Chapter 29
TWENTY-NINE
Demi’s timing is absolutely terrible.
The worst, possibly.
Rome’s lips are traveling down my body, pressing kisses between my breasts and over my belly, headed right where I desperately need him, when a text sounds.
Not the normal ding of an incoming message, but the push notification she has set up to let me know when the message she just sent absolutely can’t be ignored.
Rome’s head lifts, looking across the room to where my phone sits, brows furrowed.
“What was that?” he asks, because my phone has never made that noise in his presence.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“It’s Demi. That’s her, uh, emergency tone,” I say, because ever since we’ve gotten together, it’s felt uncomfortable to give Rome total lies. Instead, I’ve forced myself to straddle the line between truth and lie, not quite standing on either.
I hate it here, but it is what it is. It’s been a week since Rome told the world I was his, and we’ve spent even more time together than before, since we no longer have to sneak around.
No one seemed very surprised, except maybe Courtney, who keeps pestering us to do an interview about it to add to Rome’s good press.
“An emergency? Is everything okay?” I sigh, rolling away with utter regret as I swipe my phone from the counter. When I see SOS MY PERIOD IS LATE on the notification screen, my stomach twists, knowing that this isn’t about a pregnancy scare, but something different altogether.
“Yeah, but she needs me,” I say. Again, not a lie, but not the full truth. I turn to him, giving him a look as apologetic as I can muster. My clit is throbbing between my legs with unsatisfied desire. “I’m sorry, but she’s my best friend.”
“No, of course,” he says, ever the gentleman, though his face looks strange, a bit confused. “Is there anything I can do to help?” I shake my head and sigh, reaching for his T-shirt and slipping it on over my head, followed by a pair of shorts.
“No, no. Girl period stuff. You’re going to practice tonight, right?” I ask about the optional practice as I slip my shoes on and grab my bag. He nods, following me to the door.
“Yeah. I’ll see you then.” His hand tips my chin up, his calloused fingers coasting into my hair.
“Call me if you guys need anything at all. I’m more than happy to make a run to the store if need be.
” God, he’s so perfect. In moments like these, I wonder just how the hell he pulled off the bad-boy persona for so long: he was born to be a lover boy, my Rome.
“I will. I really am sorry,” I murmur. He smiles and winks at me.
“No worries, Lana. Just means you’ll owe me later.” I return the mischievous look despite the unease in my gut.
“Or maybe you’ll have to punish me for leaving you high and dry,” I whisper, and the resulting groan he lets out settles warm in my belly. His lips move to mine, giving me a hard, brief kiss before stepping back, opening the door.
“Go, heartbreaker, before I change my mind and make Demi wait.” I give him a smile over my shoulder, and he smacks my ass as I head down the hall. Once his door clicks shut behind me, I pull out my phone, switching straight into Maven’s mode as I call Demi.
“What’s going on?” I ask when she picks up as I hustle toward our room.
“Come to the arena,” she says, breathing as if she’s also walking quickly. “I’m halfway there.” My brows furrow, but I turn around toward the stairs, knowing the elevator in this hotel is torturously slow.
“What’s going on?” I demand. My words echo in the cement stairwell.
“Someone is looping the drive cam footage.” My feet stumble on a step with her words, and I have to hold the railing tight to stop myself from falling.
“I had them running in the background while I was trying to get into the Indy system—which I did, thank you very much.” A small moment of relief hits, knowing that we’re getting somewhere even if it feels like we’re not.
“And I noticed a bug fly past your camera. I have them all coded to notify me of any movement when the arena is supposed to be closed. I thought nothing of it, but then it happened again five minutes later. Same bug, same path.”
“Fuck,” I hiss out, hitting the lobby floor and moving faster.
This hotel isn’t connected to the area by a hallway; instead, you have to walk three blocks to get there.
There’s a shuttle the circuit provides to take drivers to and from, but I don’t have the time, nor do I want a record of where I’m going and when.
“Someone else has access to the cameras,” Demi says, confirming my fear.
“Fuck,” I repeat. After the harness incident, all of the trucks’ dash cams were set to full-time monitoring, something only a handful of people know about. Demi made sure to access them, so she’s been able to watch the arena even more effectively now.
“Do you think anything else is going on? Some other issue they’ve corrupted and don’t want anyone tracking?”
“I can’t know for sure, but I think so,” she says, and dread fills my gut. “I’m in the pit right now, checking the onboard telemetry systems, and Rome’s isn’t transmitting correctly.”
“Fuck,” I say. The telemetry systems broadcast vital information about a truck to the crew. If that’s been disabled or tampered with, it could if something goes wrong in a race, no one would know until it’s too late.
“Just like the dash cams, they’re transmitting a loop of healthy activity, but it’s activity that looks more like the truck is idling, not off like they should be.
I can overwrite through the code on the dash cams and access the true footage while leaving the glitch in place, but I can’t with the telematics.
We need to see if they’ve been altered inside the trucks. ”
I hum in understanding, her words ricocheting through my mind as I enter the building and head right for the arena. My stomach drops when the door is cracked open, and the normal security guard is nowhere to be found. “Did you call Jackson off?”
“Yeah, he’s inspecting what happened to the Wi-Fi at the arena,” she says, sounding distracted.
“The Wi-Fi?”
“I disabled it. The dash cams work on Wi-Fi, so if our guy still has access to them, he would see us, and it would blow our cover. So I killed the Wi-Fi for the entire arena. It should be out for… twenty-three more minutes.” I shake my head and smile at my genius partner, who comes into sight as she moves toward me. “Good, you’re here.”
