Chapter 12 #2
“Tell me there’s food.”
Bishop tosses her a ration pack. “Eat fast. Don’t get comfortable.”
She drops beside Taz, who bolts from the bus like she’s been waiting hours just to be near her. Damn dog barrels past me, tail wagging like a battering ram, and practically launches herself into Sin’s lap like it’s the only place that matters.
“Jesus,” Sin laughs, tearing open the ration pack. “You feed her, right?”
“More than I should. She’s spoiled,” I mutter, watching Taz immediately start begging like she hasn’t eaten in days.
Sin grins and pulls out the contents. A vacuum-sealed protein bar, a pouch of dried fruit, and a slab of synthetic meat that looks like hell but smells halfway decent. She breaks off a chunk of the jerky and holds it out for Taz, who snaps it up like she’s never tasted food in her life.
“She’s got good taste.”
I grunt. “She also eats her own puke.”
Sin pops a piece of dried fruit into her mouth and chews, eyes narrowing in surprise. “This isn’t bad.”
I raise a brow. “You hit your head on the ride?”
She shrugs and keeps eating. “Could be worse. Could be Syndicate stew.”
I snort. “You’d know. You were almost on the menu.”
She flips me off without looking up, still feeding the damn dog.
I sit nearby, watching. Not them. Him.
Jace.
He’s at the far end of the lot, helmet tucked beneath one arm, arms crossed over his chest like he’s carved from fucking stone.
But his eyes? They’re locked on Sin—cold, calculating, full of that sick, twisted hunger he doesn’t bother hiding anymore.
Like he’s already decided where he’ll dump her body when it’s done.
Like he’s counting down the seconds until he gets his shot.
I stare back, jaw tight, pulse low and deadly.
He smirks, and all I see is red.
I don’t just picture his neck under my boot, I hear the snap. I feel the crunch of bone giving way beneath me, the warm spray of blood, the silence that follows when a man like that finally shuts the fuck up.
Soon.
Just give me a reason.
I tear my eyes off Jace before the need to put him in the ground overrides common sense.
My gaze snaps back to Taz and Sin.
Taz isn’t the type to warm up to anyone. Hell, half the crew’s still on her shit list. But with Sin? It was different from the start. No growling, no hesitation, just quiet approval, like she saw something in her the rest of the world didn’t deserve to.
And now?
The way she shifts closer, pressing her head into Sin’s thigh like it’s where she belongs? Yeah. I know that posture. That still, alert silence.
Taz has made up her mind.
She’d die for her and protect her with the same brutal loyalty she’s always given me. That’s how I know if anyone so much as breathes wrong in Sin’s direction, they won’t just have to go through me.
They’ll have to survive Taz first.
Good fucking luck.
I drop down on the edge of a busted slab beside Luca, cracking open my ration pack. The protein bar’s a chalky excuse for food, and the jerky’s so dry I could snap it in half with my pinky. Doesn’t matter. I’ve eaten worse. Lived through worse.
Luca eyes me from the side, mouth half-full with whatever ration bar he’s devouring. “You catch that look?”
I don’t need to ask who he means. We’ve all seen it. Jace’s eyes haven’t left Sin since we rolled in.
“Yeah,” I mutter. “I see him.”
Luca chews slower, brows rising. “He makes a move—”
“He won’t.”
Luca grunts. “But if he does?”
I tear a chunk of jerky with my teeth, staring across the lot, letting the silence stretch before answering.
“If he does, he won’t walk away from it.”
“She’s crew now,” Luca says, like he’s reading my fucking mind. “That means something.”
I don’t answer, just gnaw on the jerky and watch Jace like I’m mentally mapping the angles it’ll take to end him clean.
Luca goes on, quieter. “You know we’ve got her back, right?
All of us. She’s one of us now. Ghost’s already running her name through the grid, Doc’s stashing painkillers just in case she needs ‘em, and Bishop’s adding extra armor to your rear frame.
” He shrugs. “Shit, even Taz claimed her. So that’s that. ”
I nod once, slow. That’s all he gets. All he needs.
We don’t do long speeches. We do loyalty.
And he’s not wrong. This crew? We’re more than a pit crew. We’re a unit. A broken, patched-together mess of fucked-up survivors who’d throw fists and fire for one another.
Sin? She’s part of that now.
