Wrath of an Exile: An Enemies to Lovers Romance (The River Styx Heathens Book 1)

Phi

August 22

My favorite Saturdays smell like gasoline and smoke.

In Ponderosa Springs, there is one place that guarantees both.

“Nasty fucking win, Drom.”

A stream of smoke expels from my lips, floating in the wind toward the inky-black sky. Holding the blunt between two fingers, I lazily drop my head to the side to see Atlas bumping his fist against Andromeda’s.

The Yamaha purrs beneath her, sleek and predatory, gleaming under the dim floodlights someone had rigged up years ago. It took us both at least three days to get that fucking pink-and-white vinyl wrap right, but the candy-pink accents against the gritty terrain of the infield do look sick.

Plus, it’s very Andromeda, so it was definitely worth the headache.

She kills the engine, planting both scuffed Converse on the dirt, kicking the stand down with a flick of her heel. Blood leaks from the road rash on her knee, the fabric of her faded blue jeans shredded from a nasty blacktop kiss.

Ezra’s probably already beaten Axel Vance into an early grave, but when he sees her leg, he might bring him back just to kill him again.

“Thanks.” She grins, cotton-candy-pink hair brushing her shoulders as she sits her helmet on the gas tank, resting her elbows on it. “Can’t tell if Axel is an idiot or just a shit driver. Who takes a fucking curve like that?”

I blow a smoke ring in her direction, tossing my feet up onto my handlebars while my back rests against the cowl cover. “A dude with an ego that tells him he’d rather die than lose to a chick.”

Axel’s bike after the race would now be considered a crushed can of soup, and it’s probably halfway to a junkyard by now, courtesy of the sleaziest tow company in town.

Yet, no one in the rusting bleachers shed a tear for him. The moment they’d heard metal warping metal, saw the carnage of skin grinding against asphalt, they’d only roared louder.

There is no mercy here.

No medical staff waiting in the wings to check out his bloody forehead and fucked-up shoulder. No pit stops that might’ve been able to change his bald tire in order to avoid the wreck altogether.

The Graveyard takes no prisoners. It takes what it wants and leaves the rest to rot.

Ponderosa Springs left the once famous racetrack to perish in the eighties. Nestled between the endless stretch of forest and rugged Oregon coast, it’s a place time itself had forgotten.

Until anarchy brought it back to life.

Now, its splinted blacktop loves opening its jaws to swallow racers whole

A ghost.

A vicious, famished spirit that has an insatiable appetite for chaos.

Mayhem to some, nirvana for me.

“You racing tonight?” Andy asks, arching a brow at my kicked-up feet and relaxed position.

I hold the blunt between my teeth, reaching into my bra and fishing out the crinkled playing card, waving it at her. “Ace of Spades.”

Races here are a random draw, a game of luck that keeps things interesting. You wanna race, you pick a card. Queen of Hearts races the Queen of Diamonds, Queen of Clubs races the Queen of Spades, so forth and so on.

It also ups the stakes for betting.

“That’s if she’s sober enough to start her bike, let alone drive it in fucking circles.”

Atlas gives me a knowing look before he plucks the blunt from my mouth, taking a long puff before stomping it out.

“Such a buzzkill,” I mutter, crossing my arms like a toddler.

I’m not even smoking to get high; it’s just to take the edge off and mellow me out. That way, when I pull up to the line, I’m not shaking with adrenaline. It helps block out all the noise, so it’s just me and miles of cracked asphalt.

Weed takes away the distractions, and here, one mistake can mean the difference between a win and a crash that claims your life.

“Where is Ez? I thought he was coming tonight?” Andy mumbles so quietly it almost gets drowned out by the rumble of engines, almost like she didn’t quite mean to say it out loud.

“I imagine smashing Axel’s face into a brutally hard surface for almost wrecking you.” I shrug. “But that’s just a guess.”

Her brows furrow, worry etched across her features. “And you just let him go?”

I quickly toss my hands up in defense. “Hey, not my boyfriend. Not my problem.”

