Page 7 of Broken Breath (Rogue Riders Duet #1)

He’s “Last Resort” by Papa Roach. Heavy, calculated, and full throttle. Every move he makes is practiced, as if he’s memorized the track in his bones, because Payne isn’t reckless. Still, he rides like he’s got nothing to lose.

Because he fucking hasn’t.

But he could be faster. He would be at least two seconds faster in each run if he’d take out some of the anger. Being angry makes him fast, yeah, but it also makes him push too hard in the wrong places. His melody is off. It’s not the right song for him.

Could I tell him that? Sure.

Will I? Absolutely the hell not .

Let the man suffer.

At the finish line, his bike kicks up dust as he brakes hard, and his time flashes on the screen, making Alaina suck in a breath because she just beat Mason Payne, two-time World Cup overall winner.

No one cheers for him, and there is no clapping. A few people even turn their backs, and not for the first time, I find myself thinking why the hell is that guy still racing?

“Twenty-one comes in second, missing the top spot by only 0.38 seconds to Crews!” The announcer booms.

This still means he beat me, so I shift again, moving from second place to third, making space for him.

Normally, this would be the moment where I’d bump fists with the guy overtaking me.

It’s just how it works, respect between riders, a quiet acknowledgment of the game, but I already forgot to do it with Alaina. And Payne?

Yeah. That’s not happening.

I don’t bump fists with rapists.

Not that he even looks my way. He doesn’t acknowledge Alaina either, just drops onto the seat, jaw tight, his eyes glued to the screen, tension rolling off him in waves because he knows exactly what’s coming. Two riders are left on the top.

Raine and Delacroix.

And if they ride like they usually do, they’re both going to wipe this podium clean. Which means Mason is going to be in fourth place. He won’t be in the top three for the first time in years. And from the way his gloved fingers flex, it’s obvious he’s not handling that well.

Being in fourth place never mattered to me. I’d made my peace with it a long time ago, but now it looks like I’m going to finish my last season in fifth, thanks to Alaina, and I don’t quite know how I feel about that.

Wait.

What the hell?

Why is Alaina racing Men’s and not Women’s?

The crowd erupts again, loud enough to jolt me out of my thoughts.

Shit! I blink, realizing I didn’t even see Raine ride. One second, I was caught up in my head, the next, he’s already across the line. I look up at the screen flashing with his time.

“Raine takes the lead! Crews is knocked off first place!”

He’s barely faster than Alaina.

I exhale sharply, shoving up from my seat.

Still, the hot seat is his now .

As I step off, I catch a muttered, “Fucker.”

It’s quiet, but not quiet enough. A single word, laced with so much bitterness it almost tastes like blood in the air. I glance back just in time to see Alaina shift over, making space for Raine in the leader’s seat. So it wasn’t aimed at me.

She curls her fingers into fists like she’s physically holding herself back from pummeling him. This isn’t about her losing a place on the podium or just frustration. It’s hatred.

I can’t say I like the guy either. The rivalry he had with Dane back in the day never stopped mattering to me, even after Dane left, but it’s more than that.

It’s the way he smirks when he sees me, like he took something from me, because he did in a way. So me losses don’t happen on the track.

Raine doesn’t even acknowledge Alaina as he takes his seat, like none of this is surprising, but she looks at him, and fuck, if looks could kill.

I scan the finish area until I spot Dane again, still standing off to the side, Alaina’s bike propped against the fence beside him. I don’t think. I just move, and by the time I reach Dane, my hand is already wrapping around his upper arm, yanking him away from the crowd.

“The fuck, Greer?” He stumbles, but I don’t slow down, just keep walking, dragging him with me.

He grumbles under his breath, adjusting his stride to keep up. “What the hell is your problem?”

I don’t answer, not with half the fucking circuit standing around, and not with cameras, racers, and reporters lurking. Not when I have about a thousand-fucking-questions ripping through my skull, and I need every single one answered now.

“All right, enough.” He yanks his arm back when we make it back to the gondola station. “Jesus, Finn, what the fuck is wrong with you?”

I guide him forward and shove him through the nearest door, my palm flat against his back as I force him inside the dim, sweat-stale locker room. The second we’re in, I scan for people. It smells like damp jerseys and exhaustion, but at least it’s empty.

