Page 167 of Blood & Throttle

None of the other districts or races shook her.

But this place? This zone of concrete, decay, and crawling tension?

It gets in your blood.

The Syndicate built this whole thing like a war compound. Reinforced gates. Steel fences wrapped in razor wire. Watchtowers, drones, motion sensors. Racers are herded like cattle. Guards shout orders. Handlers make their rounds with clipboards and guns strapped tight. This isn’t a welcome. It’s a warning.

The bus hisses to a stop behind us and doors creak open.

Bishop is the first one out, boots hitting pavement like he’s ready to square up with whatever comes next. Luca follows, shielding his eyes from the neon glow of a broken sign that readsDEADMOORin cracked, flickering red. Ghost steps out last, eyes scanning every corner like he expects to get shot on sight.

A streak of red muscle darts between them.

Taz bolts down the cracked sidewalk, nails clicking, her thick frame weaving through racers and handlers. She barrels straight toward Sin with ears perked and tail wagging like she hasn’t seen her in weeks.

Sin bends at the knees and rubs under her chin, whispering something I can’t hear.

It softens something tight in my chest.

Luca slings his duffel over his shoulder. “Place smells like a corpse.”

Bishop snorts. “That’s because it is one.”

“I give it twelve hours before one of us gets shot for breathing wrong,” Ghost mutters.

I glance over. “Try not to breathe so loud then.”

“Not helpful, Carter.”

Taz finally trots back to the group, brushing past my leg as I flick ash to the ground. Sin lingers a beat longer, watching the other racers—quiet, observant. She clocks every movement, every face. I know that look. I’ve seen it in the mirror.

She’s locking it down.

“Carter. Vega,” a voice barks across the lot.

A Syndicate handler steps up, all square jaw and storm-gray uniform, clipboard in hand, scar like a knife slash across one brow. “Room twelve. Bunker level three. Gear check is zero six hundred. Surveillance is live. Don’t test it.”

I crush the cigarette beneath my boot and nod once. “Got it.”

The handler doesn’t wait, he spins and walks off, barking more assignments at another group of racers.

I turn to Sin. She’s staring past the checkpoint, jaw tight.

I step up behind her and grab the back of her neck, notrough, just enough pressure to ground her. To remind her I’m right fucking here.

“We’ve made it through worse,” I say low, voice just for her. “This? Just another graveyard to walk through.”

Her eyes flick to mine, bright with heat, sharp with something deeper. She steps a little closer, voice low but steady, coiled tight like a fuse ready to burn.

“I know. We got this,” she murmurs. “They should be the ones scared. After all… I’m the one riding with the Reaper himself.”

That earns a slow smirk from me. One she mirrors, just barely, like a secret we’re both in on. I lean in and kiss her—brief but hard—staking my claim like I’m sealing a vow in blood.

“Then stop worrying,” I mutter against her mouth. “You’re mine to protect. So trust me to fucking protect you.”

She breathes in deep, and I see it, that tension in her shoulders, that flicker of fear behind the fire. But she doesn’t let it win.

“We protect each other,” she says, firm. “That’s the deal.”