Page 11 of Redline
Marco winced. "That one. Got it."
"Don’t worry," Luka added, leaning back in just enough to catch my eye with a knowing, annoying glint. "She’ll be replaced soon. But currently, she’s very invested in the audition process."
Aren’t they all.
I didn’t dignify that with a reply. I watched Luka jog back to the car. Carter leaned toward the window as he approached, saying something that made Luka laugh out loud before he climbed in.
I watched them pull away, that cheap engine rattling against the clean, expensive hum of the estate.
Marco wiped his hands on a rag, eyes still on the dust cloud where the sedan had disappeared. He’d been here longer than anyone—long enough that nothing about me surprised him anymore. "Seems like your new coach isn’t the only one in the family who knows their way around a car," he said.
That hit exactly where he meant it to. I didn't give him the satisfaction of a flinch. I didn’t even blink. If I gave him a single twitch of a muscle, he’d know he was winning.
Instead, I stared at the empty space where the car had been.
Carter Hayes.
Even with those ridiculous sunglasses, she was a violent disruption to my landscape. Blonde hair pulled back in a messy knot that looked like it was losing a fight, and green eyes that didn't just look at me—they challenged me to exist. Most people looked at a Valerio like we were the sun. She looked at me like I was an oil leak she had to clean up.
A sudden, sharp tug pulled in the center of my chest.
I stiffened, my hand dropping to my side, fingers curling into a tight, hidden fist.Not now.I waited for the familiar, hollowness to spread down my arm, for the residual tremor to take over my grip.
“Get back to work,” I told him, my voice flat and lethal. "The suspension," I added, my tone now coming out like crushed glass. "Fix it. I don’t care if you have to rebuild the entire front end."
Marco just grinned like he’d won a prize.
I turned on my heel, walking toward the main house before Marco could see the way I was surreptitiously shaking out my right hand.
The girl thought she was clever. She’d seen me at my most unfiltered—literally—and instead of being intimidated or charmed, she was flipping me off from the window of a car that sounded like a lawnmower. She was a contaminant. A blonde, foul-mouthed error in a system I had spent my entire life perfecting.
She wanted to play the unimpressed card? Fine.
I’d show her what it actually looked like to be in my world. I didn’t need another reminder of failure haunting me, and Icertainly didn't need a distraction with a sharp tongue and eyes that made my skin feel two sizes too small.
I headed for my father’s office, the tingling in my fingertips finally beginning to recede. She thought she could just drift through my estate and treat me like an inconvenience.
She was about to find out that when I stopped being a distraction, I became a problem. One she wasn't prepared to solve.
I walked into the office without knocking, the heavy oak door thudding against the stopper. Voices threaded out from the center of the room, warm and familiar in a way that made my skin itch.
"—happy to be here," Landon Hayes was saying. "Dominic has immense talent. I just want to help refine—"
"Only an hour late," Father intercepted, his eyes flicking to the clock on the wall, then to me. "It might be a record."
I didn't apologize. I hadn't planned on showing up at all.
A coach. As if I needed a washed-up driver to tell me how to handle a machine I understood better than my own pulse. I had an entire engineering department and a race strategist with more trophies than common sense. You make one mistake—one skid that felt more like a neurological short-circuit than a driver error—and suddenly the solution is a charity hire.
"Dominic," Landon Hayes said, rising partway. He had that easy, practiced athlete’s posture. "Good to finally meet properly. You know... fully clothed and all."
He laughed. It was a good-natured sound, but to my ears, it was a siren. He was referencing the first morning. And the girl who was currently driving away with my brother after treating me like an annoying roadside attraction.
I let the silence hang. I didn't smile. I didn't offer a polite chuckle. I just let the air in the room grow thin and suffocating until his laugh died a slow, awkward death.
He extended a hand. I stared at it—at the callouses and the aging skin—then looked him dead in the eye, letting the moment stretch until it thinned into something sharp. I didn't take it.
Father cleared his throat—that low, disappointed vibration that usually preceded a lecture. "Work with him, Dominic. Landon’s here because you need focus. Discipline."
