Page 18 of Broken Breath
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 anaccident.
“Alaina never believed it.” Dane exhales again, shaking his head. “She said something feltwrongthe 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? Howare youhere 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 waseasierto blame the bike and say the frame failed. That Crews Racing was reckless, and we should have never been building our own frames. That ouregowas 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 shetellsthe 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, takeeverythingfrom 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 fuckingracecourse,as if that somehow explains everything wrong with this situation. “Why the hell would you make her risk herself, herentire fucking futurefor agoddamnvendetta?”
They will never let her near another UCI race again after this.