“He’s not my boyfriend. Don’t be a dick,” she bites, but I don’t miss the warmth touching her cheeks. She quickly shifts her gaze to Atlas. “What’s your excuse for letting your brother go after a fucking giant solo?”

“He threw me into a coffee table when we were, like, eight, dude. I had staples in my fucking head.” Atlas leans against the side of my bike, eyebrows lifted to his hairline. “Hard pass on getting in his way when he turns into pissed-off Peter.”

I try and cover my giggle with a cough but fail, and it sends Atlas into a fit of laughter that I join him in. We have this stupid inside joke where we rename people based around different things.

Pissed-off Peter.

Kranky Karen for the lady who works at the grocery store who never fails to make some snarky comment.

Throw-up Theo, which is who Atlas turns into after one too many Jägerbombs and spends the rest of his night cuddling the porcelain throne.

We came up with it when we were high one night, and the alliteration assassins have been going strong ever since.

So that leaves Andy, who is not humored nor involved in our joke, glaring at us like we are toddlers in need of a time-out.

“I think you two share a brain cell,” she mutters, throwing her leg over her bike. “I’m going to go get him before the idiot gets himself killed.”

“Shocker. Where he goes, you follow,” I say, my tongue much looser when I’m stoned.

Andy’s brow crinkles, a bit of that infamous family anger sizzling in her voice. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

I really did try to swallow the words, but they crawled up my throat without warning. I know Ezra’s heart is pure, that he’s good and kind, that he loves Andy. I’ve seen it.

But he’s walking on a dangerous tightrope of loving drugs more.

“Being attached the way you two are rarely ends well. What are you gonna do when he eventually goes on tour? Give up your dreams and chase him around the globe? Be his groupie? I’m just trying to look out for you.”

Andromeda isn’t blind.

Maybe she’s already said something to him or doesn’t have the heart to. Either way, she won’t let go of him, even if it means getting sucked into whatever downward spiral he’s heading for. And when that happens—because it will—she’ll be the one left shattered in his wake.

I swear, there won’t be enough love in this world to save Ezra Caldwell from the hell I’ll unleash if he takes her down with him.

“Go fuck yourself, Phi.” Her tone is brutal, her eyes narrowed into slits. “Just ’cause you’re heartless doesn’t mean we all have to be. Keep your cynical bullshit to yourself.”

She might be softer than me, but I’m not the only one who inherited our mother’s venomous tongue.

And because she’s also stubborn as hell, she storms off before I can speak another word, leaving me staring at the back of her tank top, stars printed all over like the child of the universe she is.

I exhale sharply, tilting my head toward her retreating figure. “Go with her.”

I’m not about to let her get in the middle of Ezra and I eat roids for breakfast Axel Vance. Pissed or not, she’s still my little sister.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m on it,” Atlas mutters, standing up straight and running a hand through his curls. “Cut him some slack, Phi. It’s Ez—he’d never hurt her.”

I scoff, sitting up straight on my bike. “Intentionally? Never. If he keeps it up, he’ll fucking ruin her without even meaning to. If you don’t talk to him about the drugs, I will.”

Atlas stares at me, the usual teasing glint in his eyes gone, replaced with a seriousness I hate. It tells me he knows I’m right, and he’s just been too scared to admit it out loud.

“I got you, Phi,” he finally says, voice low as he reaches out to ruffle my hair.

I watch them disappear into the distance before taking another slow hit from the blunt, feeling the burn in my lungs as the smoke crackles and hisses. With them gone, the world falls quiet, save for the echo of rumbling engines.

With an exhale, I watch the thick cloud of smoke swirl into the night. If I could, I’d stay here forever, wrapped in the smell of burnt rubber and the fading remnants of chaos, where nothing and no one can reach me.

Heat after heat. Sometimes, it’s cars that tear across the asphalt; other times, it’s bikes. Round and round they go, and I watch like I’m stuck on a merry-go-round, never wanting to get off.

In these quiet moments, the noise fades just enough that I let myself feel it.

The weight of everything.

I give myself permission to feel sorry for myself, even when I know I shouldn’t. I know others have it worse, but it doesn’t change the ache that sits in my chest.

