by Evelyn Glass
Dix watched the running board, writing down the number on his clipboard as it paused for five seconds, displaying the time at each interval so he could compare it to the leaders. Thad was kicking ass out there. Though he was slower than his best time, he was steadily pulling away from the other riders. Hurray for home track advantage! Unless he crashes, he can’t lose.
“Time!” Thad called.
“Don’t push it. You’re up almost a full second over the current leader.”
“Roger,” Thad said.
***
Dix was waiting for him as Thad rolled to a stop. “Riley. Guess who that is?”
“Who?”
“That’s Mr. Thad. He’s the winner so far.”
“Really?” Riley asked as Thad pulled off his helmet.
“Yes, really. How’s the track tonight?”
“Not bad. A little greasy. You think my time is going to hold?”
“Without a doubt.”
Thad held out his hand and Dix took it a firm handshake.
***
They had a forty-minute hold in the seven-fifty race as a rider took a hard fall and broke his leg. Marla, who attended all races to provide medical aid, was whisked to the scene where she applied traction to set the leg then immobilized it with a splint. The Cutthroats had several vehicles on site to take an injured rider into Douglas for medical treatment, but the rider, receiving Marla’s approval, decided he’d rather sit in the back of a truck so he could finish watching the races than receive immediate attention.
As soon as everyone was satisfied the rider would be okay, the racing resumed.
***
Dix sat on the tailgate of James’s truck, staring into the darkness.
“You going to be okay?” Daisy asked. Riley was sleeping in the truck and she and Dix were enjoying a moment. The Firechrome had been staring daggers at her all night, and would occasionally walk by to call her names, but they had done nothing to interfere with her mingling with the Cutthroats after Alex laid the law down to them. That, and because there were conspicuously armed Cutthroats shadowing her and Dix’s every move.
“Yeah.”
“This is where Kevin would be racing, right?”
“Yeah. He should be here kicking ass, just like Thad. And he’s not, all because of the fucking Firechrome.”
She wanted to kiss him and try to ease his pain, to give back some of the kindness he’d given her, but that was a step too far tonight. She was going to pay for this later with Leo, if she had to go back with him, but knowing Dix had come for her, knowing he still cared, getting to spend even a few hours with him again, would make the beating she’d receive worth it.
“Unlimiteds to the line please. Unlimiteds to the line,” Cale’s voice boomed out over the loudspeaker.
“I have to go.”
“I know.” She couldn’t leave it like that and gave him a soft kiss on the lips. “I’ll be waiting when you get back.”
Leo watched as Daisy kissed Dix, and his blood boiled. She’d pay dearly for her betrayal, but not here. Later, when he got her home. As Dix moved away, Leo strode to meet him, three Firechrome following him. “She’s going to pay for that. I’m going to hurt her, Dix. Because of you, I’m going to hurt her bad.”
Dix whirled on Leo, making him take a step back. “If you touch her, I’ll track you down and kill you. You think I fucked you up the last time? Just wait until the next time.”
He turned his back on Leo and stomped to his bike. Thad helped him detach the frame that held the bike upright and he pushed it to the starting grid. The unlimited bikes typically had no starter, so all the riders were pushing their bikes.
Dix sat on this bike and fastened his helmet. He was seething, tightening his strap with savage jerks. Thad slapped him on the helmet. “Forget about him! Focus!”
“I’m going to kill him. I should have killed him when I had the chance.”
“Forget him!”
Dix glared at Thad then took a deep breath. “Yeah, okay.”
“You run your race, okay? They’re not leaving with her or Riley. You have my word.”
He nodded, then put on his game face. They still had forty minutes, but he liked to sit on the bike while he waited, feeling the lines of the machine, going over the track in his mind and get into the zone. Lightening flickered in the distance, and he hoped the rain held off until after the race.
***
Daisy, feeling brave with Chuck standing behind her, smiled at Leo. “Who’s fucked now, asshole?”
Leo stared at her. “He’s just the mechanic!”
“Oh, no…he’s much more than that,” she said and smiled. “And you’re going to have to race him. Oh, look, here comes Alex now.”
“Leo,” Alex snarled. “You said he was just the mechanic for the club. What’s he doing racing?”
“I…uh…” Leo stammered.
“You better be as good as you said you are.”
“Good at what?” Daisy asked. She was enjoying watching Leo squirm and wanted to twist the knife as much as possible.
