Chapter 21
Twenty-One
Riot
On The Hunt - Houndrel
The tunnel tightens like a noose, walls closing in with every meter. Cracks in the ceiling bleed molten steam, and the temperature spikes as if the whole place is seconds from erupting.
HUD: STRUCTURAL FRACTURE. INTEGRITY LOW.
No surprise. This track isn’t built to challenge us—it’s built to kill us.
I bank hard left, metal grinding. Sin shifts behind me, tightening her grip, one hand already flying to the mod panel near my hip. She moves fast, flawless under pressure. Always.
“Rear coil’s shot,” I grit through my teeth, feeling every jolt in my spine.
“I’ve got it,” she says, calm but clipped, flipping open the manual access hatch along the side housing. Her fingers dive into Ghost’s emergency stabilizer valve, buried behind grime and dust. It hisses violently, and the pressure stabilizes, HUD flashing green again.
TEMP STABILIZED.
“Try not to tear the whole thing apart while you’re at it,” I snap, breath ragged.
She leans into me, voice sharp with heat. “Try not to die before I’m done.”
I almost smile. Almost. There’s no time for that now.
We cut through the carcass of a wrecked bike—bent steel, steaming rubber, and blood slicking the road like an oil spill. Another racer who didn’t make the last turn. Helmet cracked. Rider split in two. The scent of burning leather and flesh clings to the heatwaves rolling through the corridor.
Three left. Maybe less.
And then I hear it, the low, guttural purr of an engine I’d know anywhere. Slick. Tuned for speed and blood.
Jace.
He slips into view behind us, modded chrome reflecting firelight. Vex rides behind him, legs braced wide, rifle across his lap like a toy he’s been dying to unwrap. No helmet. No fear. Just that fucked-up grin.
“Left flank,” Sin says, her voice low in my comms.
“I see them.”
Vex lifts the rifle.
I see it.
A split-second calculation. One breath. One choice.
I twist the bike—hard left—shielding her with my body.
“Riot!” Sin yells, just as the shot fires.
It hits me clean in the side—high, just under the ribs. Not deep enough to drop me. Not high enough to kill but it burns. Fuck, it burns.
Better me than her.
Every time.
Pain blooms instantly, white-hot and sharp. My whole body lurches forward, and my grip on the throttle slips for half a heartbeat. The bike jerks beneath us. My HUD glitches out. Everything screams.
I grunt and lock my hands tighter, breath caught in my throat as I bite it back. The blood soaks through the leather fast, hot and sticky under my jacket.
It’s not the first time I’ve been shot.
Probably won’t be the last.
It fucking sucks. Hurts like hell. But pain like this? It’s familiar. Predictable. Something I can ride through. I’ve trained my body to outlast agony.
If I hadn’t seen it when I did, the shot would’ve taken her. Two inches higher and it would’ve ripped through her spine.
The thought sends more heat through my chest than the bullet ever could. Sin shouts my name, panic threading through her voice for the first time.
I don’t respond. Don’t flinch. Just lean harder into the curve, force the bike back under control.
“I’m good, Little Stray,” I growl, even though I’m not.
“You’re not,” she snaps, fury crackling under the surface. “You’re bleeding.”
“It’s a graze,” I lie.
“It’s a fucking hole.”
“Shut up and hold on.”
I feel her hesitate behind me, caught between cursing me out and doing what I said. She doesn’t argue again.
But I feel her move.
Her hand leaves the panel. She draws her sidearm with smooth, deliberate purpose.
One second. That’s all she needs.
She twists at the waist, balances the gun one-handed and pulls the trigger.
One clean shot.
The bullet punches straight through Vex’s forehead. Skull fragments burst into the air. His body drops off Jace’s bike like dead weight. No scream. No sound. Just impact.
Gone.
Jace swerves and catches himself. Barely.
But I’m already gone—throttle down, teeth clenched, blood running hot down my side. Every bump stabs like a blade twisting deeper, but I don’t slow down.
