Page 58 of Savage Reins
"Tell me anyway."
He looks away from me, gaze fixed on some distant point beyond the horizon. "Because for the first time in my life, I found something worth protecting instead of destroying. And I'm not ready to walk away from that."
My throat closes up. I want to tell him that I feel the same way. That despite everything, despite the fear and the violence and the impossible odds, I'm not ready to walk away either.
But words won't change what we are. What this is. What it can never become.
I turn away from him and lead Rusalka toward the training track. Behind me, I hear Renat's footsteps retreat toward the house, and I don't look back.
By midday, I've run out of ways to avoid the inevitable. The race is three days away. The horse is as ready as she's going to be. And we're still going to lose.
Not because Rusalka isn't fast enough. She is. Not because she isn't strong enough. She's stronger than any horse I've ever trained.
We're going to lose because this was never about the horse. It was about power. About debts and territory and old grudges that have nothing to do with racing and everything to do with blood.
The Karpins don't want recompense. They want the track. They want the Vetrovs broken and humiliated. And we're caught in the middle, pawns in a game we never chose to play.
I find my father in the kitchen, hunched over a cup of coffee that's probably gone cold. He looks up when I enter, and I see my own exhaustion reflected in his face.
"Papa," I say, and my voice sounds small and fragile.
He sets down his cup and studies me with eyes that have seen too much. "What's on your mind?"
"The race. It's not going to be enough."
"No," he agrees. "Probably not."
The simple acknowledgment breaks something inside me. For days, I've been clinging to the hope that winning would solve everything. That crossing the finish line first would somehow erase the debts and the threats and the blood on Renat's hands.
But hope is a luxury we can't afford anymore.
"There's another way," I say.
My father's expression sharpens. "What way?"
I take a deep breath and tell him about the idea that's been haunting me for days. The plan that feels desperate and dangerous and absolutely necessary.
"We fix the race."
The words fall into the kitchen like stones into still water. My father doesn't react at first, doesn't even blink. He just sits there, processing, while the clock on the wall ticks away seconds we don't have to spare.
"Fix it how?" he asks finally.
"Switch the numbers. Make it look like a different horse won under Rusalka's registration. The Vetrovs get their victory. We get to keep the ranch. Everyone goes home happy."
"Except the people who bet on the real winner."
"I don't care about them."
My father leans back in his chair, and for a moment he looks every one of his sixty-odd years. Gray stubble. Lines carved deep by worry and loss. Hands that shake slightly when he thinks I'm not looking.
"You're talking about fraud, Mira. Real fraud. The commission finds out, they'll ban us for life. Maybe worse."
"If we don't do this, there won't be anything left to ban us from."
He can't argue with that logic, and we both know it. The ranch is one bad month away from foreclosure. The horses will be sold. The land will be developed. Everything my grandfather built will disappear as if it never existed.
"It would have to be perfect," he says slowly. "One mistake, and we're finished."
