Chapter 9
THE MIDNIGHT CIRCUS
KAIDEN
This is dangerous.
I have spent years keeping people at arm’s length. My life is a series of controlled interactions, clear boundaries, and women who understand the score. Emma doesn't know the score. She has no idea who I am, where I come from, or what I am capable of doing to protect what is mine.
After I am certain she is safe behind her locked door, I get back in the car and drive. I pull over near the docks and cut the engine. The water laps against the pier, dark and endless, mirroring the restlessness in my gut. My phone is in my hand before I consciously decide to call him.
Maddox answers on the third ring. “It’s past office hours, Rhodes. This better be good.”
“I need info on someone. His name is James. He is using a burner phone to harass Emma. I am sending you the number now.”
Silence stretches between us. Then, in that dry, clinical tone he has perfected over the years, he asks, “Is that the ex?”
Of course, he put it together. Maddox likely started digging the second I gave him Emma’s name. I'm grateful. And annoyed that he's already three steps ahead of me. “How soon for a deep check on the number?”
“Tomorrow, maybe the day after. It depends on how many layers he’s using.” Maddox pauses. “Did you read the file I sent you on Ms. Sinclair?”
“Not yet.” I don't know which outcome I am hoping for, proof that she is too good to be true or confirmation that she is exactly what she seems. “You said she was above board, right?”
“She is clean,” Maddox hesitates. That pause sets off every alarm bell in my head.
“What are you not telling me, Maddox?”
“It is best you read it for yourself. Or get to know her and have her tell you.”
I scoff, the sound harsh in the quiet of the car. “Same as you did with Vivien? Or was that before you hacked her private life?”
“Stay out of my business, Rhodes.” His voice is suddenly cold. The dry banter is gone, replaced by the lethal edge of the man who saved my company last year.
I regret the words as soon as they leave my mouth. I need Maddox focused on James, not on my lack of tact. “I’m heading to the Midnight Circus with Logan and Ethan,” I say, offering a rare olive branch. “I need to blow off some steam. Join us?”
The sound he makes can barely pass for a laugh. “Thanks for the invite, but I have better plans. Vivien is home tonight.”
“Right. Have fun.”
“I always do. Try not to crash.” He hangs up before I can respond.
I pull up the group chat with Logan and Ethan.
Kai: Midnight Circuit. Who's in?
The responses come fast.
Logan: You racing or watching?
Ethan: Both probably. I'm in. Need to test the new exhaust anyway.
Logan: Give me 20 to grab my bike. Meet at the usual spot?
Kai: Yeah. Bring cash if you want to make it interesting.
Ethan: Oh, it's that kind of night. See you there.
I start the engine again. The docks fade into the rearview as I head toward the industrial district.
My mind keeps circling back to Emma. The way she didn't look surprised by her own panic, as if she had been living in a state of high alert for a year.
And James. Two hours to Ashford. I could be back before my first meeting.
The thought sits too comfortably in my head.
Everything about her feels honest. She doesn't perform. She doesn't angle. Which is exactly what a well-crafted plant would look like.
He's done it before. Planted people in my life, pretty distractions designed to report back or create leverage. It's been years since he tried, but Victor Hammond doesn't forget. He doesn't forgive. And he definitely doesn't give up.
I want her to be real. A woman who holds onto herself that fiercely, who fights for her own ground. I want to understand why she has to. But wanting something doesn't make it true.
The entrance to the Circuit appears on my right, a gap between two derelict warehouses. I slow down and turn into the darkness. The tunnel opens up after about fifty feet, and suddenly the world is electric.
Neon everywhere. Hot pink and electric blue bleeding across wet asphalt. The sound hits next. Engines. Bass from somewhere I can't see. The noise of people who came here to watch someone push too far.
I spot Logan's Ducati near the staging area, Ethan's Kawasaki beside it. They look up when they hear my engine.
“Took you long enough,” Logan grins as I kill the engine and step out. “We were starting to think you had gone soft.”
“Never.” I kill the engine and get out.
Ethan claps me on the shoulder. “Come on. Let's see if racing clears your head better than overthinking does.”
The air smells like gasoline and burning rubber, familiar and grounding. This I understand. Speed. Risk. The simple equation of skill versus machine. There are no hidden motives, no questions about whether someone's real or playing a role. There is only the race.
A crowd has gathered near a custom Harley.
It is a sleek black and silver machine; the kind that is built rather than bought.
The men surrounding it wear leather cuts with the Iron Wolves patch prominent on their backs.
The snarling wolf head catches the neon light, looking dangerous and unmistakable.
Rex stands at the center. He is the Road Captain of the Wolves, rugged and covered in ink, his broad shoulders filling out his leather. Our eyes meet across the crowd. He nods once. I nod back.
Logan follows my gaze. “That's Rex, right?”
“Yeah.” We've crossed paths at these races before. Raced against each other a few times. There's a grudging respect between us. He knows I can handle a bike, and I know better than to mess with his crew.
“Heard they've cleaned up their act,” Ethan murmurs. “Less outlaw, more... selective.”
“Still not people you want as enemies,” Logan adds.
Rex pushes off from his bike and walks toward us. The crowd parts automatically. His boots strike the asphalt with purpose, leather creaking with each step. Up close, he's bigger than I remembered. Gray-blue eyes that don't miss much
“Rhodes. Haven't seen you here in a while.”