Alex looked at her. “We’ll deal with you later. You’re Leo’s old lady and—”
“He told you that? We’re divorced!”
Alex glared at Leo, then turned his attention back to Daisy. “What do you know about his street-racing?”
“What street-racing?”
“Was he street-racing when he met you?”
Daisy burst into laughter. Leo’s big mouth had finally caught up with him and she was loving it. “No! He was working in a parts store!”
Alex turned to Leo.
“Alex! I can explain!” Leo cried.
Alex grabbed Leo by the throat, but security had suddenly developed a case of temporary blindness. “You lose, you die,” he said softly before he shoved Leo away. “Keep this piece of shit away from me!” he snarled as he started to turn away, but then turned back to Daisy. She was the only leverage he had left. “We’re not done,” he said before he turned and stomped away.
“Look what you’ve done!” Leo cried glaring at Daisy, holding out his hands as if beseeching God for mercy. “You’ve ruined everything!”
Alex scared her and she watched as he walked away before turning her eyes to Leo. “Fuck you,” she sneered before turning and walking, away as well.
***
Dix was first out in the Unlimted class. He hated going first but that was the luck of the draw. “One minute, Dix,” Thad said, his voice coming over the coms even though he was standing right there.
Dix nodded. It was time. “Light it up.”
Thad slid the starter into place and pulled the trigger. Dix’s bike barked to life and he removed the starter, handing it to another Cutthroat to put in Dix’s truck. Normally Kevin was Dix’s crew chief, but that duty had fallen to him.
“Com check.”
“Five by five,” Dix replied, pulling his visor down then racing the engine on his bike, the motor shrieking to its eighteen thousand rpm redline in fractions of a second with the sound of ripping metal.
As the starter clock counted down, he revved the bike to fourteen thousand, holding it there until he saw one, when he twisted the throttle to the stop and released the clutch, leaning hard over the bike to keep the nose down as he banged up through the gears, his bike screaming, straining for every bit of speed.
Daisy heard Dix wail away, the shriek of his bike unlike anything she’d ever heard before. It was amazing to her how fast the sound of his bike faded away, far faster than the other bikes, and she crossed her fingers, hoping he’d be okay.
Thad watched the numbers. Protocol was the crew chief didn’t speak unless spoken to, but Dix was pushing too hard. Yes, he was first out and had to set a blistering pace because he didn’t know how the other riders would do, but he was ahead of his own track record. “Dix! You’re pushing too hard!”
He didn’t expect an answer, and didn’t get one, but at the next timing marker, Dix had taken another tenth off hi
s best time. At this rate, he’d be in the twelve elevens.
Daisy could just hear the cry of Dix’s bike and the rise and fall of the wail as he worked the bike around the track. She glanced at the timer board. She didn’t know the exact time he had to beat for the track record, but she knew it was in the low twelves, but the clock was only at ten forty-eight, and she could hear the bike rapidly drawing nearer.
Thad didn’t say anything, but Dix was within reach of a new track record. “Come on, come on!” he muttered, to softly for the mic to pick up.
Dix cleared Wiggles and dropped the hammer on the bike for the dash to the finish. He cleared the last rise, backing off the throttle for a split second as the bike left the ground to prevent the engine from over revving, then was hard back on the power the instant the rear wheel touched down again. He flashed across the finish line and stood on the brakes, banging down through the gears as the bike rapidly slowed.
Thad looked at the number again just to be sure. Dix had just set another course record, beating his old record of 12:13:046 by almost a half-second at 12:12:581. He quickly scrawled the number in the final box then circled it.
“Twelve…” Thad said, then paused just to torment his friend.
“I figured that much,” Dix replied in his headset.
“Twelve point five eight one,” he finished. “A new track record. Congratulations, man.”
“Thanks, Thad.”
“I’ll meet you at the truck,” he said before he turned and hurried to Cale with the news.
“Everyone! Dixon Montague has just set a new track record of twelve minutes, twelve point five eight one seconds,” Cale’s voice boomed out.
As Daisy began to bounce, jumping up and down as she clapped furiously, waiting for Dixon to appear, Alex grimaced.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Dix, flanked by a pair or armed guards, sauntered up to the cluster of Firechrome. “You probably want to start getting ready,” he said, staring at Leo. “They’re about to send the last riders out on the track.”
“Where’s Daisy?” Leo demanded.
“She’s over by the timing station. Riley is sleeping in my truck. Why?”
