"Then get someone hired on this team to kill the story," I snapped, the tingling in my calf stubbornly refusing to fade. "I don’t pay you to read tabloids. I pay you to make sure the car is as flawless as the man driving it. If a single word about ‘focus' hits the wires tomorrow, it's your neck."
Better they think I was a hedonist with an ego problem than a piece of hardware burning out from the inside.
He only shrugged, entirely unfazed by the threat of my temper, tightening a bolt with slow precision like my outburst didn’t even make the list. "Don’t glare at me. I’m not the one photographed leaving a club at three a.m. with two models and a bottle of bad decisions."
He tilted the tablet my way. A grainy photo of me, looking bored and beautiful, framed by a headline designed to draw blood:Valerio too busy chasing tail to chase trophies?
I exhaled sharply through my nose. "Idiots."
"Well, yeah," Marco agreed, "but idiots with a readership."
Before I could fire back, a rattle echoed from the driveway outside. Not the throaty, refined purr of one of mine. Something humbler. Cheaper. The kind of car that looked out of place on Valerio concrete, like a stray dog at an award show.
"What now," I muttered.
The passenger door opened and my brother hopped out, those curls bouncing like he lived in a shampoo commercial.
"Do we have an fuel-pressure regulator for a four-cylinder import?" Luka asked Marco, leaning into the garage like he owned the place.
Luka snagged the part, nodding a thanks, and that’s when I cut in, looming over him.
"And why exactly do you need that?" I folded my arms, the sheer presence of my frame enough to make the garage feel smaller.
"My car stuttered when I hit an incline—total loss of power,” he said. "Carter drove me over so I could grab the part and fix it."
"Carter," I repeated flatly. "As in Hayes."
"Yes," he sighed, the way one speaks to a particularly slow child. "She heard the engine hesitation and told me exactly what was failing before I even popped the hood."
I scoffed, the sound sharp and dismissive. "You could’ve called. I would’ve sent someone."
"You’re always busy," he said lightly. "She offered. And she actually knows what she’s doing."
I turned toward the open garage door.
Her.
She was sitting behind the wheel of that pathetic sedan, elbow resting out the window, tapping her fingers on the door frame in a slow, steady beat. Sunglasses on. Bored. She sat there, perfectly unconcerned with the fact that she was parked on Valerio ground—a place people spent lifetimes trying to reach—and acted as if she’d rather be at the dentist.
Our eyes met through the distance, the glare of the sun hitting her lenses.
Then, she lifted her hand.
She flipped me off.
No hesitation. No quiver. Just a slow, deliberate middle finger directed right at my chest.
A slow pull twisted in my gut. Irritation. Surprise. Something primal that didn’t like being challenged, let alone by a person in a rattling four-cylinder. I made sure my expression didn’t move. I didn’t give her the flicker of a reaction.
Marco coughed into his fist, hiding a smirk. Luka didn't just smile; he let out a short, surprised bark of a laugh, looking between me and the sedan like he’d just seen a rabbit bite a wolf.
"I’ll see you in a bit," Luka said, already backing toward the exit with a newfound spring in his step. He paused at the threshold, tossing a casual grenade over his shoulder. "Oh, and Sienna says hi.”
I bit down hard enough to feel the ache spread upward.
Marco snorted. "Which one is Sienna again? The one who cried when you didn’t text her back or the one who tried to steal a tire as a souvenir?"
"The lipstick-on-the-helmet one," I muttered.
