Victory tastes different when you're limping across the finish line with your ankle screaming and your conscience heavy enough to drown in.
I push through the front door with an envelope full of cash in my jacket and a limp I can't quite hide. One more race, just one, and the debt is finished.
Two years of risking my neck on that circuit, two years of paying for my father's sins with speed and recklessness, and after tonight I'm finally free.
But freedom came with a cost.
I hit the gas too early on the final turn, felt the car shudder beneath me as I overcorrected, twisted my ankle hard enough against the pedal that white spots exploded behind my eyes.
The pain is manageable now, minor, really, nothing that won't heal in a few days, but every step sends a dull ache radiating up my leg that I can't completely mask.
Serena is coming down the stairs when I walk in. She stops halfway, her hand frozen on the banister, those grey-green eyes traveling over me with the precision of a surgeon cataloging damage.
The limp, the bulge of the envelope visible through my jacket, the evidence of exactly what I've been doing while she slept.
Her expression hardens into something cold and unforgiving.
She doesn't say a word. Just continues past me toward the door, grabbing her jacket from the hook with sharp, deliberate movements that speak louder than any accusation.
"Where are you going?"
"Out." The word falls flat between us, stripped of warmth or explanation.
"Serena."
"I'm seeing Lucas." She shrugs on her jacket without looking at me. "Not that it's any of your business."
I move before I can think better of it, stepping between her and the door, blocking her path with my body despite the protest from my injured ankle.
"You're not going anywhere near him tonight."
"Excuse me?" Her chin lifts, defiance blazing in her eyes. "You don't get to tell me what to do."
"Rachel hasn't answered any of my calls or texts since yesterday."
I keep my voice steady, controlled, even as dread coils tighter in my chest.
"She's gone silent, Serena. Completely. And you want to run off to Lucas like nothing's wrong?"
"Maybe she just doesn't want to talk to you." Serena's voice drips with acid. "Did you consider that? Maybe she's tired of being dragged into your schemes without her consent."
"My schemes?"
"You sent her to warn me." The accusation lands with the force of a thrown punch. "Behind my back, without asking, like I'm some helpless weakling who can't handle her own problems. That wasn't your decision to make."
I seize on her words, something sharp and urgent cutting through my anger. "What do you mean, warn you? What happened?"
"Nothing happened."
"Serena."
She hesitates, and I watch the internal battle play across her features—the pride warring with something darker, something she doesn't want to admit. Her shoulders drop half an inch, the fight draining out of her posture.
"Lucas saw me talking to Rachel at the restaurant." Her voice comes quieter now, stripped of its earlier venom. "He got upset. Lost his temper for a second."
"Lost his temper, how?"
"He snapped at me, okay?"
She crosses her arms over her chest, a defensive shield against the concern she must see in my eyes.
"Told me to stay away from her. But he apologized right after. He explained that he knows those people, knows what they're capable of, and he just wants to protect me from their influence."
Protect you. The words taste like poison in my mouth.
"And you believed him?"
"Of course he was upset."
She's rationalizing now, I can hear it in the way her voice strains toward conviction she doesn't fully feel.
"Everyone keeps interfering, keeps trying to sabotage us. Rachel showing up like that, whispering in my ear—he had every right to be frustrated."
"Come sit down." I reach for her hand, and she doesn't pull away. "Please."
Something in my tone must break through her defenses, because she lets me guide her to the couch without argument. We sink onto the cushions together, the space between us charged with everything we're not saying.
"Rachel hasn't just been ignoring me."
I keep her hand in mine, my thumb tracing absent patterns across her knuckles.
"I drove to her apartment yesterday. Her car wasn't there. The place was dark. I tried reaching out to some of her friends, carefully, without raising suspicion, and nobody knows where she is. Or they won't say."
Serena's face pales, the color draining from her cheeks as the implications settle over her.
"You think something happened to her."
"I think Lucas is involved." The words hang heavy in the air between us. "I don't have proof, but the timing is too convenient. She talks to you, he loses his temper, and suddenly she vanishes without a trace?"
"That doesn't mean…" She stops herself, the automatic defense dying on her lips. I watch doubt creep into her eyes like ink spreading through water, darkening everything it touches.
"I know you want to believe he's not capable of this."
I soften my voice, dropping the manipulation, the ultimatums, everything except the raw truth I've been trying to make her see for months.
"I know it's easier to think I'm the one lying, that I'm the villain in this story. But something is wrong, Serena. You feel it too."
She doesn't answer. She doesn't need to—the fear written across her face says everything.
"Don't go anywhere tonight."
I squeeze her hand gently, an anchor instead of a cage.
"For your own safety. Just until we figure out what's happening. Tell Lucas you're feeling unwell, make up whatever excuse you need—but stay away from him. Please."
The please costs me something. It always does, asking instead of demanding, trusting instead of controlling.
Serena looks at me for a long moment, searching my face for deception she won't find. Then she nods, once, the movement small but certain.
"Okay."
Her hand remains in mine. Neither of us pulls away.
The moment stretches between us, fragile and quiet, something almost like peace settling over the tension that's defined us for so long.
I let myself breathe, let the knot in my chest loosen just slightly, let hope take root in the barren soil of everything we've been fighting.
Then a knock shatters the stillness.
We both tense, the peace evaporating like morning fog.
I rise from the couch, positioning myself between Serena and the door, every muscle coiled for confrontation despite the pain still throbbing in my ankle.
Another knock—frantic this time, desperate.
Rachel's voice comes from the other side, thin and shaking with barely contained terror.
"Caleb? Please. I need help."