
It hadn’t lasted. Nothing with him ever did.
Those wounds were why I’d sworn never to lean on a man again. Not for money. Or protection. Not even for a steady hand when I needed one. I built my own walls and told myself I was safer inside them.
But here I was, already leaning on Torin in ways I didn’t want to admit.
The note in my pocket burned hotter than any exhaust. That careless scrawl was dangerous. Because it showed he cared.
Torin didn’t owe me anything. He wasn’t family, bound by blood and disappointment.
He was something far scarier. Patient and relentless. The kind of man who didn’t back off just because I bristled. Maybe even the one who could give me what I craved—reliability. And loyalty.
If I let Torin too close, if I trusted him even a little, I knew what would happen. I’d fall for him. Hard. And I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to pull myself back up again.
I told myself that he might not be anything like my dad or brother. That I shouldn’t make him pay for their mistakes. Thatthis was just about racing and carving out a place no one could take from me.
But the part of me that had dreamed of him last night and woken up gasping his name whispered the truth.
Torin was already inside the walls I’d built so many years ago.
I tightened my grip on the bars until my knuckles went white, as though I could squeeze the confusion right out of me. The metal was cool and solid, something I could control. But my mind was full of Torin. His dangerous patience, that crooked grin, the way his hands had felt when he pinned me against the wall and made me burn.
I’d come to Crossbend to prove myself. Not to fall for a man in a leather cut.
But every time Torin got too close, I wondered if he was the one thing I couldn’t outrun.
6
NITRO
The Pit was quieter than usual, the hum of fans mixing with the tinny buzz of an old radio Gauge had left on low near a workbench in another bay. The evening heat pressed down heavy, thick with oil and exhaust, the kind of Florida night when even shadows sweated. I was leaning over a carb rebuild for a classic bike I wanted to race in a few months. Grease streaked across my wrist, and a socket wrench was clenched between two fingers when Jax’s shadow fell across the bay door.
I didn’t need to look up to know it was him. Jax always carried a different kind of noise with him. Kinda like he had keyboards in his head and circuits in his veins. He wasn’t loud, but when he was wound tight, the air around him got prickly, like static before a strike.
He leaned against the post, glasses sliding down his nose and three days of stubble shadowing his jaw. I glanced up and noted that he wasn’t looking at the bike. Instead, he was staring at me.
“Spit it out,” I muttered, setting the socket down with more force than was necessary. “Been pacing my bay for ten minutes, Jax. What’s eating you?”
His jaw flexed, and for a second, I thought he might stall. That wasn’t like him. Jax didn’t hesitate unless it was bad. Then he pushed his glasses up, crossed his arms, and spoke low. “Dug deeper into our rookie’s background.”
My spine went rigid even though I kept my eyes on the car. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” he echoed, voice flat. “She’s clean under the alias. No priors. No paper trail worth noting. But when I ran her real name through my nets, I got red flags.”
I straightened, wiping my hands on a rag that already looked like hell. “What kind?”
“The Broken Skulls.” His eyes sharpened, watching like he expected me to explode. “Father’s patched in. Has been since before she was born. And she’s got a half brother. Prospect turned full member three years back.”
Heat surged in my gut, quick and violent. The Skulls were dirty bastards with no code or honor, the kind of club that’d sell kids poison and call it business. We’d tangled with them before—bloody, ugly, and never finished.
Jax didn’t flinch at my expression, though his hand twitched like he wanted a keyboard in front of him. “Far as I can tell, she hasn’t had contact in a while. Her phone’s clean. Same with her bank account. Nothing ties her directly to them now. But the lack of communication could be deliberate. You know how this looks, Nitro.”
I did.Fuck. I knew exactly how it looked. A woman walked onto Kane’s track with a fake name, no history until a few years back, and bloodlines that ran straight to one of the dirtiest MCs in the state. To anyone else, she was an obvious plant. A problem. A knife tucked under a pretty dress, waiting to gut us.Shit!
Jax’s voice dropped another notch. “I’m bringing this to you first, but if you don’t tell Kane, I will. This isn’t the kind of thing that gets shelved.”
I dragged a hand through my hair, tugging hard at the roots until it hurt. Jana, with her freckled nose and fire-bright hair. The way she met my stare like she wanted to burn in it.Broken Skulls? What the fuck?
