Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 105813 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 529(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 353(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105813 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 529(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 353(@300wpm)
She turned away and faced the back wall, her voice quiet. “You can always find a Ducati if you’re looking for a distraction, Evader Man. But in matters of revenge, looking for distractions often signifies a change of heart.”
The keypad beeped, and the lift ascended. When the concrete shaft swallowed the top of the elevator, she folded at the waist and grabbed her ankles. Her upside down smile flashed between her boots as she wiggled her fingers at me. “Toodles.”
I stood there for a moment, rankled and defensive, with no one around to engage in the argument I itched for. I spun, strode across the garage, and stopped before the coal furnace in the wall and the newspaper article framed above it.
The clipping featured a photo of my mother crouched on her Honda CB750. Blue eyes shining, brown hair pulled back in a messy ponytail, she smiled with pride and vivacity and heart.
I was thirty-two now, so the article was printed…nineteen years ago. Long damned time without her. That morning was my last joyous memory of her. I’d stood just outside the frame of the picture, dazzled and stupefied as the cameras clicked.
My eyes lowered to the text, scanning the words for the millionth time as an achy burn tightened my throat.
LA resident, Maura Flynt, was inducted into the Motorcycle Hall of Fame after a trailblazing career as a pro superbike racer, Hollywood stunt rider, and exhibition daredevil, rivaling the likes of Evel Knievel.
My hands fisted at my sides. That night, she was murdered in our hotel room while I hid beneath the bed. That night, my thirteen-year-old dreams morphed from racing in the World Championship Grand Prix to filling Hell with the gutted targets of my revenge.
In matters of revenge, looking for distractions often signifies a change of heart.
Benny didn’t know revenge. It didn’t claw at her underbelly and wake her in a feverish sweat at night. But she knew me, and she subscribed to justice and family. I was her family as much as she was mine.
We’d worked side-by-side in this garage since we graduated from MIT eight years earlier. Her, developing and expanding on my ideas. Me, following my mother’s leads and…revenging.
My first kill was the assassin who’d sliced my mother’s throat. Took me five years to hunt him down and thirty seconds to open his neck the way he’d butchered hers.
I placed my hand against the incinerator door and let the heat soak into my palm. Eight more bodies had joined his fiery grave. I killed killers, rapists, career criminals, all of them named in my mother’s diary. All of them tied to Trenchant Media. And I wasn’t done.
But we needed money. We always needed money. Especially the way my sole employee raped my wallet.
A grin tugged at my mouth. Benny was worth every dime. To fund my endeavors and her salary, she’d designed the underground racing network and the untraceable technology that protected its secret society of gamblers, thus giving Evader a profitable platform.
Of course, no one knew who launched and maintained the network, but because the winner always advanced to the next race and I’d never lost, Evader had become the racing icon.
If I lost? Well, besides evading death at the hands of pissed-off gamblers, I’d lose my income stream, my high-paid employee, and the resources needed to finish what I’d started.
My attention flicked back to the newspaper clipping. I wasn’t looking for a distraction, and I sure as hell hadn’t had a change of heart. Revenge wasn’t an emotion. It was my inheritance, the acting force that lived in my blood and sustained my balance. It was my equilibrium.
Revenge.
I raced to finance it.
I evaded to protect it.
I killed to attain it.
I planned everything.
Once Trent Anderson announced his replacement as CEO of Trenchant Media, I would be there, donned in a suit, staring into his eyes, and smiling as I accepted the offer.
Then I would gut him, all of them, from the inside out.
6
Kaci
Six long days passed, my waking hours spent in the office, spurts of sleep coming only when I forced it. But finally, I shed the miserable heels and the creep of Trent’s fingers, if only for a fleeting night.
I weaved the Ducati through convoys of bikers, my skin heating beneath the tight mold of my custom leathers. Hundreds had gathered around the finish line, the sputter of exhaust pipes resonating with the wild pumping of my blood.
A potluck of young men with crew cuts and athletic physiques reclined on enduros, sportbikes, busas, and zooks in a colorful array of fairings and racing leathers. These were the guys who longed to race but would probably never find the balls to throw down against a competitor like Evader.
On the other side of the street, tattooed, bearded brutes and their voluptuous women straddled choppers and cruisers. As I passed, their fuck-off vibes and explicit banter strained the chilly air and crawled down my spine.