Slamming the door shut behind us, I lock it.

Dane straightens, rubbing his arm where I grabbed him. “You wanna explain what the fuck that was?”

“ What the fuck that was? ” My voice rises as I turn to him. Is he fucking serious? I step toward him, my pulse pounding in my ears. “Bringing her here? Letting her race the men’s World Cup disguised as a guy? What the actual fuck ?”

Dane doesn’t even flinch. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Hell, he doesn’t even blink. He just crosses his arms over his chest, looking at me like I’m the one being unreasonable.

“Why?”

Dane just stares at me, and the following silence is thick and suffocating. I exhale sharply, dragging a hand through my hair before leveling my gaze at him. “Why would you let her do this?”

Dane still doesn’t answer, but I know him. I know him better than I know myself. His hands curl into fists at his sides, just like Alaina’s had. He’s physically holding the words in, and he needs to talk, but something, probably loyalty to his sister, is keeping him from it.

“You said I was still your best friend. You’re still mine, too, Dane.

Nothing changed. Us against the rest of the world, and yeah…

” I shake my head and let a slight smile tug at my lips, “… I count your Velcro little sister into that. I always have.” His shoulders go rigid, but I push on.

“I will not tell anybody. Not even her if you don’t want me to. You can talk to me, Dane.”

Dane’s arms stay crossed as he keeps silent, and it seems they’re the only thing holding him together, but I can tell he’s balancing on the edge of letting go.

I give him another pleading look, and finally, the tension in his shoulders loosens, the weight of whatever he’s holding pressing down too hard for him to keep carrying alone.

He blinks down at the floor, then drags a hand over his jaw. “We’re here because we think Isaac Raine fucked with Alaina’s bike before the crash.”

Dread washes over me. “What?”

Dane doesn’t look away. “You heard me.”

No. No, I fucking didn’t. Because that’s not possible.

“That’s…” I shake my head, “… that was a material failure. A Crews Bikes failure. Everyone said so. It’s why…”

Why the team shut down.

Why the factory closed.

Why Dane walked away from the sport, and I lost contact with my best friend.

And why Raine and his sister managed to grab the titles.

I drag my thumb across the corner of my mouth. Jesus.

“That’s what he made it look like, yes.” Dane watches me intently as it all clicks into place in my head, and I feel like I’ve been punched in the throat.

I never questioned it. Not once. The bike failed her. It was tragic, devastating even, but it was an accident.

“Alaina never believed it.” Dane exhales again, shaking his head. “She said something felt wrong the second she dropped in, but she had no proof , and no one was listening. No one cared. Everyone just wanted to move on, especially Dad.”

Right. Their fuckwit father.

“And he just let you guys do this? ”

He laughs bitterly. “Of fucking course not. He doesn’t even know we’re here.”

“What? How are you here if he didn’t pay your way through?”

“My prize money, but Alaina doesn’t know that. She thinks Dad begrudgingly helped us out to be privateers. And I swear to God, Finn, if you tell her this, I’m going to push you down the mountain. Without your bike.”

I barely register the threat. It’s all too much. “Before you disappeared , you said you wanted to buy the team from your Dad. You?—”

“That dream is dead and buried,” he cuts me off. “But I haven’t just been sitting on my ass and watching you all these years. I studied finance, and after this season, I’ll join the company.” He shrugs like it doesn’t matter. “I’ll be fine.”

“You never wanted to be like him.” It comes out as an accusation.

Dane lets out a short, humorless laugh. “Yeah, well. I was in my mid-twenties then. Stuff changes. I’m doing this for Alaina, not for me. It’s good to be back, and it’s good memories, some of the worst and some of the best, but that’s all this is. Memories. I don’t want this anymore.”

I try to swallow, but my mouth is dry.

I don’t want a life outside of this.

Does that make me the weirdo? Or him?

“How does she even know it was Raine?”

“She saw Isaac near her bike before her run.” Dane exhales sharply. “There’s no footage of him touching it, no hard evidence. But the mechanics who looked at the wreckage said the failure was weird. It wasn’t just a snapped frame. The suspension had been tampered with.”