At night, when I’m all alone here, I let myself think about how impossibly hard it is to be a Van Doren.

Everyone is so fucking much, and I have always felt too little.

A judge for a father, an award-winning Theatre owner for a mother, and two siblings who exceed every expectation set before them.

They are picture-perfect.

I’m the one who no longer fits. The adoptee. The problem child. The academic prodigy with so much potential who turned into every parent’s worst nightmare.

Reign and Andromeda flirt with the edge of teenage anarchy, sure, but they know when to pull back. They know their limits.

Me? I prefer to spiral. To fall until I hit rock bottom, only to dig deeper.

The familiar growl of an engine echoes in the air, cutting through the fog in my mind and pulling my attention toward the faded orange starting line. My spine straightens, and I blame it entirely on the machine, not the person mounting it.

Jude’s metallic-gray Kawasaki pulls through the opening in the chain-link fence, the engine revving as he rides across the cracked asphalt.

God, I love that bike. Sucks it’s owned by the spawn of Satan.

Carbon-fiber body that screams speed. Supercharged engine pushing over three hundred horsepower. Every detail is precision and raw performance. How the fuck Easton Sinclair could ever afford something like that and his murdered-out Skyline, I’ll never know.

Even though a matte-black helmet shields his face, I know it’s him.

Ratty Pantera graphic tee, arms a collage of patchwork tattoos, and that reaction from the crowd. The visceral, instinctual reaction from everyone in the rusted bleachers surrounding us.

People stir, excitement buzzing like electricity has touched the air. The shift is palpable. They know they’ll be seeing blood tonight.

Jude “Sin” Sinclair is the Graveyard’s favorite main event.

He’s brutal on the blacktop, relentless. As long as his opponent leaves bloody, he doesn’t care too much about winning.

Sin is the perfect name for him.

The very first. The fall.

Jude’s existence is absolutely what resulted in the loss of innocence and the introduction of all things miserable into the world.Property © of NôvelDrama.Org.

My hands twitch as he rolls onto the dirt infield, closer and closer, until he’s parked just a few feet away from me.

This is the one place we’ve run into each other the most. Every time we’re at the Graveyard at the same time, we avoid each other like the plague. It’s almost natural for us to stay at opposite ends of the track at all times.

Tonight should be the same.

Except it won’t be, and I know that the moment Jude pulls off his helmet, shaking out his messy hair and turning to catch my eyes.

It’s fine. This is fine. Just feign indifference. Pretend he didn’t fuck your brains out. It’s going to be just fine.

Jude’s smirk is slow, deliberate, as he drawls, “If it isn’t my favorite Heathen.”

The high from my blunt has fizzled out, sobriety crashing into me like a goddamn truck. The blood in my veins turns to ice, skin prickling with the awareness.

Every thud of his boots against the dirt grates my nerves.

I hate when people kill my high. It’s a waste of good weed.

“Aww, Sin. Did you crawl out of whatever pit you call home just to grace me with your charming presence?” I tilt my head, crossing my arms as I mockingly bat my eyelashes, voice sweet as venom. “That’s cute, but I’m not into low-life drug dealers with daddy issues. Maybe try therapy next time instead of harassing me.”

“You sure about that, Van Doren?”

White teeth flash, his smirk folding into a grin. The light catches the silver barbell pierced through his eyebrow as he lifts it, eyes holding a secret in them that makes the pit of my stomach coil.

The kind of secret that mirrors a nasty, venomous snake.

“Why don’t you go play a nice, quiet game of hide and choke, Sinclair?”

Jude’s laughter rolls through the air like smoke, taunting as his fingers delve into his front pocket. My eyes involuntarily roll when he waves the playing card in the air like a trophy.

Ace of Clubs.

Out of all the times we’ve both been here to race, now is when the Graveyard gods decide to pit us against each other? You’ve gotta be fucking shitting me.

Whatever fun game the universe is playing with me in this moment, I’d like for it to stop now. I’m waving a white flag, calling mercy, it wins, please put me out of my misery.

“Sorry, sweetheart. No can do. You owe me a race.”

I feel torn.