“Yeah, what do you need from me?” She bites her lip, then gives me a look I know all too well, the one that says you’re not going to love this.
“I need you to go into Rome’s truck, check that it is in fact disconnected from the transmitter. If it is, you have to reconnect it.”
“I have to?” I ask, eyes wide.
“I need to stay in the pit and make sure it’s transmitting again. I’m going to walk you through reconnecting it while I keep an eye on the monitors.” I nod.
“Fine. Tell me what to do.”
“Okay, so walk me through this like I’m three, Demi. What am I looking for?” I say into the earbuds connected to my cell, staring at a mess of wires and switches I don’t quite understand.
“It’s a wire—” Demi starts. Normally, I’d laugh, but right now, my anxiety is at a peak level, and I snap at her.
“Thanks so much; that means absolutely nothing to me. There’s a million wires in here, Demi.”
“If you would let me finish—”
“Someone could be in here at any moment. I need to do this fast.”
“A red wire! My god, Lana.” I groan, spotting three red wires, but thankfully Demi walks me through finding the correct one, and I follow it to where it’s supposed to be plugged into a box.
“It’s being plugged into what looks like a splitter,” I say, trying to get a better look at it despite the dark.
“A splitter?”
“Yeah, I mean… That’s what I think it is. Hold on, let me get a picture.” I snap a picture on my phone and send it to Demi.
“You’re right,” she says, voice low and concentrating.
“It looks like it’s rerouting the information, probably similarly to how the dash cams were rerouted.
” There’s a moment before she speaks again.
“Okay, take that off and bring it to me when we’re done.
You’ll need to take the second wire as well.
I might be able to use it to see where our guys are having the information sent to access it. ”
“Won’t they notice if it’s gone?” I ask, hesitant.
“I might be able to set up a dummy truck, let it think that it’s getting the information it needs.
” She sounds almost giddy as she speaks, even though I’m stress-sweating like I never have before in my life; I smile.
She’s such a nerd with this stuff sometimes.
I disconnect the small black box, slip it into my pocket, and tell her it’s done.
“Great, now I need you to insert the red wire into the third slot on the actual transmitter.” Biting my lip, I find the location and easily snap it into place.
“Done.” I hold my breath as time passes, then let it out with her next words.
“Perfect,” she murmurs. “I see it now. Just give me a second to see if anything was tampered with.”
“We’ve gotta hurry, Demi. This is sketchy. If someone comes in, we don’t have a good reason to be here.”
“I know, I know, just… give me…” she starts, then a relieved sound carries through the line.
“Okay, perfect, it looks all good. We’ll still have the tech do a thorough look through before practice, but if I have to guess, this was staging a future sabotage.
” Relief moves through me. “Get out of there. We’ve got ten more minutes before the Wi-Fi comes back on. ”
As quickly as I can, I climb out of the truck, jumping backward until my sneakers hit the dirt again. I take a deep, relieved breath, knowing we’re finished, but that relief is short-lived. The world stops moving, and then I hear it.
“What are you doing, Lana?”
Everything in me freezes, an icy panic rushing through me before I turn in slow motion.
I keep my eyes closed, praying that it’s not the shitty situation I’ve created in my mind, but I know in my gut that I’m fucked.
That this is exactly what I feared. When I open my eyes to see Roman standing there, face confused, arms crossed over his chest, it’s confirmed.
The happy bubble I’ve been delusionally floating in just popped.
“Hey, Rome, what’s up?” I say, a bit too loud and obvious, but trying to sound casual, as if I’m always hopping out of his truck for no reason.
“Rome? Did you say Rome?” Demi asks, her voice sounding as frantic as I feel.
“What were you doing in there?” he asks.
“Oh, I wasn’t—” I start, but he cuts me off.
“Don’t,” he says, shaking his head, a look of disappointment moving over his face and sending a stab of pain into my chest. “You’re going to tell me what you’re doing here and, more importantly, why you were messing with the wiring of my truck.
” Nausea roils, and I can’t get a deep breath into my lungs.
Anxiety and guilt wrack through me, but somewhere in the depths of my mind, I recognize that I’m not scared.
As angry as Roman looks, as angry and skeptical and doubtful as he has a right to be, he would never hurt me. But I also know if I don’t set things right soon, I will be hurting him, and I can’t do that. I can’t lie to him any longer.
I’ve always been fine with lying, always been fine with bending the truth to fit the assignment, especially when the end goal was a good one.
But lying to Rome has become increasingly uncomfortable, and I don’t want this between us any longer. Even though I wish I had planned this better, done it under better circumstances, I know now is the time to spill everything to him.
Taking in a deep, fortifying breath, I speak. “I wasn’t—” I start, but he shakes his head again, a humorless laugh leaving his lips, twisting the knife in my chest.
“You know, it never added up in my head, how you got here. I mean, you rode dirt bikes as a kid, but that stopped, and you never picked it up again.” I lick my lips nervously, and when he takes a step toward me, cornering me until my back hits the oversized tire.
“Why are you here, Lana? Because I’m pretty sure it’s not just to drive a monster truck.
” I open my mouth, ready to confess, but another voice enters the fray.
“Everything good down here?” Demi asks, faux cheerfulness in her tone despite her nervous look.
“No,” Rome says, looking at her over his shoulder. “It’s not. You both had better explain what the hell is going on here, or I’m going to Phil and telling him what I just saw.” Demi rolls her eyes, poking at a bear.
“He’s not going to do anything,” she says.
“Why not?” he asks, fury in the words. I reach out, pressing my hand to his shoulder and drawing his attention to me before I lay the truth to rest once and for all.
“Because he hired us, Roman.”