My stomach churns. If that’s true and Raine actually did that… if he sabotaged her bike knowing exactly what could happen …

“Why the fuck didn’t anyone say anything?”

“Because it was easier to blame the bike and say the frame failed. That Crews Racing was reckless, and we should have never been building our own frames. That our ego was the reason she almost fucking died.” Dane scoffs.

“So they did, and Dad let them. I did, too, because honestly, shutting everything down was easier than fighting back, especially while Alaina was trying to recover.”

The headlines blur in my mind. I remember the scandal, the debates, the fucking drama. People argued about safety standards, about whether Crews Bikes had been too aggressive in their designs. I also remember how the whole thing just disappeared, along with the Crews name.

“This is Alaina’s way of getting revenge.” Dane’s voice is deadly serious, and my eyes snap to his. “She wins. She beats Raine. And then she tells the world exactly who she is.”

My heart slams against my ribs. “She’s planning to out herself?”

“Publicly. Right in front of the UCI, the teams, the media. She’s going to take the podium, take the title, take everything from him.

And then, she’s going to rip off the mask and tell the world exactly who just handed him his ass.

She wants to humiliate him because we all know his pride is where it’ll hurt him the most.”

Jesus-fucking-Christ.

I scrub a hand over my face. “You guys have money. You could have investigated. Hired lawyers.” I gesture wildly toward the door, toward the fucking racecourse, as if that somehow explains everything wrong with this situation.

“Why the hell would you make her risk herself, her entire fucking future for a goddamn vendetta?”

They will never let her near another UCI race again after this .

Dane’s nostrils flare, and I think he might lash out at me. Instead, he laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “You think I let her do this? You think I had a fucking choice ?”

“You’re her big brother. She adores you and would do anything you tell her to do.” I glare at him. “Of course, you had a choice.”

“No, Finn.” He shakes his head. “I didn’t. ”

“So, what? You’re saying she made the choice for you?”

“I’m saying if I hadn’t helped her, she’d be dead. ”

What?

I take a step back as if denying his words, but Dane doesn’t stop.

“You think I don’t know how stupid and dangerous this is?

” His voice rises. “You think I want to be here? Watching my little sister throw herself into this insane-fucking-mission knowing damn well it won’t do what she thinks it’ll do for her?

” He steps toward me, eyes blazing. “You think I wanted to walk away from my whole fucking life only to come back seven years later to find her standing on the same goddamn mountain, chasing down the same goddamn ghosts?”

I fight the urge to step back as he continues his tirade.

“If I hadn’t helped her, she wouldn’t be here, Finn. And I don’t mean here as in Fort William.” His voice drops a register and becomes rougher. “I mean here as in alive. Alaina didn’t live after the crash. She survived. Barely.”

And where the fuck was I? Sitting in hotel rooms, scrolling past headlines, wondering why they didn’t answer my calls.

“You don’t know what it was like after. You don’t know what it did to her.

All the pain and the surgeries and the broken dreams.” His hands curl into fists at his sides, and his eyes go distant with the memory.

“You don’t know how many nights I sat outside her door, too fucking scared to go to sleep because I didn’t know whether she’d still be breathing when I woke up. ”

His eyes fill with tears, and my nose starts to burn in the tense silence that follows.

“You could have called me, Dane,” I say eventually, my voice barely above a whisper. “I would have been there for you.”

I called him every day for at least a year, but he never picked up, not even once, so I stopped.

I shouldn’t have.

“She was gone, man. Gone. And there was nothing I could do. Nothing you could have done.” He swallows. “Nothing but let her have this.”

“So this whole thing, this disguise, this insane fucking plan…”

“It fueled her.” Dane’s eyes drop to the floor.

“She lived because of this. She got out of bed because of this. She trained, she rebuilt herself, she became unstoppable. All because of this . Because of spite. She’s only alive because she had this to fight for, and I’m not only terrified of what happens when she wins this. I’m terrified of what happens after. ”

I blink and take an involuntary step backward. “What do you mean?”

Dane lifts his gaze, and his eyes are hollow.

“What will happen to her when she has nothing left to fight for?”

Well, fuck.