Chapter 33
Thirty-Three
Sienna
Fast Lane - Bad Meets Evil
“If you grunt any louder, Riot, I’m gonna start selling tickets to this moan-fest.”
Riot doesn’t even glance up from the bike’s guts. Just mutters, “You wanna hold the torch or hold your tongue, Vega?”
“Not my tongue you should be worried about,” I shoot back with a smirk.
Ghost, crouched beside Riot, snorts under his breath but keeps working, fingers dancing over the tablet like a hacker possessed.
The garage is a chaotic mess of sparks, sweat, and tension.
Scattered mod parts, discarded wrappers, stripped wires curling like veins out of busted panels.
The Widowmaker mod—the one Ghost swore might melt us alive if timed wrong—is already half-installed.
The air tastes like smoke and static. Like war.
Riot’s covered in grease, sweat glistening along the cords of his neck, shirt long gone. He’s focused, deadly in the way only he can be. His forearms flex as he twists a wire harness into place, jaw locked like he's forcing the rage to stay caged.
“You ever think of doing something relaxing?” I ask, sliding down next to them. “Like yoga. Or, I don’t know, slaughtering fewer people.”
“Mod’s done,” he says instead, wiping his hands on a rag before tossing it aside. “Get on. Try the HUD overlay.”
The bike hums as I swing one leg over. The display flickers to life across the helmet visor, sharp and green. Threat signals, thermal overlays, atmospheric readouts—it’s all mapped in perfect clarity. And dead center, a flickering skull icon glows blood-red. The Widowmaker.
“Hell of a name,” I murmur.
“You’ll earn it tomorrow,” Riot replies, stepping up behind me, one hand settling low on my hip. “We hit that burst at the wrong second, it’ll turn us into ash.”
“Noted.”
Taz paces the far edge of the garage, her paws silent on cracked tile, hackles raised. She knows. She always knows when it’s close.
Bishop and Luca are outside the bunker rigging traps. I can hear them arguing faintly through the broken windows. EMP snares, spike lines, whatever bullshit Ghost cooked up to slow Syndicate pursuit if things go sideways.
Not if.
When.
Because tomorrow is the last Gauntlet.
Deadmoor.
And a crowd that wants us dead.
Ghost finally stands, stretching, headset shifting over his slicked-back hair. He’s pale as hell, like always, with that ghost light stare of his—gray, unreadable, unblinking. His utility belt’s fully stocked, fingers twitching like he’s already three thoughts ahead of everyone.
“Drive’s still unraveling,” he mutters. “Whatever the Syndicate scrubbed, it was deep. Someone wanted this shit buried.”
He doesn’t have to say what we’re all thinking.
That brief flicker of my face on the surveillance log—barely a second, grainy and distorted—was enough to sink its claws behind my eyes and stay there.
I don’t remember it. Don’t know when or where it was taken.
But it’s proof that the Syndicate had eyes on me long before they admitted it.
That there’s more to uncover and they buried it deep for a reason.
“Pull what you can,” I tell Ghost, voice low but steady. “If there’s anything in there we can use, anything to bring them down or clear my name, I want it.”
Ghost nods once and turns back to his screen, already moving.
Riot steps toward the back bench, rummaging in one of the compartments. When he turns, there’s something clutched in his palm—small, dull brass glinting under the low lights.
“Here,” he says, and tosses it to me.
I catch it mid-air.
It’s a bullet. AK round. Real steel. But it’s been hollowed out, polished, fitted to a matte black keychain ring. And on the side, etched deep into the casing in Riot’s unmistakable scrawl—Little Stray.
I don’t say anything at first.
Neither does he.
Just watches me with that unreadable heat in his eyes, like he’s daring me to make it a moment. To make it mean something.
I don’t stop running my thumb over the engraving.
Because it’s not just a bullet. Not just metal and memory.
It’s a promise.
That no matter what the next race brings—win, lose, live, or die—I’m not going in alone.
Not this time.
Riot crouches beside Ghost, elbow-deep in the guts of the Widowmaker mod, twisting a torque wrench like it personally offended him.