Can’t.
The finish line’s still ahead, the ramp fractured and bathed in flickering drone light like a spotlight on a stage built to break us. They’re watching. Recording. Feeding this to every screen in every district.
Let them.
Let them see what survival looks like when it bleeds.
Let them see what happens when you shoot at what’s mine.
The bike dies beneath us the second we cross the line.
No dramatic finish. No victory roar. Just a choked metallic death rattle and a hiss of smoke as the frame buckles under the pressure.
Sin is off before it even settles, her boots hitting the pavement like a war drum.
She rips her helmet off, hair damp and wild, clinging to her sweat-slick cheeks.
Her jacket’s scorched along the right shoulder, blood crusted at her temple, but she moves like she didn’t just ride through hell. Like she was made in it.
I swing my leg off the bike slower, body on fire. The wound in my side’s gotten worse—hot, wet, every step dragging more blood down my hip. My ribs feel fractured and breathing’s a battle.
I sit hard on a busted crate near the pit wall, and she’s already on me. Ripping open what’s left of my jacket, jaw clenched like she might kill me herself.
“You let him fucking shoot you,” she mutters, pressing gauze into the hole.
“I didn’t let shit happen,” I grind out.
“Sure,” she snaps. “You just thought you’d bleed out for fun?”
Only ten bikes made it across. Ten out of nearly forty. Ghost is already dragging what’s left of our ride off the field, cursing under his breath about “Total mod failure” and “Exploded fuel intake.” The rest of the crew is closing in, their faces tight, scanning for injuries.
Then Jace crosses the line.
His bike barely makes it—front wheel bent, exhaust sparking. He doesn’t stop. Doesn’t park.
He throws himself off mid-roll and storms toward us.
His helmet bounces off the ground with a crack.
“You think this is done?” he yells, voice ragged. “You think killing Vex lets you walk?”
Sin doesn’t answer.
She stands, steady, expression flat.
Jace points at her. “You think because you ride with him, that you’re untouchable?”
“You shot him,” she says. Calm. Cold and completely disregarding the bullshit he’s spitting. “You’re lucky you’re still fucking breathing.”
He grabs her arm and everything shifts.
She moves first.
One punch to the face.
Then a second to the gut.
Jace stumbles back surprised and off balance but not for long. He swings wide but she ducks, slams her knee into his nuts, and he collapses.
I move forward.
Bishop’s hand clamps down on my chest.
“Don’t,” he mutters. “You know she’s got this.”
“I don’t give a shit,” I growl, trying to shove past him.
“She’s not fighting for herself,” he says. “She’s fighting for you. Let her. If you stop her you make her look weak.”
It fucking kills me to watch.
I know Sin can handle her own. Especially against a rat like Jace. But watching her do it, watching her have to, it twists something inside me. Something ugly. I’d rip his spine out if she let me. But I know Bishop is right. This? This is hers.
The crowd around the pits is going insane. Every screen across every district is tuned in. Drones hover inches above the brawl, streaming Sin beating Jace’s ass in 4K blood and glory. Syndicate cameras don’t cut. They never do.
Sin tackles Jace hard, slamming him onto the concrete with a sickening thud. Her thighs lock around his ribs as she straddles him. Her whole body moves with rage, every punch calculated, brutal, personal.
She is savage.
Beautiful and fucking lethal.
And seeing her like this—bloodied, dominant, completely in control—makes my cock hard.
Even bleeding out, I’d drop to my knees for her.
Her lip’s bleeding again, blood dripping from her chin onto his face as she drives another punch into his cheek. He groans, barely conscious, but she’s not done.
Her hand goes to her thigh holster. She draws her pistol and shoves it in his mouth.
The pit goes silent.
Drones zoom in, mechanical wings buzzing.
The crowd loses its goddamn mind—cheers, whistles, fists pounding metal rails in every viewing bay from Sector Dusk to the Neon Strip.
But then everything changes.