A large part of me wants Jude Sinclair as far away from me as humanly possible. Like, if given the opportunity, I would place him on another planet if I could.

But that teeny, tiny, devilish piece of me, the one that gets me into trouble, is excited. I’d love to watch him swallow the asphalt tonight. Hand me another win and leave him limping with road rash so severe it scars him for life.

He’d live with a permanent reminder of what happens when you get too close to me.

I pout, crossing my arms in front of my chest. “How disappointing. I was hoping for an actual challenge tonight.”

“There is only one of us here that’s undefeated, Geeks.”

I bristle at the nickname. It’s not a secret to anyone in the Springs or the Falls that I’m smart. Being called a geek doesn’t bother me. Being called that by him?

I’d rather die.

“That’s ’cause you’ve never raced me,” I chide, tilting my head a bit. “Your luck’s run out, Loner.”

The wind picks up, ruffling his dirty-blond hair as he takes a few more steps until the gap between us is closed. My teeth grab at the skin on the inside of my cheek when his thigh bumps my left knee.

Jude stares down his nose at me, watching as I shift on the seat, pulling my knee closer to my bike.

“Willing to bet on it?”

“Aww, did Daddy leave you broken and broke? I’m sure there are a few Mrs. Robinsons that’ll throw you a bone. The cougars in the Springs love a good charity case.”

Easton’s his only soft spot in an otherwise stone-cold persona. If I have to pull the dead dad card to get him the fuck away from me, I will. The only time I’d gotten close to him, I’d royally screwed up.

It’s a mistake I’ll never make again.

“Watch it, Phi,” he warns, leaning in just enough so only I can hear him. “Unless you want your daddy to find out that you like fucking the enemy.”

My mouth goes dry, the sharp taste of pennies crawling up from my gut.

I didn’t need the reminder of the power Jude has over me. How with one slip of his tongue, he could wreak havoc over my entire fucking life, and he wouldn’t blink twice to do it.

The consequences that will follow if our dumb fucking mistake ever sees the light of day scare me. Losing my family, them finding out I betrayed them? It’s my greatest fear.

And he’s gonna use that fear to play with me, like the sadistic puppeteer he is.

My jaw tightens, and I tilt my chin up. “That never happened.”

His eyes glint with amusement, a sly grin tugging at the corner of his lips. One hand rests on my gas tank as he leans in, too close, the warmth of his breath brushing against my skin.

“Is denial what helps you sleep at night?” he murmurs, voice dripping with the kind of certainty that makes my stomach twist.

“Like a goddamn baby,” I hiss through clenched teeth, trying to keep my voice low. “It was a lapse in judgment. You were a fucking mistake. Let it die, Sin.”

There are prying ears everywhere, too many people at the Graveyard that would kill to overhear this conversation.

The floodlights catch on a silver barbell as he traces his top teeth with his tongue, head cocking to the side as he lazily hums, “How long do you think it’ll take before you give in and let me fuck those pretty little lies out of your mouth, sweetheart?”

I hold his gaze, schooling my features, not so much as blinking.

“A lobotomy sounds more enjoyable than touching your cock again.”

“Again?” He arches a brow, a wolfish grin spreading across his lips. “Thought you said it never⁠—”

The sharp red nail on my pointer finger cuts him off as I press it into his chest.

“It.”

Poke.

“Never.”

Poke.

“Fucking.”

Poke.

“Happened.”

Pok—

Jude catches my wrist mid-poke, grip firm but not painful, his thumb brushing over the inside of my wrist. I try to wrench myself from his grasp, but it just tightens, thumb rubbing slow, lazy circles against my pulse like he owns it.

His presence is fucking suffocating, his touch igniting embers of memories I want to keep buried in the back of my closet with the rest of the decaying skeletons.

Rage shakes my bones as he leans in closer.

Strands of blond hair ghost over my cheek as his bottom lip brushes the shell of my ear. “You were a fucking traitor that night, and you loved every second of it.”

The words hit their mark as every one of my nerve endings sparks, the gasoline in my veins igniting.

I chose pleasure over loyalty.

