Page 82 of Knot So Fast (Speedverse #1)

GOD, I HATE YOU…

~ A UREN~

The glass shatters against the wall inches from my face, exploding into a thousand glittering fragments that catch the light like deadly confetti.

The sound reverberates through my bones, sharp and violent, as shards rain down around my feet like crystalline tears.

My heart hammers against my ribs so hard I swear it's going to crack them.

I stand frozen in this moment, watching Lucius Wolfe's fury-blazed eyes slowly detour from mine—breaking that intense, suffocating stare that always makes my knees weak and my Omega purr in the most inconvenient fucking moments.

The stare that strips me bare and rebuilds me in the same breath. The one that makes me want to either kill him or kiss him, and I'm never sure which urge will win.

His gaze drops to my cheek, and I feel it then—the beginning pulses of pain, sharp and stinging like ice and fire combined. The warmth spreading across my skin. The slow, telltale descent of something wet trailing down toward my jaw.

Blood.

The metallic scent hits the air between us, and I watch his nostrils flare.

Watch the exact moment the Alpha in him registers what he's done.

What we've done.

Because this fight didn't start with him —it started with me pushing and pushing until something had to give.

When our eyes meet again, I watch his expression transform in real time.

The thrilling rage that had been burning there— the kind that makes my stomach flip and my thighs clench despite myself— begins to decipher into something else entirely.

Horror. Realization. The immense weight of what he just did crashing down on him like a freight train carrying all our broken promises.

His face goes white beneath that perpetual tan, his hands dropping to his sides like someone cut his strings.

"Fuck... Aur?—"

"Don't."

The word rips from my throat, raw and desperate.

I don't wait for him to say my name. Can't . Because that's my weakness—the way it sounds on his lips, rough and desperate and mine even when we're destroying each other.

He's my weakness.

All of them are.

His entire fucking pack, and I'm about to detonate if I stand here one more second breathing in his scent, feeling his horror wash over me in waves.

The rational part of my brain— what's left of it —screams that this is exactly what I wanted.

To push him past his breaking point.

To make him lose control the way he makes me lose everything just by existing in the same space.

But seeing the blood on my fingers when I touch my cheek, seeing the way his face crumples...

This isn't victory.

This is devastation.

And the reality is, we’ll destroy one another if one doesn’t walk away.

I’m the sacrifice.

I spin away, rushing toward the door with my heart threatening to burst from my chest. My bare feet slip slightly on the marble floor— when did I lose my shoes?

—but I catch myself against the wall, leaving a bloody handprint on the pristine white paint.

Everything in this house is so fucking perfect, so controlled, just like him.

Just like all of them.

My hands shake as I grab whatever set of keys I can find on the counter by the door.

Of course it had to be the Ferrari. His fucking car of all choices.

The universe has a sick sense of humor, giving me the keys to the most dangerous car in their collection when I'm already a live wire ready to explode.

"Auren!" He's calling after me now, his voice cracking on my name in a way that makes my chest constrict.

But all I hear is pounding—the thunderous rush of blood in my ears as adrenaline kicks in like a drug mainlined straight to my nervous system.

I'm fighting not to lose it. Not to lose it to the anger that lives in my bones like a second skeleton.

Not to lose it to the madness I grew up swimming in like it was the only water I'd ever known.

Dad's alcoholic yells echoing through our shitty apartment at three in the morning.

"You're worthless, just like your mother!"

Glass breaking—always glass breaking.

Mom's cries and screams that never seemed to end, that became the soundtrack to my childhood.

Little me, six years old and cornered in the closet with my hands over my ears, wishing it would all just fucking go away.

Wishing I could disappear.

Wishing I was anywhere but there.

The memories slam into me like a physical blow, and I'm suddenly that little girl again—terrified and powerless and so fucking angry at the world for being cruel. For making love look like war and family feel like survival.

I'm hyperventilating by the time I reach the garage, but I'm still fastening my seatbelt when I slide into the driver's seat—which is so fucking laughable I'm actually giggling to myself even as tears already stain my flushed cheeks.

