Chapter 3 Chapter 3

Isolde

At 8:58, I sat in Dad's old hoodie in the Crown Dynamics visitor lot with the engine off and both hands wrapped around the steering wheel.

The steering wheel still felt cold beneath my bare palms.

The gates stood open. I could drive through them, take Macaulay Ruiz's job, and live under the roof of the man who believed Dad tried to kill him.

Or I could put the car in reverse and lose the garage.

Nix had said Mac's file could prove Dad's innocence. That was reason enough to walk into a trap.

The glass building rose beyond the lot. Somewhere inside sat the file that might explain why Dad had gone to prison and never come home.

At 9:07, I got out of the car.

A security guard escorted me through the lobby, my boots squeaking against the polished floor, then took me to the top level and handed me off to a man at a white desk outside a pair of frosted glass doors.

JULIAN PRYCE, EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT, read the nameplate.

He wore a vest and tie in the middle of summer, and he looked up at me over thin silver glasses like I'd tracked something in on my boots.

“Deliveries are on the first floor.”

“I’m not a delivery. I’ve got a nine o’clock with your boss.”

He looked me over again, slower. “Ah. Miss Smith.” He said my name like a diagnosis. “You were expected seven minutes ago. Though I suppose punctuality isn’t much of a priority in your line of work.”

“My line of work?” I leaned both hands on his desk. “You mean driving faster than you’ll ever have the guts to? Let me guess. You fetch his coffee and guard his door, and somewhere along the way you started thinking that made you important. Sweetie, I’ve met tire irons with more personality.”

His ears went red, and he seemed to shrink an inch in his expensive chair.

“Ms. Smith.” Mac’s voice carried through the half-open door. “In here.”

I walked into an office of glass and gray stone, with a desk the size of my kitchen.

“I’ll thank you not to insult my assistant,” Mac said from the window.

I glared at his back. “He was rude first.”

He didn’t answer or turn around. He stood looking down at the track with his hands in his pockets, and since he wasn’t looking at me, I let myself look at him.

He’d shed the jacket this morning, and the white shirt fit his shoulders like it had been sewn onto him, tucked into charcoal slacks that sat low on his hips. He’d rolled his sleeves to the elbow. His forearms were tanned and corded with muscle, a vein standing out along the inside of his wrist beneath his watch. Driver’s arms. Arms that had wrestled a car through turns at speeds that would kill most people.

My mouth went dry, and a slow heat pooled low in my stomach.

What the hell is wrong with you? I bit the inside of my cheek hard enough to hurt. This was the man who’d put Dad in a cell. A good pair of forearms didn’t change that. Half the women in this city would trip over themselves for one look from him. I refused to be another one.

When he finally turned, his gaze went straight to my hoodie. His mouth flattened, and one dark brow lifted.

“You’re seven minutes late,” he said, calmly.

“Traffic.”

“You arrived at 8:58. You sat there for nine minutes deciding whether to come in.” He crossed to the desk, and I watched for the hitch in his left leg and found it. “Those seven minutes are going on your debt, at my hourly rate.”

I stared at him. “You’re kidding.”

“I never kid, Ms. Smith. Have a seat.”

I dropped into the chair across from him hard enough to make it roll back an inch. He sat and leaned back, and his shirt pulled tight across his chest in a way I flatly refused to notice.

He slid a thick contract across the desk with two fingers. “My terms.”

I read slowly at first, mostly to annoy him. His fingers started tapping against the armrest, and I enjoyed that far too much. Then the words began sinking in.

The contract gave me a position as a development driver for Crown Dynamics, valid for one season. Every cent I earned went toward Dad’s debt. I’d drive whatever car he assigned, whenever he decided. I’d follow company rules, right down to how I dressed. If I broke any of them, the full three hundred and eighty thousand came due, and the garage went with it.

The contract built a cage around me, yet it put me inside Crown every day. And somewhere in this glass palace, there might be proof of dad’s innocence. Victor had made sure I’d never stand on the Grand’s starting line. A man like Mac could make sure I did.

I reached the appearance clause and looked up. “What does this mean?”

“It means you’ll dress like you work here.” His gaze moved from the frayed cuffs of my hoodie to my boots. “I don’t employ urchins, Ms. Smith. I employ professionals.”

Heat crawled up my neck. This was Dad’s hoodie. I’d raced in it every night for two years because it still smelled faintly like his garage, and now Macaulay Ruiz wanted that too.

“You bought my debt,” I said. “You didn’t buy my closet.”

“Read the contract again. I believe I did.”

I looked back down at the pages so he wouldn’t see my face.

“There’s nothing in here about racing,” I said.

“You’ll race when I say.”

“No.” I picked up the pen and flipped to the last page. In the margin, in my worst handwriting, I wrote it out.

Crown Dynamics enters Isolde Smith in the open qualifying bracket for the Midnight Grand. No ladies’ heat. No substitutions.

Mac read it. Something moved in his face before the corner of his mouth lifted. I liked that a lot less than his anger.

“Victor will hate this,” he said.

“That’s the point.”

“Fine. You’ll get your bracket. And when you crash out in the first round, you’ll still owe me every cent.” He initialed the clause, quick and careless, like it cost him nothing.

I signed before I could think better of it.

He squared the pages and set them aside without looking at them again, like I’d already been filed.

“Julian will send you the work clothing,” he said, turning back to his screen. “Be on the track at five a.m tomorrow. Not five-oh-seven.”

At the door, I stopped. “You should know something. I’m not here for you.”

He didn’t look up. “I know exactly why you’re here, Isolde.”

It was the first time he’d used my name. The sound went down my spine like cold water, then settled there like heat. I walked out of his office without knowing which of us had just won.