“It’s fine.” I wave her off instantly, despite half of me still being irritated about it. It’s not a new fascination, but it makes things infinitely more frustrating when her face is all over his bedroom. “He can like her.”
“Well, I don’t.” She goes into the kitchen like that’s the end of the conversation.
Vinicio sets down his wineglass, reaching out a hand toward her shoulder. “Maria.”
She shakes him off at the same time as Chiara warns, “Massimo…” but I’m already up from the table, halfway there.
“Why not?” I ask my mother’s back, not buying her sudden need to organize the folded hand towels in the drawer next to the stove. “What’s she done that’s so terrible?”
Mom slams the drawer shut, no one in the kitchen breathing. Her bedside manner has won her awards, but when she pivots to face me, all I see in her eyes is the same iron will I have. Fighting the fatigue I’m sure she’s feeling after working a double—though she never, ever complains about being tired. “She dives for you. And I don’t have to like anyone who endangers my son.”
“It’s what we do.” Every word is slow, strangled as I fight to keep from snapping at my mother. “Everyone dives for everyone. That’s racing.”
She doesn’t budge, doesn’t blink, and she and I both know that isn’t the real reason she has a problem with Lorina. But we can’t fight about the truth until I give her a reason, and I’m not going to. Not yet.
My phone dings loudly in my pocket, and my mom throws her hand up like that’s my fault, turning away and grabbing Vinicio’s wineglass. I sigh and pull my phone out to read the text message from the number I was half expecting but still detest with every bone in my body.
You’re late.
My eyes meet Chiara’s over my shoulder, and she already knows what’s happening, why I’m shoving my phone into my pocket with more irritation than should be able to fit inside my body. I walk away from my scowling mother and head to the opposite kitchen counter where Chiara’s purse is set.
“Seriously,” she says, not bothering to stop me when she comes up to my side. I’m already digging through the pockets, trying to find her car keys. “Now?”
“Yes. Now.”
“Massimo,” my mom complains behind me, “we haven’t even eaten yet. You know how much your brother looks forward to you being here for—”
“I’m already late, and if I’m any later, I’m going to have to—”
“Okay, okay!” she concedes, but only because she can’t hear me say it. We allude to it, but we don’t outright discuss it, because I don’t think she likes the fact that she agreed. But it was my idea to sacrifice myself so that she and Dario were safe, and I’m not debating it with her anymore. It’s done.
Chiara is another battle.
“You know, it’s a really, really bad day when I have to pretend to be the responsible one,” she whispers. At least we’re out of range of my mother, currently frowning at her husband as Vinicio rubs her arms and shoulders, quietly saying something to her I can’t make out. “But I know what you’re doing, Massimo, and you’re paying him off too fast. Like you’re counting on win bonuses from races you haven’t even run yet.”
“Where are your keys?” I’ve been through every pocket, every nook, and I can’t find them anywhere. No way could she have lost them already.
Chiara reaches behind her and holds them up with a derisive smirk, dangling them in front of me. “What I really can’t believe is that it was your terrible idea instead of mine for once.” I reach for the keys, and she yanks them back, her voice going sharp. “You do realize you’re doing exactly what he did, and you’re risking us now?”
“You’re fine.” I turn toward my stepfather, my mother avoiding my presence as she opens the oven and checks inside again. Vinicio digs in his pocket and tosses me a set of keys, and I’m out of here. He knows I have to do this, that every single person in this house is at risk if I don’t. We already lost the shop over this. There won’t be a house for them if I don’t go right now.
It’s three short steps to the door to the garage, to Vinicio’s moto, and three different voices saying my name behind me: “Massimo…”
The third one stops me in place, so much regret slamming through my veins that I’m nearly sick with it. I look back at my little brother, disappointment painting his face until it hardens in an icy stare. “Bye.”
His voice is deeper than it was the last time I was home, and it kills me that I’m hurting the person who least deserves it. But I can’t bring myself to tell him why I have to go. If everything goes according to plan, he’ll never have to worry about this kind of stuff. He’ll never know how close he was to it his whole childhood.
“Happy birthday, Brother.” I offer him a smile, but he doesn’t return it.
With one angry push of his arm, he propels his wheelchair out of the room. Probably to go break the phone I got him. But I can still give him this. I head out into the garage, resigning myself to what this is gonna cost me, in all the different ways that keep adding up.
