4. Jax
four
Jax
" H oly shit. Ace is back."
The bouncer's eyes go wide with recognition as I hand over the fifty. My name still carries weight in these circles. The second I cross the threshold, it hits me like mainlining adrenaline straight to the heart.
The warehouse thrums with barely controlled chaos—engines revving, money changing hands, the sweet stench of nitrous oxide hanging in the air like perfume.
Fuck. Here we go.
My hands are already shaking. Not from nerves, but from need. Pure, undiluted need that crawls under my skin like fire ants.
Need to bet. Need to move. Need something.
A makeshift betting station sits just inside the entrance, manned by a kid with neck tattoos and gold teeth. Behind him, a whiteboard lists odds that change every thirty seconds as someone shouts updates through a megaphone.
"Ten grand the Supra beats the Skyline in warm-ups."
The words tumble out before my brain engages. I'm already pulling cash from my jacket—crisp hundreds I'd grabbed from the safe for operational expenses.
Cover maintenance, my ass.
The kid's eyes light up as he counts the bills, fingers flying. "Supra's running new turbos. Smart money."
"Nitro, what are you doing?" Cole's voice whispers through my earpiece, tight with concern.
Can't stop. Won't stop.
I grab my slip for the bet and move deeper into the warehouse, weaving between bodies. The crowd's a mix of serious players and weekend warriors, old-school gearheads and new money looking for thrills.
My shoulder throbs suddenly—phantom pain from Tommy's crash that always hits at the races. Thirteen years since the accident, but my body remembers. The way the bike went sideways. The sound of him hitting the barrier. The silence after.
Tommy would hate what I've become.
I roll my shoulder, trying to shake it off, but the movement just reminds me why I'm here. Why I can't be here. Why I need to be here.
Another bookie operates near the main floor, this one older, more professional. Suit jacket over a bulletproof vest, the bulge barely visible. His table's covered in neat stacks of hundreds, separated by denomination.
"Five on the BMW spinning out before sector two."
I slap the bills down, and he slides them into a metal box without counting. I slide another slip into my pocket.
"That's two bets in three minutes," Asher's voice joins Cole's in my ear. "Jax, you're at risk of spiraling."
They don't understand. The itch needs scratching.
The interior opens up ahead of me—a massive space converted into an arena of speed and money. Sleek machines sit under spotlights like exotic dancers, each one representing someone's mortgage, someone's retirement, someone's bad decisions.
A Ferrari 488 in rosso corsa that costs more than most people's houses. A murdered-out Lamborghini Huracán with modifications that definitely void the warranty. A classic Nissan Skyline that probably has a seven-figure build cost hidden under its unassuming paint.
I spin my keys around my finger as I walk—an old habit, the rhythm grounding me when everything else feels like chaos. The metal catches the light with each rotation, hypnotic.
"Another fifteen on the Mustang taking the first heat!"
This bet goes to a woman with silver hair and prison tattoos on her knuckles. She takes my money with a smile that says she knows exactly what she's seeing.
"Three bets, five minutes," Cole hisses through the comm. "It's not about the money, Jax. We don't give a shit about thirty grand. But your addiction is going to compromise everything."
"Roman came here," I mutter, knowing they can hear me. "His last notes mentioned Lynch. I'm maintaining cover."
"You're feeding your sickness," Asher corrects. "There's a difference."
Fuck them. Fuck being sick. Fuck everything.
I rip the earpiece out, stuff it in my pocket. Can't think with them being right at me. The warehouse speakers blast a remix of something with too much bass, and the vibration travels up through the concrete into my bones.
"Jesus Christ, is that really you?"
The voice stops me cold, freezing my blood and super-heating it at the same time. I turn slowly, like I'm in a dream, and there he stands.
Gideon Lynch.
The man from my past life. The man in Roman's notes and the reason I'm here.
Older now, silver threading through his dark hair like expensive highlights.
His face carries new lines, but they make him look distinguished rather than worn.
Still has that confident swagger, that way of moving through space like he owns it.
Leather jacket that probably costs five grand, jeans that fit too well to be accidental, boots that have never seen actual work.
Roman tracked you. Roman's dead. Connected?