That guilt has been living in my stomach. This ravenous swarm of insects and their tiny, insistent bites have burrowed into my flesh, relentlessly eating away at the devotion I carry for my family, eroding my insides and leaving me hollow. I’m nothing but a shell consumed by unseen torment.

I am afraid of him telling people that we fucked. It absolutely terrifies me.

But fear has never and will never own me.

Anger does.

Fear is fleeting, temporary, but this rage in me? It’s carved into the marrow of my bones. A living entity. A snarling, feral creature rooted deep in my soul, and it’s never been more hungry than in this moment.

“You wanna bet tonight?” I snap, yanking my hand away from his grip and lifting my chin. “Let’s bet.”

Jude’s teeth grab at his bottom lip, revealing a cruel smirk. “I’m listening.”

“On the off chance God’s got your back tonight and you win, I’ll double whatever the bets are tonight. Even when you lose, you still don’t gotta pay out.”

His eyes flicker with dark amusement, looming over me, his shadow falling across my lap like a curse. “And if God forgot about me a long time ago?”

My jaw clenches, and I push back the nausea crawling up my throat, my pulse a wild thing in my neck.

“Then this—” I flick a finger between us. “—what happened on that water tower? It dies. It’s fucking done. You don’t so much as breathe in my direction again.”

“Too fucking easy.” A bitter laugh falls from his lips as he shakes his head, walking back from me toward his bike. “Let’s play, Geeks.”

I want nothing more than to launch myself off this bike and slam my fist into his smirky fucking mouth. Grab the nearest sharp object and jab it into his cornea.

But I don’t.

I don’t move, just sit there, forcing my body to stay still while every muscle screams to tense, to explode.

I win tonight? I get to take back my power. I’m in control of this again. Jude Sinclair goes back to being what he’s always been—a silly, nasty bug beneath my boot, made to ignore and squash.

The wreckage of what he and Oakley had done still lives in me. It sits in my ribs, cording around the organ in my chest, and I feel it breathing there with every single beat.

I’m pissed that fire didn’t do its job.

I’d wanted them to feel like their insides were being ripped apart, piece by piece. To feel every second of the flames licking their flesh while their lungs gasped for air that would never come.

If I had it to do again, I would’ve locked the church doors. Sat in the grass and listened to their screams echo in my ears. Waited with wide eyes until their bones and the ashes of St. Gabriel’s became one.

I snatch my helmet from the ground, tugging it over my head as I watch his long leg swing over the seat of his bike.

“Hey, Loner!” I call over the roar of his bike growling to life. “Make sure to give the blacktop a kiss for me.”

When my dad first taught me how to ride a motorcycle, I panicked and ran it into the side of his car. It left a nasty dent, and the first thing he told me, after making sure I was okay, was this:

The throttle’s not in your hand. It’s in your blood.

I didn’t understand what that meant until I got comfortable going over ninety miles per hour on two wheels.

The bike knows if you’re afraid.

If you ride with the fear of crashing in your mind, you’ll crash. You have to give up control.

This is the only time where I give it all up. Every guard slams down, every thought leaves, and riding is the only time I let myself be completely and utterly vulnerable.

The Graveyard is alive, pulsing under the flicker of the overhead lights. It’s screaming, the tarnished stands rattling in my ears. Once bright-colored flags and banners are tattered, whipping violently in the wind as they cling to old poles.

The crowd seems to howl a little louder as a girl in tiny blue jean shorts appears, her swaying hips causing uproar as she does a little spin for the spectators before stopping just a few feet in front of me.

A quiet hush falls over the track as her delicate hand raises, building the anticipation in the air. It thrums against my skin, lifting the tiny hairs on my arms as I pull back on the throttle, letting the thick growl of my bike ring out.

“One lap. Half a mile. Keep it clean.” She reaches behind her, unhooking a hot pink bra before pulling it from beneath her tank top with a grin. “Or don’t.”

Jude’s presence lingers beside me, a shadow in my peripheral vision. I don’t make it a habit to give my opponents any attention, but I physically can’t help myself. He’s like a fucking gnat, impossible to ignore.

I take a quick glimpse to my left at the inside lane, finding him already watching me, dark helmet shielding his eyes, head tilting slightly in a silent challenge.