Sparks fly as Ghost fuses another wire bundle to the control housing, the flicker lighting up the garage in bursts of blue and gold.
The place stinks of oil and metal, the floor littered with tools, scrap, and someone’s half-eaten protein bar I’m not asking about.
Taz paces behind me, her claws clicking against concrete, ears flattened like even she knows this mod might get us both killed. She hasn't stopped pacing since we got here. That twitchy, coiled energy—the kind animals get before earthquakes.
Across the garage, Luca and Bishop are rigging perimeter traps like it’s a goddamn war zone. Shrapnel grenades. Crushed fuel cells. Trip wires made from salvaged brake cable. Industrial murder glitter.
“You know,” I call out, spinning the bullet keychain once more, “if I didn’t know better, I’d say you two enjoy killing as much as Reaper over here.”
Bishop doesn’t even pause. “We do.”
Luca flashes a grin as he finishes tying off a strip of barbed wire to a gas canister. “It’s called pest control.”
I snort and glance at the ceiling where faded graffiti spells out GLORY OR DEATH in peeling red paint. Fitting. This isn’t a garage anymore. It’s a tomb getting dressed for the party.
Behind me, Ghost slides the newly integrated HUD display over Riot’s modded dash and gives it a light tap. “You sure this thing’ll hold?”
“No,” Riot says, without looking up. “But I’m gonna use it anyway.”
I cock a grin, sharp and crooked. “Touching. You should write slogans for those Hallmark cards.”
Riot smirks, wipes the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand, and glances at me over his shoulder. “Hallmark? You want romance, Stray? I’ll survive tomorrow just so I can keep pissing you off for the rest of your life.”
He finally looks at me, really looks, and I hate that heat coils low in my stomach.
The kind that’s half lust, half something darker.
Riot’s built like a brawl—broad chest, veined forearms, tattoos peeking past the edges of his rolled sleeves.
He looks like the devil fucked a street fighter and dumped the result on a bike.
And he’s mine.
Even if I didn’t ask for it. Even if I don’t know how to keep him.
"Don’t get soft on me now," I say, tossing him a towel. "I like you better when you’re a menace."
He grins, all teeth. “I might go soft for you, Little Stray, but where it counts?” His eyes drop low, voice rough. “Always hard.”
Cocky bastard.
I smirk, dragging my gaze down deliberately slow. “Good. I’d hate to waste all this attitude on a faulty weapon.”
The Widowmaker’s housing locks into place with a sharp hiss of steam and one final spark that spits across the floor. Riot leans back on his heels, eyes tracking the mod like it just growled approval.
“It’ll hold,” Ghost says, voice steady. “But if you push past five minutes on the boost, you risk frying the whole system.”
Riot rises, stretching his neck with a crack. “Then we win in four.”
Luca finishes setting up a sensor relay and heads over, tossing me something small and cold. I catch it on instinct.
A backup pistol. Slim. Matte black. Polished.
“Safety’s finicky,” he says. “Kick it hard if it jams.”
I check the mag, nodding. “What’s the catch?”
Luca shrugs, brushing dust off his hoodie. “Don’t die.”
“That all?”
“Yeah. Mostly ‘cause if you do, I’d have to admit I actually like you.”
I laugh before I can stop myself, it’s loud and genuine. Then I lean in and kiss his cheek. “Too late, pretty boy.”
He mutters something about regretting everything and wanders back to Bishop, who’s got grease on his nose and zero patience for flirtation.
This crew... we’re chaos stitched together with blood and duct tape. But we’re a family, somehow.
Not one of them hesitated when they pulled me into this hell. Not one of them has flinched since.
The Widowmaker installed. HUD synced. Traps set.
Now all that’s left is the waiting, and I fucking hate waiting.
Later, in our room, Riot doesn’t say anything when we step inside.
Just kicks the door shut with the heel of his boot, the sound echoing through the concrete like a warning, and tosses his gear onto the desk in a heavy clatter.