"Holy shit, Gideon!" The words explode out of me, my volume control completely shot. "Man, you look—I mean, seriously, what's your secret? You selling your soul to the devil or just really good moisturizer?"
My hands gesture wildly. "Because honestly, if it's the moisturizer thing, I need that brand name. My skin's been shit lately, you know? Too much time in the sun, not enough water, probably the stress of—"
He crosses the space between us in three strides and pulls me into a bear hug that smells like leather and expensive cologne and memories I've tried to bury.
Don't trust him. Can't trust him. But God, I missed this.
"Look at you, kid." His hands grip my shoulders as he steps back, studying me like he's filing away the changes. "Still breaking hearts and speed limits, I bet."
My throat tightens unexpectedly. The smile on his face is so damn proud, like I'm still his star pupil instead of the guy here to find out if he's connected to Roman's death.
"Yeah, something like that." I force my voice to steady. "Still finding ways to make engines scream. Though these days it's four wheels instead of two, so that's... progress? Or regression, depending on who you ask."
He laughs, the sound cutting through the warehouse noise. "I heard about your racing career. Professional circuits, underground scenes. Always knew you'd find a way to keep flying, even after..."
The sentence hangs unfinished. Neither of us says Tommy's name, but his ghost materializes between us, young and laughing and forever nineteen.
Tommy. Always Tommy.
"Cars don't try to kill you as much as bikes do," I manage, my voice barely audible over the crowd noise.
"Smart choice." Gideon's hand stays on my shoulder, steering me through the crowd. "Come on, let me show you the real show. VIP section's where the serious money plays."
Serious money. Serious problems.
We walk through the warehouse, and I notice how people move out of his way without him having to ask.
Respect or fear, maybe both. He points out different cars as we pass, giving me stats and stories, and for a moment it feels like old times.
Like Saturday mornings at the track, him teaching me about compression ratios and power bands while Tommy practiced wheelies in the background.
The VIP section announces itself before we reach it—the crowd gets better dressed, the security gets more obvious, and the air gets thick with the smell of money being burned for fun.
Plush leather couches curve around flat screens showing race footage from tracks around the world. Monaco, Suzuka, the Nürburgring—a greatest hits of speed and danger. At the mahogany bar, bartenders in bow ties pour drinks that cost more than many people make in a day.
But it's the gambling that makes my hands shake harder.
Need. Need. Need.
Three men in suits huddle around a glass table, briefcases open to reveal neat stacks of hundreds. They're not even counting anymore, just moving bundles like poker chips. A woman in designer everything calls out bets into her phone, each number making my stomach clench with want.
"Twenty on the Porsche to blow its engine!"
I practically shout it at the nearest bookie, a man with a tablet and an earpiece who looks like he does corporate mergers during the day. He taps the screen, nods, and I hand over another stack of bills.
Four bets. Can't stop now.
Gideon laughs, clapping me on the back hard enough to rattle my teeth. "Still can't resist the action, huh? Some things never change."
Before I can respond, before I can make another bet, movement near the VIP entrance catches my eye.
The crowd parts like the Red Sea, and my world tilts off its axis.
Holy fuck.
Dark brown hair twisted into something elegant that makes my fingers itch to destroy it. That face that's been haunting my dreams since the bar, those sculpted cheekbones that belong on a statue, those lips that I've imagined doing unspeakable things.
It's her. She's here. She's actually here.
But it's the dress that nearly drops me to my knees.
Burgundy silk that clings to every curve like it was poured on.
The neckline plunges low enough to make looking anywhere else physically impossible.
The slit up her thigh goes high enough that one wrong move would cause a riot.
She walks in heels that should be classified as weapons, each step deliberate, each movement calculated to destroy.
I'm going to die. Right here. Right now.
And she's on someone's arm.
The man beside her is everything I'm not—refined and aristocratic with the kind of bearing that screams generations of money.
His light brown hair is styled to perfection, not a strand out of place.
Suit that probably costs more than my first racing bike, watch that definitely costs more than my car.
He guides her with a hand on her lower back, possessive but polite, and I want to remove that hand from his body. With violence.
Mine. Should be mine. Will be mine.
They move through the crowd toward us, and I realize I'm not breathing. My lungs just stopped working. My brain's stuck in a loop of her her her , and my cock goes from zero to painful in half a heartbeat.