His thighs hug the bike tightly, faded jeans stretching over strong legs. The fabric of his black shirt pulls tight across his torso with every steady breath, veins rippling as he pulls back on the throttle, making my thighs twitch.

My eyes catch on the gold chain around his neck, the small pendant resting just at the hollow of his throat, glinting under the dim lights. My jaw clenches as I face forward again.

I hate that I notice him. I hate even more that my stomach is filled with those vicious, terrible butterflies that seem to flutter when he’s around.

If I could transplant anyone else’s personality into Jude’s body? He’d be perfect. But unfortunately, modern medicine hasn’t grown enough to help with that, so I’m left to deal with an asshole who is so hot it physically hurts me.

A blur of hot pink material catches the wind, heat filling my stomach, ripping Jude from my mind and leaving me empty.

This is my favorite part.

Just before I pull off the line, when it’s just me and the engine thrumming beneath me, its rhythm syncing with the pounding in my chest until I can’t tell where my heartbeat ends and the roar of the bike begins.

We’re like one living thing. Every twist of the throttle, every vibration through the frame, feels like the blood pulsing through my veins.

The world narrows here, and I become intangible. Nothing can touch me here. Not the vultures of Ponderosa Springs or the Van Dorens’ expectations. Not even the memories that haunt me at night can reach me.

This is the feeling of cheating death.

“Racers ready?” our flag girl purrs, shaking her hips to tease the crowd.

Her bra drops, and the echo of the word “Go!” thrums in my ears.

A surge of familiar adrenaline fires through my veins as my tires let out an ear-piercing squeal. The wind whips at the edges of my hair, sending the strands flying behind me like ribbons caught in the breeze as I fly into the first turn.

I feel my abdomen tighten as I lean sharply to the side, black jeans brushing against the molten asphalt. A low hiss escapes when my knee scrapes against the rough surface, tearing through the thin fabric.

Except I barely feel it, because the pain isn’t real, not here.

Jude pulls out of the curve milliseconds before me, a blur of gray pulling a few inches ahead. I knew Jude was good; it was never a secret, and I’d seen him race before.

I’d even seen him beat Reign.

But he needs to be better than good to beat me.

Even though hundreds of people have stepped onto this unholy ground, including my siblings and friends, the Graveyard is mine.

An heirloom of sorts passed down by my father without even knowing it.

Every crack and pothole is burned into my body like instinct. I know the precise second to hit the brakes, when to slam the throttle. How far I can push my bike to the absolute limit before it loses its hold on the broken, unforgiving asphalt.

It’s a game of inches, and I know exactly how to ride the razor-thin line between winning and crashing.

Jude purposefully swerves closer, close enough I can feel the heat radiating off his engine. His knee barely misses mine as we tear down the straight, the final turn looming ahead.

I know the only way I’m winning is if I get the inside lane.

My muscles coil, fingers tightening on the throttle, pulling ahead just enough that when I cut hard to the inside, Jude doesn’t have a shot in hell of blocking me.

The only issue with that is the moment I hit the turn, I know I’m too deep. My tires skid against the blacktop, the whole bike shuddering violently beneath me. Metallic coins swell in my mouth as the back wheel fishtails, a split second of pure chaos where I swear to fuck I’m about to eat shit.

My knee touches the ground again, but this time, it’s not just a scrape—it’s a brutal grinding against the asphalt, shredding the fabric of my jeans, ripping through my skin.

I grit my teeth, forcing my body to lean harder, my leg on fire as I wrench the bike back into control. Goddammit, I do not want to get stitches tonight, but I can already feel the blood soaking through my jeans.

Pulling out of the turn, like I expected, Jude is still on my ass, pulling closer to my back tire. With him breathing down my neck, I don’t have time to think as his front tire nudges my back wheel, a deliberate tap trying to throw me off-balance.

It’s not enough to do damage, but it’s enough to make my bike wobble.

“Motherfucker,” I hiss, my teeth clenching so hard I’m surprised they don’t crack.

I’ve seen him do this shit before, which means I have the advantage.