The space is suffocating—raw cement walls, rust-stained sink, a bed that looks like it’s survived more blood than dreams. There’s no overhead light, just the hum of the HUD cradle casting everything in a red glow and the emergency strip along the baseboard, flickering like a dying heartbeat.
I strip off my shirt, bones aching from the weight of the day, and dig a clean tank from the crate at the foot of the bed. The silence isn’t uncomfortable. Just… heavy. Riot watches from across the room while I change, arms crossed, leaning against the wall like he’s carved from it.
Above us, the LED banner scrolls across the cracked cement like a countdown to hell:
FINAL GAUNTLET RACE – SECTOR: DEADMOOR
NO CHECKPOINTS. NO MERCY. ALL BOUNTIES ACTIVE.
Below it, the leaderboard pulses.
Riot: 1.2 million
Sin: 2.8 million
I stare at the number like it belongs to someone else. But it doesn’t. It’s mine. They want me more than anyone. And tomorrow, every single rider out there is going to come hungry. They’ll smell blood in the air and see it written across my skin like a paycheck.
I sit down on the edge of the bed, elbows on my knees, boots kicked off. Riot doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak.
“You think this is it?” I ask, voice low.
His eyes stay locked on mine. “No,” he says. “It’s just another wall to tear through. And we’ve torn through worse.”
That hits something in me. Steady. Grounded.
My pulse ticks behind my ribs like a clock running out of time. I glance up at the red banner again. My name, my price, lit up like a fucking target.
“What about after?” I ask. “Say we win tomorrow. Say we make it through. You really think Kane’s just gonna let me walk away?”
Riot pushes off the wall. Crosses the room like he owns it. Like he owns everything in it, including me. He sits beside me, close enough to feel his heat.
“If he tries?” Riot says, voice low, even. “Then we take care of him, too.”
I turn to face him. “Riot, he’ll come for me.”
“Then let him.” He meets my gaze, unflinching. “Let him try. Because he’s not getting to you without going through me. And if he thinks I’m afraid to put him in the ground, he hasn’t been paying attention.”
The words hit hard. No bravado. Just truth. Solid and sharp as a blade in the dark.
“That’s what scares me,” I admit, barely above a whisper. “Not the race. Not even Kane. You. Getting yourself killed trying to protect me.”
Riot doesn’t blink, doesn’t flinch, he just leans in until our foreheads touch, his voice rough with conviction.
“I’m not dying tomorrow, Sin. Not in that pit. Not for him. Not for anyone. We face it together. One fight at a time. First Deadmoor. Then Kane. And after that? Whatever hell throws next, we take it.”
He pulls away just enough to stand and strip out of his shirt, then his pants.
My eyes drag down as he drops onto the bed in just his briefs—his body all bruised steel and slow, lethal grace.
My mouth goes dry when I catch the thick outline pressing against the fabric, impossible to miss in the crimson glow.
His gaze snaps to mine, catches the stare, and the way my lips part just slightly. He smirks, cocky and amused, and jerks his chin toward the pillow.
“Sleep, Little Stray. That mouth’ll be more useful tomorrow if it’s not dragging from exhaustion.”
I roll my eyes, but heat pulses low in my belly. “You didn’t get to finish earlier,” I murmur, stretching out beside him. “Thanks to Ghost.”
“I’m fine,” Riot says, his voice low and firm as his arm curls around my waist, hauling me against his chest. “Tonight I just want to hold you.”
I snort. “You really love bossing me around, huh?”
His smirk sharpens. “I don’t give orders, Sin. I give you what you need, even if you’re too stubborn to ask for it.”
I pout—just a little—but the fight’s already leaving my limbs. The moment his body presses to mine, steady and grounding, the adrenaline starts to fade.
“Cocky asshole,” I mutter, eyes already fluttering closed.
His lips brush my temple.
“And you love it.”
I do.
I curl tighter against his chest, his heartbeat steady under my palm, and finally, finally let sleep drag me under.
Tomorrow, the world burns.
But tonight, I’m his.