“Because she’s my fucking wife, and my fucking son, and I want her here!”
“She doesn’t want to be here. Are you here to race or argue about Daisy?”
“She’s leaving with us,” Alex rumbled. “She’s one of us, and she fucked us. She has to answer for that.”
He didn’t like the way that sounded. “No. She stays with us.”
“Then the deals off!” Alex snapped, looking for any excuse to get out of the agreement.
Dix thought a moment. “How about a side bet, then. For Daisy and Riley.”
“Dix?” Clint muttered, not liking where this was going.
“Same as before,” Dix continued. “Leo wins, you get the club. I win, you go away and never bother us again. But now, I’ll give Leo a one minute head start, and win or lose, you let Daisy and Riley go free and never bother them again.”
“Dix! What are you doing?” Jacob asked. “That wasn’t the deal and Cale isn’t going to like it.”
“Cale doesn’t have to know. This is between me and Alex.”
“Clint! Go get Cale and get him over here!”
“What do you say?” Dix encouraged. “You can still get what you want. All it will cost you is the girl.”
“Five minutes.” Alex said.
“No. Impossible unless you let me ride my Moto.”
“No. That’s the deal.”
Dix shrugged. “Then the race goes as originally agreed. I’m not giving you the club, so forget it.”
“Three, but you ride your Harley.”
“No. That’s too much time to make up.”
“That’s my best offer,” Alex said, digging in.
“Then I guess we’re done here,” Dix said as he turned away.
Alex fumed. He didn’t like being backed into a corner. “Two, but that’s it! No less!”
Dix thought about it. Two minutes was a hell of a lead to make up. He saw Cale coming and even with only the moonlight, he could tell he wasn’t happy. “Deal.”
“I don’t know what kind of deal you made with Dix,” Cale said as he hurried up, “but he doesn’t speak for the club.”
“It’s done,” Alex said.
“Dix doesn’t speak for the club!” Cale repeated. “What did he agree to?”
“A two minute head start in exchange for the girl and her son.”
“What?” Cale shouted. “No fucking way! The race goes as planned!”
Dix grabbed Cale by the shoulder and led him away. “We have to do this.”
“We have to do no such thing! I can’t believe you put someone you just met before the club!”
“We promised to get her son back!”
“If we could!” Cale raged. “This isn’t our fucking problem!”
“It is now.”
Cale took a couple deep breaths. “Look, I know you like her. We all do. And I know we said we would help get her son back. And we would have. But this is between her and the Firechrome. We don’t want to get mixed up in that. Can’t you see that?”
“What I see is a woman who helped us. Without her, we probably wouldn’t be having this conversation because the Firechrome would have already crushed us. We owe her, Cale. We owe her big.”
“Dix, I know you’re fast, but two minutes? Are you fucking crazy?”
“He wanted five.”
Cale rolled his eyes. “Be thankful for small favors. You can’t do this. The club is bigger than you, or me, or any one of us.”
“It’s done. If we can’t stand by our agreements, if we can’t help and protect those who help us, I’m not sure we deserve to be a club. Doesn’t our word mean anything anymore?”
“We never agreed to this!”
“We agreed to help her if she helped us. Right now she needs our help more than ever. They’ll probably kill her if she goes back with them. Even if they don’t, you know they’re going to beat the living shit out of her. Do you want that on your conscious? I sure as hell don’t want it on mine. What about Steph? What if it were her? Would you just let her be taken away and beaten or killed, to take one for the club?”
Cale stared at Dix. “Of course not. She’s my old lady.”
“Fine. Daisy’s mine.”
“You just met her!”
“I know, but I know enough about her to know I want to know more.”
“If you lose, you know it’s the end of the club?”
“I’m not going to lose.”
“It’s a two minute head start, Dix!”
“Trust me. I can do this.”
“You better,” Cale grumbled.
Alex watched Cale and Dix argue. He could tell Cale was pissed and Dix was trying to convince him. He turned to Ted. “Maybe they’ve finally fucked up,” he said softly.
***
“Racers to the starting line!” Cale called over the PA.
“I heard. Jacob told me. I can never thank you enough,” Daisy said softly as she touched his cheek. She liked the way he looked down at her and smiled. She rose to her tiptoes and kissed him, pulling his lips to hers as she melted into his body, thrilling in his embrace and the warmth of his kiss. She pulled slowly back and opened her eyes, smiling at her gallant knight.
“I couldn’t let anything else happen to you.”