Let’s play, Jude.

I throw my weight to the side, yanking the handlebars just enough to jerk my bike out of his path, creating the slightest gap between us. His bike veers to compensate, like I knew it would, a fly to fucking shit.

My wrist hammers on the throttle, and I shoot forward just as he tries to recover. Instead of pulling ahead, I swerve hard into his line, my shoulder brushing against his handlebars with just enough force to send him off-kilter.

It’s subtle, but it’s enough.

I hear the sound before I see it—his tires screeching against the blacktop as he tries to regain control. His bike fishtails, the back wheel sliding out from under him.

For a second, it looks like he’s going to save it, but then his shoulder hits the ground, and he’s skidding across the asphalt in a blur of black and gray, sparks flying as metal scrapes against the road.

I don’t look back.

I catch a glimpse of him in my mirror, just a roll, some road burn, nothing fatal.

He’ll be pissed, but he’ll live.

Once again, he’s cheated death at my hands.

The moment my tire crosses that faded orange line, I tighten the muscles in my stomach and yank back on the throttle, leaning into it until the front tire lifts off the ground and I become nothing but a cloud of smoke.

It’s euphoria, and I am bathing in it. The crowd erupts as I ride out the wheelie for a few more seconds, knowing that each and every eye is on me, leaving Jude to pick himself up off the ground in the shadows.

When I finally let the front tire drop back onto the asphalt, the bike lands with a hard thud before I roll to a stop, letting the rush of victory settle into my bones.

I kick down the stand, sliding off my bike, the adrenaline still buzzing in my veins as I tug my helmet off. I barely have time to catch my breath before I hear the heavy sound of boots on asphalt, and I know, without even looking, who’s coming.

Not even ten seconds and he’s already breaking our deal.

Fucking Sinclairs.

When I turn, he’s there, stalking toward me, helmet forgotten, shaggy hair sticking to his forehead, his face flushed with a mixture of sweat and anger. Road burn mars his shoulder, dirt and asphalt streaked across the hard lines of his skin. But it’s his eyes that catch my attention.

Stormy, dangerous, the kind of look that says deal or no deal, he’s not finished with me.

“Nice,” he sneers, voice rough as gravel. “You gonna count that cheap shit as a win?”

I cross my arms, not moving an inch as he comes closer, our bodies inches apart now.

My chin lifts, defiant, and I flash him a grin that’s all teeth. “I was just playing the game you started, Sin. Not my fault you can’t handle losing.”

Jude steps closer, and for a moment, I wonder if he’s about to swing or say something that’ll push me to take the first hit. His lips twitch like he’s biting back something vicious, his breath hot as he leans in just enough for me to feel the tension between us spike.

“No matter how much you hate yourself for it, you can’t unfuck me, Van Doren.”

The words hit like a slap to the face, sharp and precise. His breath mingles with mine, hot and laced with challenge, as if daring me to deny it. My jaw tightens, but I refuse to let him see how deep he cuts.

Not here, not now.

I meet his eyes, refusing to flinch. “Maybe not. But I can sure as hell make you wish you never did.”

For a second, neither of us moves, the space between us vibrating with the weight of everything unspoken. The crowd is still roaring, the night still alive with the buzz of victory, but here, in this pocket of silence between us, it’s like time has stopped.

I track the twitch in his jaw, the hard cut of the muscle there, sharp enough to slice steel. His skin glows under the dim light, slick with sweat, and that feeling I got on the water tower? It rushes back in.

It floods my stomach, and I struggle to swallow it. Dirty, traitorous lust tries to crawl out of my skin, and I have no idea how to stop it.

Jude is catnip for me.

Every reckless and dangerous inch of him is the brand of trouble I love.

It’s the kind that makes me numb. Gives me the kind of adrenaline that blacks out all of the pain, all the memories.

It allows me to just exist.

Without another word, Jude steps back, saving me from doing something stupid as he wipes a hand over his face. His eyes linger on mine, an unreadable expression in them before he gives me one final remark.

“Already there, princess. Already there.”

I won the battle tonight.

But there is a deep sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that tells me this war?

It’s just getting started.