She's A Beauty

Mason

The car was nicer than I’d expected. Way nicer.

            My brother Rick had called me that Saturday morning to tell me he’d found something he wanted me to see. After asking him some prying questions and being met with evasive answers, I’d driven over to his house to see what the hell he was going on about.

            He had a 1967 Mustang Fastback in his garage. It wasn’t stock. In fact, I doubted anything on the damn thing was stock. It was souped-up, and the metallic green paint glittered in the dim lighting of his garage. Specks of gold and silver shimmered as I walked around the car like it was winking at me. Promising me victory.

            “What do you think?” Rick asked as he slid his hands into the pockets of his jeans and rocked back on his heels.

            I paused behind the car and looked up at my younger brother. He had come a long way from a head injury six months ago. His blond hair wasn’t quite growing back properly on the right side of his head where a bullet had wedged into his skull. The fact that he was still alive and fully functioning was a miracle, one I was grateful for every day. Rick was the only family I had left, and someone had almost taken him away from me.

            Rick’s blue eyes were bright and eager. He hadn’t told me he’d had plans laid down for weeks trying to obtain this car. His hard work seemed to have paid off, and now he had a monster in his garage that would have easily been worth a hundred grand. Give or take.

            I nodded. “She’s slick. Pop the hood.”

            Rick grinned and did as I asked. His boots thumped on the smooth concrete of the garage floor, and he popped the hood and propped it open. He stepped back as I came around the car to peer down at the intricate work that had been done to the engine.

            “Holy shit,” I breathed.

            “She’s fast,” Rick said.

            “What are your plans for her?”

            Rick gave me a smug smile and didn’t say anything.

            I narrowed my eyes as suspicion tickled my gut. “Rick. What are you playing at?”

            He shrugged one shoulder and let the hood fall closed. He rapped his knuckles gently on the place above the right headlight. “I did some digging. There’s a race tonight down by the docks. Harriott is running it.”

            “Who’d you hear that from?”

            “Harley.” He chuckled.

            I nodded knowingly. “How long have you been poking around in that shit?”

            “Not long. I just asked her to let me know when the next race came up. This one is big, Mason. The buy-in isn’t bad, and first place guarantees you a spot in the qualifier for The Streets. Not to mention you’d walk away with forty grand.”

            “What’s the buy-in?”

            “Five thousand.”

            I stroked my chin. I had that sort of money kicking around at home. It wouldn’t be hard to pay for the race. The hard part would be going back to a world I thought I was done with—a world that had chewed me up, spat me out, and then stomped all over me for good measure.

            “Do you know who any of the other drivers are?” I asked.

            Rick shook his head. “No. Harley played it close to the belt, as always. But she said if you were looking to enter, you had a good shot of placing in the top three at least. She wants you to come back, man. Said so herself. And you know Harley. She’s not one to let her bias show.”

            “No, she’s not,” I muttered to myself. I walked another lap around the car. The lines were sleek, and the body had been modified only a bit. The green paint danced as I paced around it in a circle and stopped in front of the car again. “So what do I owe you for the car?”

            Rick chuckled. “Nothing, man. She’s ours. We store her here, and we both get to drive her when we want. If you win, you can share the prize. Sound fair?”

            “More than fair.”

            “Does this mean you’re going to go for it?”

            I licked my lips. “Will Denning be there?”

            Rick hesitated to answer. He looked from me to the car and then back at me before saying, “There’s no guarantee, but I’d be surprised if he wasn’t.”

            Mark Denning had been my undoing six months ago. He was also the one who’d pulled the trigger and buried the bullet in my brother’s skull.

            And he’d stolen my wife from me.

            I had a score to settle with that fucker. He was mean and dirty, and the law meant nothing to him. He’d gotten away with shooting my brother on the grounds of trespassing. Rick, my buddy Benji, and I had gone to his house to get my wife, Evelyn, back from him when I believed she was being held against her will. Turns out she’d stabbed me in the back and was trading me in for Mark Denning.

            It hadn’t made sense to me then, and it still didn’t make sense to me now.

            “Do you think you’d be ready for that?” Rick asked.

            “For what?” I asked.

            Rick blinked at me. “For facing Mark.”

            “Oh. I don’t know. I guess we’ll find out.”

            “So that’s a yes? You’ll race?”

            I couldn’t think of a better way to stick it to Mark than to kick his ass in the biggest annual street race that existed in New York City. It was risky business getting involved with this shit again, but the payoff would be worth it. Vengeance. Cash. The title.

            My title.

            My team had been the front-runners in the underground race scene for years, and I was their leader. We’d never chosen a name for ourselves, but once our presence became known, we were bestowed the title of Street Kings by our fans. It stuck. And I liked the ring of it.