Luca finishes his protein bar, wiping his hands on his pants. “We’ll go to bat for her, Riot. Any of us. Jace, Kane’s fuckers, some other jackass thinking he can put her on a leash, they’ll answer to all of us.”
I look over at him. “You getting soft on me?”
He grins. “Nah. Just stating facts.” He leans back, his voice a little lighter, like he’s trying not to sound too invested. “Also… you’re not exactly subtle, you know.”
I lift a brow. “What the fuck does that mean?”
He grins wider. “C’mon, man. The tension between you two? Shit’s thicker than the oil leaking from Ghost’s rig. You think we haven’t noticed?”
I grunt, tossing the empty wrapper into the fire barrel nearby.
Luca elbows me. “We’re happy for you. Even if you act like a grumpy bastard ninety-nine percent of the time.”
I shoot him a look. “Watch it.”
“Seriously,” he says, tone dipping into something real. “You deserve it, Riot. Whatever this is with her? You fucking deserve something good. We all know you’re not as cold as you pretend to be.”
I don’t say anything.
Because if I open my mouth right now, I might let something out I can’t take back.
And Luca? He’s earned more than that.
I still remember the first time I saw the little shit. He was bleeding from the nose, knuckles torn up, leaning against the busted wall of some underground garage in the Iron Wastes. Two older racers had jumped him over a part he wouldn’t give up, some chipped nitro rig barely worth the scrap.
He didn’t back down.
I stepped in. Didn’t plan to. But something about the fire in his eyes reminded me of myself—young, pissed off, ready to die swinging. I broke the jaw of the first guy, shattered the other’s kneecap and left them both in the dirt.
Luca just spit blood, looked up at me, and grinned like an idiot. “Thanks, asshole.”
He followed me after that. Wouldn’t shut up. Wouldn’t leave. I let him hang around, figured he’d vanish like the rest eventually. But he didn’t.
He proved himself in the pits. Started fixing things I didn’t even know were broken. Covered me in races. Bled beside me in fights. Earned a place no one else had.
My crew? I built it out of ghosts and bastards. But Luca?
He’s the closest thing I’ve got to a little brother.
So instead of saying any of that, I just nod once. Slow.
Let him have that moment.
And for a second—just one—I let myself believe him.
A low whistle slices through the tension in the air as one of the Syndicate handlers steps forward, voice flat and loud. “Let’s move. Riders mount up. Convoy rolls out in five.”
The energy shifts instantly. Crew members start moving toward their vehicles, doors slam shut on the transport, and engines kick to life all around us.
Sin stands, brushing the dirt off her black jeans with a casual flick of her hand.
Her crop top rides up just enough to flash a sliver of stomach before the leather jacket settles back into place.
She stretches, spine arching, arms over her head like she didn’t just spend the last hour under the weight of every eye in this goddamn lot.
My eyes are already on her when hers find mine.
Of course they are.
She catches me staring and smirks like she owns the fucking place. “You always stare like that, or am I just special?”
I take a long drag from my cigarette, slow and deliberate. “Special isn’t the word I’d use.”
“Ugh, my ass is numb,” she mutters, grabbing her helmet off the table. “Swear to god, if your bike seat gets any harder, I’m walking to Wraithmoor.”
I flick the last of my smoke to the gravel and smirk. “Could always ride my lap instead. Might be softer.”
She laughs, low and wicked, sliding the helmet on with a smirk. “Softer? Please. Pretty sure I felt just how hard you got with me on your lap last night.”
My head turns, jaw ticking, smirk pulling at the corner of my mouth. “Can’t help it when a half-naked little brat climbs onto my lap and starts grinding like she’s begging for it.”
She climbs on behind me, arms wrapping around my waist. “Last I checked, you were the one who kissed me, Carter.”
I glance over my shoulder, raising a brow. “Didn’t hear you complaining.”
“Yeah, well,” she leans in, voice dropping, breath brushing my neck, “if I’d really been begging, sleep would've been the last thing either of us did.”
Fuck me.
I fire up the bike, the engine snarling beneath us, but it’s nothing compared to the way her words punch straight to my spine.
“Careful, Stray,” I growl. “Keep talking like that and I might decide to finish what you started.”
She presses closer, all smug and sinful. “You say that like I’d stop you.”
Wraithmoor looms ahead, and if she keeps this shit up, I might not make it there with my sanity intact.