A new sound cuts through the noise.
Click.
Cold steel presses to Sin’s temple.
My breath catches and my body snaps forward.
A Syndicate enforcer—masked, armored, and faceless has a gun to her head.
I lunge, blood roaring in my ears and get slammed back by two handlers. Their grips are iron. One hand hits the fresh wound. I snarl.
“LET HER GO.”
Bishop’s shoved next to me. Ghost too. Luca’s pinned with a drone-mounted baton to his chest. Taz is snarling, circling like she’s seconds from ripping out someone’s throat.
“Riot!” Sin’s voice is still calm, but I can hear the shift. The tension. She doesn’t move, but her trigger finger is tight.
Then Voss steps through the smoke.
Sharp suit. Clean gloves. That ever-neutral, polished mask of a man who’s always watching from the shadows. But he’s not alone.
Next to him walks someone new. Taller, broader. An older man in a slate-colored suit with razor-pressed cuffs and blood-red cufflinks. His hair’s silver, slicked back. A jagged scar runs from his right eye to his throat—like someone tried to silence him and failed.
The air changes around him.
This man walks like war.
Voss doesn’t even look at Jace.
He looks at Sin. “Sienna,” he says smoothly. “Step off him.”
She doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink. Instead, she runs her tongue slowly across her teeth—slick with blood from the fight—smirking like she’s tasting it, like she’s deciding if she wants more. She looks feral. Bloodthirsty. And absolutely fucking pissed they’re stopping her.
Voss’s voice tightens. “Now.”
Crowd murmurs ripple behind the pit walls. They’re not cheering anymore. They’re whispering.
Because the Syndicate never intervenes. Not in the pit. Not during kills.
The drones are still filming, circling low, beams locked on Sin’s face and Jace’s broken body. Every second is being streamed, raw and uncut, across every district. No delay. No filters. Just blood, dominance, and the moment she decides who lives and who doesn’t.
She stares him down. The gun doesn’t tremble. Her hand doesn’t shake.
Then she obeys. She drops the gun. The clatter of metal on concrete is sharp. Final.
The enforcer backs off, so do the handlers. The weight on my ribs vanishes, and I push forward but she’s already moving. Already standing over Jace like she didn’t just let him live, like she still might change her mind.
Voss approaches her without flinching and stuffs a thick stack of Syndicate cash into her hand.
“Twenty-five grand,” he says. “Vex had a price.”
She doesn’t even glance at the money.
“And him?” she asks, eyes locked on Jace as two enforcers drag him upright.
Voss doesn’t answer.
The silver-haired man does. “Don’t worry about him.”
Ghost steps up beside me. “You’re taking him?”
The man turns slightly, slow, deliberate. “This doesn’t concern you.”
Ghost’s mouth clamps shut and the tension in the air spikes.
But Bishop—always the one who tests the line—leans forward. “What if she’d pulled the trigger?”
The man doesn’t blink. “Then we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
It’s not a guess. Not a threat. It’s a fucking fact.
He would’ve ordered her dead, right there in the dirt beside Jace. No broadcast. No delay. Just one less racer for the next round.
Sin stares at him for a moment longer, like she’s daring him to say it again. Then she pockets the money without a word.
The enforcers drag Jace off, limping and dazed. Blood trails behind him but he doesn’t fight, doesn’t look back.
The crowd explodes in boos. Loud. Relentless. Districts screaming through their screens, furious they were robbed of the execution they paid to see.
The Syndicate never steps in. Not like this.
Luca mutters beside me, “Something’s off. Way off.”
He’s right.
None of this tracks. None of it fits the rules, even the unwritten ones.
And as I watch them disappear into the smoke with Jace between them, my stomach twists.
They didn’t save him. They didn’t protect him. They claimed him, and I don’t know why. But I’d bet every credit I’ve got it has something to do with Kane.
The drones are still filming, but the game just changed. Whatever’s coming next? It won’t be part of the script.
It’ll be war.