Page 83 of Rear View
But if Xavier heard, he didn’t acknowledge it, because his rage was fixed on his uncle.
Earl cursed before he and Trina blocked the side of the stage from the cameras, and people behind the scenes crowded in.
Derek advanced a step and crossed his arms over his chest. “Where’s your mother?”
Slicing his head to the side, Xavier said, “Ain’t tellin’ you.”
“You need to start talking, boy.”
Xavier released me and edged closer. “And you need to fuckin’ stop.”
Trina’s wild gaze moved from face to face as if she was seeking a solution or help, before she called, “Security!”
Several seconds later, two guards in navy-blue uniforms stalked in. She pointed to Derek, so they moved forward, flanking him.
“You can’t be back here, sir,” the larger of the two said. He gestured to the exit. “Move along.”
Stabbing a finger Xavier’s way, Derek vowed, “This isn’t done.” He glared, offered a mocking smile, then stepped around our group and stormed off.
Xavier flexed his hands at his sides, his forearms cording when he rolled his shoulders, stare-hunting his uncle as he vanished from sight.
Chapter Twenty
Xavier
I stretched my neck, pacing the hall where me, Alec and Earl talked outside my hotel room while I tried to burn through the pissed-off fuel coursing in my veins. Fuckin’ hell. The sight of Derek comin’ at Ryah… I wanted to kill him. Might’ve too if she hadn’t been there, but she’d looked scared enough. Last thing I needed was to make it worse. But fuuuuuuck, it’d been hard to hold back, ’cause that prick’s face would’ve looked good bleeding behind my fist.
“Derek crossed a line. No one messes with the girls,” Alec said, his stare hard, and his voice down so it didn’t carry. He ran a hand over his twists.
I inclined my head, ’cause we were on the same damn page.
“I understand why you were mad, Xavier,” Earl said, then set a palm on my shoulder. “But if Derek decides to push and this goes bad for us…”
It’d go real goddamn bad ’cause if he ever wanted to cause trouble, if my record ever got out, we’d be done. All of us. That morality clause’d get triggered. I’d lose our sponsors, the team, get dumped by the WRC. That’d be it.
I flicked my gaze to the door of my hotel room, where Ryah was getting ready for dinner. There was too much at risk.
Earl’s arm dropped. “If you’ve got a problem with your uncle, we go through the proper channels.”
Proper channels? The cops? Yeah, ’cause they’d done so much before. My fists creaked under my grip, and my jaw ached from how hard I clenched it. “Derek’s here for my old man, he don’t give one shit about rules, Earl.”
He sighed and dipped his chin in a nod.
A light down the hall flickered and the clack of heels approached as Trina closed in, joining us. “We’ve got to be publicly smart about this,” she said. “With the way Xavier left, the media knows there’s trouble.”
Not a shocker seeing as I’d exploded from the table, knocking my chair and half the shit around me over before I exited stage right in the middle of the press conference.
“Are they asking questions?”
“Yes, but thankfully, I’ve deflected so there’s no movement there.” She smiled, uncomfortably proud as her stare moved from Alec to me. “We can use the local buzz for next weekend’s race in Edgewater to distract. Between that, the time trials tomorrow and the interview you boys did withNSM, as long as there’s no more issues, we should be fine.”
“When’s the article out?” Earl asked.
“In a couple of days.”
His head bobbed. “Good.”
I eyed my room door again. I just wanted to get back to Ryah, ’cause the look on her face before…shit. “We finished here?”