“I’ve been busy.”
“Yeah?” He glances at Logan and Ethan. “These your boys?”
“Logan, Ethan, let me introduce you to the asshole who won the last race.”
Rex grins smugly. “Always ready to relieve you of your money, pretty boy.”
“I’m in too,” Logan says, meeting his eyes. “Unless you're worried about the competition.”
Rex's mouth curves into a challenge. “I like confidence. Just make sure your riding backs it up.”
“Always does.”
Rex turns his attention back to me. “Word is you've been making moves. Building something legit.”
I tense. The Wolves have eyes everywhere in Silverpoint. “We’re trying to do good by the community.”
“Noble work.” He says it without mockery. “Your old man must love that.”
“My old man can go to hell.”
Rex grins and claps me on the shoulders. “Heard that too. Hammond's boy going rogue.” He crosses his arms, leather stretching across his shoulders. “Must be complicated, trying to build something new while carrying that name.”
“You know I changed it.”
“We’ll see if it sticks.” He doesn’t blink.
I shift the conversation to neutral ground. “When can I bring you the R7 for the custom paint?”
Rex looks at his crew, then back at me. “We're booked until next month, but I can squeeze you in for a surplus fee, of course.”
“Worth it. Should we race for a discount?”
“You wish.” Rex's grin widens. “That business is all above board. You'll even get an invoice.”
He walks back toward his men. They part and reform around him like water.
Ethan stares after them. “Damn, their paint jobs are incredible.”
“Yeah,” Logan agrees, “But I don't feel comfortable being so close to them. They're not exactly tame.”
“Pretty much.” Rex swings his leg over the Harley with the ease of someone born on a bike.
Logan's watching the Wolves mount up in formation. “You think he knows about the Hammond situation? Your father's games?”
“Rex knows everything worth knowing in this city.” I tear my gaze away. “That's what makes the Wolves dangerous and useful. They keep in touch with whatever affects the city.”
The horn blares. First race. Emma's face won't leave, the way she looked at me. Like I deserved it.
I need speed. Nothing else has worked tonight.
“I’m in,” I say, heading for the garage I keep on-site. “And I’m not here to place.”
Logan and Ethan exchange a look. They know what that means. Tonight isn't about winning. It is about going fast enough that I cannot think.
“I swing onto the Yamaha, and the engine screams to life beneath me. The vibration climbs my spine and settles in my teeth. I pull up between Logan and Ethan at the starting line. I have my helmet on and my visor down. I am anonymous.
“So,” I say through the comm system. “What are we betting?”
“Loser buys breakfast,” Ethan suggests.
“Booooring,” Logan counters. “The loser has to admit the other two are better riders. In writing. Posted to the group chat.”
I grin inside my helmet. “You two are going to regret this.”
“Big words from someone who's about to eat my dust,” Logan shoots back.
The start girl steps forward. She raises the green flag, and the world narrows to the track ahead and the moment between here and gone.
The flag drops.
I twist the throttle, and the Yamaha slams me back. It is a beautiful violence of controlled power. I hit the first turn doing ninety. It is too fast. It is exactly fast enough.
I lean into it, my knee nearly scraping the asphalt. The bike responds to my weight and my muscle memory. The turn opens up, and I gun it down the straightaway. The wind tears at my jacket, and the engine howls. This is what I needed. Speed that demands everything.
Ethan pulls ahead on the straight. Logan tucks in behind him, drafting and waiting.
I stay wide, taking the outside line into the next turn.
It is riskier and longer, but I nail the curve.
The Yamaha holds the line as if she is on rails.
I come out of the turn with momentum that launches me past both of them.
“Show-off,” Logan’s voice crackles in my ear.
“You are just jealous,” I shoot back.
We weave through obstacles at speed, oil drums and wooden pallets left in the industrial zone. This is the illegal part, the part that would get us arrested if the police patrolled this far out. It is the part that makes it worth coming here.
Logan makes his move on the back stretch, cutting inside on a turn I didn't think had an inside line. Suddenly, it is the two of us neck and neck, engines screaming. We cross the finish line at over one hundred miles per hour.
I don't know who won. I don't care.
The high is still singing in my blood as I ease off the throttle. We coast to a stop, and I pull off my helmet. My hair is soaked with sweat. Logan and Ethan are already off their bikes, grinning.
“Photo finish,” Ethan announces, checking the race footage on his phone. “You and Logan crossed within a tenth of a second. I came in a full two-tenths behind.”
“So are you writing the confession?” I ask.
Ethan flips me off. “Yeah, yeah. Logan and Kai are superior riders and I am but a humble peasant on two wheels.”
“Don't forget the group chat,” Logan adds.
“I hate you both.”
“No, you don't,” I say.
“True. But I reserve the right to complain.”
The adrenaline carries me all the way home. I shower, pour a whiskey, and sit in the darkness of my living room. Maddox’s email is still sitting in my inbox. I have been avoiding it, telling myself I would rather learn who she is from her own lips.
I open it.
The first page is the standard employment history, education, and credit score. Nothing flagged. I scroll down to the family section.
I set down my glass and read the lines again.
Shit.