Grabbing my helmet and my jacket from the pegboard on the wall, I thread my arms through the sleeves before I take out my phone and hook in my earbuds. Cue up my Tedua playlist, then slide on my helmet and swing my leg over Vinicio’s moto. The engine starts with a throaty growl that matches my mood, and it’s only another few seconds before I’m pulling out of the garage and onto the street where I first learned how to ride a moto. And how much it hurts when you wreck one.
Our oldest neighbor waves at me from where he’s watering his garden, the rest of the area quiet but still lined with parked cars. I dodge a few opening doors as I merge out of my mother’s neighborhood and onto the highway that curves around my city, and it won’t be long now.
Trying to stay calm, I ride the beats and rhythm of the music playing through my earbuds, and I relax into the come and go of the lazy Ravenna traffic. Flip up my face shield, but the nearby sea is barely more than a taste of salt on the wind. I sit back, steering with my knees and reaching my hands out toward the buildings stretching above me: old pizzerias and new nail salons, petrol stations and bookshops. But they’re not as tall as the stadiums of Argentina, of Austin, of Jerez. The world is too quiet, too—the endless homes packed into the circular echoes of the heart of the city eerily silent.
Soon, though, the houses and businesses will carry something else between them. Baptisteries. Opera houses. Basilicas. Mausoleums. More echoes, but of another time—like my father’s moto shop, coming up on my left, and now a high-end furniture store.
I avert my eyes as I pull off into an alley, slowing for the foot traffic as I approach the piazza. People are strolling, some riding bicycles, most unwinding at the restaurant tables lining half of the cobblestone side street. I’m not really supposed to ride my moto through here, but it’s faster.
“Hey, look! Go, Massimo!” someone calls from one of the tables, followed by a few whistles and a spattering of claps—a quiet purr of the beast that only really comes to life in grand stadiums. Still, I pump my fist as I cruise by to a growing cheer from my hometown fans.
They’re on their feet by the time I hit the end of the alley, drawing the attention of not just the whole piazza but also the cops walking around. Shit. The local police love me for all the wrong reasons, and if they stop me, they’re searching me. And I can’t get searched with what’s in my back pocket.
I flip down my face shield and pop my clutch through the turn, easily doubling the speed limit as I cut through one alley, then another, checking to make sure I lost the cops and the trail of fans before I slow down, circling back. I’m a couple of blocks away from the piazza but not far enough with the way it’s already bristling with life, not that it ever really stops.
A few businesses down from where I’m headed, I finally find a spot to park. Across from a brand-new Maserati GranCabrio th
at’s practically got my name on it, and the ride here was not long enough to prepare me for this. But it never is. I cut off my moto’s engine, the sound sucking out of the world. Kill my playlist, too, reminding myself to stay in control. But fuck this guy.
My helmet is heavy in my hand the whole walk across the street and into the building for my accountant, his receptionist looking up at me from her desk—all smooth dark-brown skin and a warm, inviting smile because she hasn’t worked for her dick of a boss long enough to realize she should’ve quit already. “He’s waiting for you, Mr. Vitolo.”
I nod politely, not trusting my voice to say more than a stuttered, “Thanks.” His receptionists are the only ones who ever call me that. And it feels so freaking weird when my father is the whole reason I’m even here, but she doesn’t know that.
I don’t bother knocking. I blow through the closed office door, hoping to startle the hell out of Gabriele. But the prick is the picture of peace: stretched casually back in the tufted leather chair behind his desk, his arms laced behind his graying head, and not a single wrinkle in his custom-made suit. “Massimo,” he oozes out, his hands extending toward me and cuff links sparkling under the light of vintage lamps. “My favorite client.”
I shut the door, my temper threatening to get the best of me as I sit across from him. But I blow out a long stream of air through my nose, trying to harness the calm focus instilled in me by years of moto training—the mental game separating the simply fast from the professionals.
Gabriele leans forward at an antique desk that looks like he swiped it from Buckingham Palace. Then he starts moving his hand over a fancy mouse to an even fancier computer, and I hate him. So much.
“Let’s see where we’re at, yeah?” He nods at me like he doesn’t already know exactly how much of my father’s debts are still overdue and how much I owe Gabriele just for the simple, illegal act of moving the estate from my mother’s name into my own.
But after everything I’d done to try to save the shop—failing in the end—I couldn’t stand it when they tried to take the house. I couldn’t look at my brother and tell him the only home he’s ever known was no longer his. And it wasn’t fair to my mom; what did she do besides trust my father and then lose him?
I still can’t bring myself to blame him for the mess of his estate: the debts, the taxes, how far behind it got, and so fast. I know it wasn’t all his fault. But it wasn’t my mother’s fault either. And it wasn’t fair to Dario.