Safety first, right? Even when you're about to drive straight into oblivion.

Even when you're pretty sure you want to disappear entirely.

The Ferrari roars to life beneath me, purring like a predator that's been caged too long and finally tasted freedom.

The engine vibrates through my bones, drowning out the sound of my ragged breathing. I don't register how deep my foot hits the gas or how fast I'm suddenly moving. The garage door is still opening when I shoot through it like a bullet from a gun.

I just go .

Route to absolutely nowhere, destination: fuck everything and everyone.

The streets of Monaco blur past me in streaks of light and shadow.

The city looks different at night—more honest somehow, with all its glittering facades and hidden darkness on full display.

I push the Ferrari harder, feeling the G-force slam me back into the leather seat as I take corners that should require slowing down.

But slowing down means thinking, and thinking means remembering the look on his face when he saw what he'd done.

My phone starts ringing—that specific ringtone I set for Lucius because I'm a masochist who likes torture.

The opening bars of some angry rock song that perfectly captures the way he makes me feel: furious and desperate and alive in the worst possible way.

It's so easy to ignore.

So satisfying to let it ring and ring and ring while I push this machine harder, faster, more maddening through the winding coastal roads. The speedometer climbs— 80, 90, 100 mph —and still it's not enough.

Nothing is ever enough to quiet the chaos in my head.

This isn't a good idea.

The rational part of my brain— what's left of it —tries to break through the red haze of adrenaline. Driving with wild emotions is never a good idea.

You know better than this.

But this is the only way I know how to let it out.

To drive fast.

Hard.

So dangerously it shakes every other emotion out of your system until all that's left is speed and steel and the pure, unadulterated rush of cheating death. It's the only time my brain goes quiet, when I'm moving so fast that survival instinct takes over and drowns out everything else.

The road ahead curves sharply, following the coastline, and I take it without slowing down. The Ferrari's tires scream against the asphalt, but they hold. They always hold. These cars are built for this—for pushing boundaries, for dancing on the edge of disaster.

Just like me.

My phone rings again. And again. I ignore it every time, letting Lucius's ringtone become just another sound in the symphony of engine noise and wind and my own wild heartbeat.

Let him panic…worry…let him fucking feel even a fraction of what he puts me through every single day just by existing in my orbit like a gravitational force I can't escape.

The speedometer hits 120, then 130.

The world outside becomes a blur of motion and light, beautiful and terrifying in equal measure.

This is what flying must feel like— this sensation of being untethered from everything solid and real.

It's not until a new ringtone roars to life that I freeze. This one's different. This one pierces through the madness like a blade through silk, cutting straight to my core in a way that makes my chest tighten and my hands shake on the steering wheel.

Lachlan.

The one Alpha who, no matter how many times I shut him out, always finds a way to get through.

The one who never yells, never breaks things, never loses control the way his brother does.

The one whose calm is somehow more devastating than Lucius's rage because it makes me want to lean into it, trust it, believe that maybe not everything has to be a battlefield.

My fingers press the button before my mind can catch up, muscle memory overriding logic.

Before I can speak, there's his voice filling the car—velvet and firm and so different from his twin brother because it's not laced with pulverizing anger. It's laced with a level of calm that only riles me up even more because how dare he be steady when I'm falling apart?

"Where are you?"

Three simple words, but they hit me.

I want to laugh at the audacity of the question, at the assumption that I owe him an answer when his brother just?—

The sound that leaves my trembling lips is caught somewhere between a sob and pure audacity.

I don't know if it's tears or blood running down my cheek now—probably both—but my whole body is shaking and I can't fucking answer. The words are stuck in my throat like glass shards.

"Auren, baby." His voice drops lower, more commanding, with that Alpha authority that makes my Omega want to roll over and submit even when every other part of me is screaming rebellion.

"If my brother lost his shit and hurt you, I'll kill him with my bare hands.

But I need you to be alive when I reach you, so you're going to pull the car over and wait for me to get to you. Understand?"

I understand.

The words echo in my head, but I can't make my mouth form them.

He knows I understand—he can probably hear it in my breathing, in the way the engine noise changes as I unconsciously ease off the gas at the sound of his voice. But maybe it's the hyperventilating that's frightening him. Or me.

The speedometer drops to 110, then 100. Still way too fast for these roads, but something about his voice makes my foot want to cooperate.

"Baby girl," he's pleading now, and that breaks something in me because Lachlan Wolfe doesn't plead. He commands. He takes charge. He fixes things with that infuriating calm competence that makes me want to either worship him or destroy him. "Come back to me. Please."

I've heard him beg exactly twice in this lifetime.

Once when I was sixteen, having drowned and been brought back to life over a stupid dare gone wrong—him pounding on my chest, breathing life back into my lungs while tears streamed down his face.

Once when I almost lost it all on the track when I was close to being burned to ash, trapped in a car that was becoming my funeral pyre until he pulled me out with his bare hands.

Both life-and-death situations.

Ironic.

"I can't—" The words finally break free, raw and broken. "I can't stop. If I stop, I'll?—"

"You'll what, baby? Tell me."

"I'll fall apart." The admission tears from my throat like it's taking pieces of me with it. "And I can't. I can't fall apart again. Not over him. Not over any of you."

Before he can answer, I notice them in my rearview mirror—four cars that definitely weren't there a moment ago, moving in perfect formation like they're hunting something. Like they're hunting me . I press the gas harder, watching the speedometer climb again, but they keep pace effortlessly.

"Lachlan," I whisper, my voice barely audible over the engine noise. "Something's wrong."

"What do you mean? Talk to me, Auren."

Four cars race past me in formation, making me suddenly aware that I'm going over 140 mph and these aren't just random drivers out for a midnight joyride. These are professionals. The way they move, the way they coordinate—this is planned.

"What the..." I begin, but then the front car suddenly brakes hard, forcing me to slam my own brakes.

The Ferrari's anti-lock system kicks in, but I'm going too fast, the road is too narrow, and I'm boxed in on all sides.

They hit me from the left first—just a nudge, but at this speed it's enough to send me into a skid. I fight for control, my hands white-knuckled on the steering wheel, years of racing experience kicking in as I try to correct the slide.

"Auren! What's happening?" Lachlan's voice is sharp now, no longer calm, and I can hear other voices in the background—the rest of his pack.

The car on my right clips my rear bumper, sending me into a spin.

The world becomes a kaleidoscope of headlights and guardrails and the dark expanse of ocean beyond the coastal road.

I try to regain control, hearing the outcry of my name through the phone's speaker as I curse and brace for what's coming.

But then I see it— the gap in the guardrail ahead, growing larger as I slide toward it.

The drop beyond it that disappears into darkness.

They pull back, their job done, leaving me to hurtle toward the edge alone.

"No, no, no—" I wrench the wheel hard, feeling the tires lose their grip on the asphalt.

The Ferrari's traction control screams warnings at me, but physics doesn't care about advanced safety systems.

I go through the barrier.

Off a cliff.

The sensation of falling is nothing like I expected.

There's a moment— just one —where everything goes quiet. Where the engine noise fades and the wind stops howling and even my heartbeat seems to pause.

A moment of perfect, terrible silence as gravity takes hold and pulls me down toward the dark water below.

I take one last gasp of air, realizing I'm plummeting into the Mediterranean, and there's no way out.

No last-second save.

No miracle.

Just me and this beautiful, deadly machine falling together into the abyss.

My name is being called over and over through the phone's speaker, and there are other voices in the background— the others —his entire pack screaming my name like they can somehow will me back to safety.

But I know these last few seconds are everything.

All the time I have left to say what needs to be said.

"Ambush," I whisper, because he needs to know this wasn't an accident.

This was planned.

Calculated.

Someone wanted me gone.

Just as I'm seconds from hitting the dark plague of water below, traveling at a speed that will turn impact into obliteration, my final words spill out:

"God, I hate you... and love?—"

The water rises up to meet me, black and final as death itself.

I never finish.