So I bribed Gabriele to move the estate and all the debt to me, and he’s been bleeding me dry under the table for the privilege ever since.
“Okay, so with the garnishment from your last race—congratulations, by the way—plus the additional amount you just put toward the principle, this is what you still owe.” He turns the screen toward me, and I scoff heartily. I hoped that moving up to MotoPro would help, but I barely moved the needle at all. “Interest,” he says with a smirk, like it’s a joke. “But keep winning races, and we probably won’t be seeing that much more of each other. Could be done by the end of this season maybe.”
“That’s my plan.”
He stiffens a little, the mortgage on his wife’s vacation villa in Lake Como and the payment on the sports car outside probably feeling a lot heavier than they did a moment ago. “Well, I’m rooting for you, buddy.” He grins and points at me, but the movements are all jerky, and it makes me feel a fucking ton better that he’s already sweating over what he’s gonna do when the money I risk my life for is no longer his discretionary fund.
“Thanks,” I bite out, a sharp smile right behind it. I slam my helmet down on his desk, and Gabriele jumps this time. I slowly rise, pulling a folded envelope from my back pocket and tossing it onto his desk.
He glances toward the wall where his receptionist sits on the other side, young and beautiful and painfully unaware. He takes the envelope, peeking inside and thumbing through the thick stack of bills. When he’s finished counting, he slides the envelope into his top desk drawer before looking up at me with a grin. “Was glad to hear from my nephew the other day. Says he’s really enjoying the circuit so far.”
I tilt my head at the taunt. Getting his nephew a job on my pit crew is only the latest perk he’s squeezed out of my career. Payback for his discovery that I have Chiara on my payroll as my social media manager slash personal stylist.
The garnishment was taking nearly everything I had, and with Gabriele taking all that was left, I needed a way to hide some money or we were gonna end up on the freaking streets. Gabriele was furious. He can’t touch anything in Chiara’s name, and he spooked hard at the idea of being caught by the authorities. But Chiara isn’t going to report him, and at least his nephew knows his way around a moto, which I made sure of before I officially requested him.
“Remember,” Gabriele warns, his voice dropping. “This stays between us. Not a word to him or anyone else from here on about our arrangement, or I’m considering you in default.”
Default. His private word for invalidating the forged estate rejection my mother signed years after legally allowed, and he filed to declare me the sole beneficiary. If that paper disappears, all the debts transfer back into my mother’s name, and all her assets become subject to seizure: her car, her house, and my brother’s whole sense of security.
“What’s the matter, man?” I smirk at him. “It’s not like you’re doing anything wrong.” I slide my helmet off his desk, directly into the picture of him and his wife on a yacht. The frame falls and crashes on the tile floor, and I throw open his office door and leave it gaping behind me, only slightly enjoying the mumbled curses flowing out of the room and the clatter of glass hitting a waste bin.
“Have a good night, Mr. Vitolo.” The receptionist smiles, and I smile and nod back but forget her face as soon as I leave the building.
There’s only one that matters at the end of all this.
I check around once I’m outside, but no one’s close by or seemed to recognize me yet on the dark street. I walk down and spit on the door handle to Gabriele’s car, then cross the street and slide on my helmet before I swing my leg over Vinicio’s moto, everything in me ready to go.
As long as I keep playing this smart, there’s no reason I shouldn’t be finished with Gabriele by the time I take the checkered flag in Valencia. So Lorina better watch herself in Argentina, because I’m done fucking around.
GRAN PREMIO DE LA REPÚBLICA ARGENTINA
Termas de Río Hondo, Sunday, March 31
Pos
Pts
Rider
Time
World Rank
1
25
Billy KING
41’48.448
38
2
20
Lorelai HARGROVE
1.013
40
3
16
Santos SAUCEDO
1.853
32
4
13
Massimo VITOLO
6.471
38
5
11
Cristiano ARELLANO
8.652
21
6
10
Mason KING
9.336
21
7
9
Deven HORSLEY
12.710
15
8
8
Gregorio PAREDES
15.916
13
9
7
Elliston LAMBIRTH
17.068
15
10
6
Giovanni MARCHESA
23.942
15
11
5
Aurelio LOGGIA
26.381
9
12
4
Fredek SULZBACH
29.883
7
13
3
Donato MALDONADO
34.456
5
14
2
Harleigh ELIN
39.262
9
15
1
Timo GONZALES
44.198
1
16
Rainier HERRE
48.349
0
Wreckless Page 3