Chapter 3

Mason's face changed. He tried to pull his hand back, only to find mine locked on him like a steel clamp.

"Mason Vale, you'd better pray your life is hard enough." I stared straight into his eyes.

Seeing this, Wade rushed over like a mad dog and shoved me away.

"Jake Carter! What are you doing? Trying to hit someone?

"Security! Get security here! Throw him out!"

Several guards came running and surrounded me.

I shook out my wrist, swept a cold look over Wade and Mason, then turned and left the pit garage.

Behind me, Mason took out his phone and made a call.

His voice was low, but I still heard every word.

"Sal, that kid can't stay. He was two seconds faster than me in qualifying.

"Yeah. Same old way. Keep it clean.

"If he refuses to know his place, then let him stay on the track forever, just like his father." Mason's voice on the phone was vicious.

Two hours before the race.

The tension of the final had already filled the entire circuit.

Avoiding everyone's eyes, I circled back through the service corridor to the private garage under the pit building.

My car was parked in the deepest corner.

Because I'd been suspended, there were no mechanics here, and even the lights felt dim.

I had just reached the bend in the corridor when my steps suddenly stopped.

A familiar figure was crouched beside my car's front-left wheel.

Mason Vale.

He held a special hydraulic cutter, moving with practiced ease as he reached into the inside of the wheel hub.

There was a soft click.

In the empty garage, it sounded piercingly clear.

Then he took a small plastic bottle from his pocket, twisted off the cap, and poured the clear liquid into the brake fluid reservoir.

After finishing, he stood, glanced around, shoved the cutter and bottle back into his pocket, and quickly left through another exit.

I stood in the shadows, watching him disappear. My blood went cold inch by inch.

I slowly walked over and crouched beside the front-left wheel.

I took out a flashlight and shone it toward the inside of the brake caliper.

A black brake line had been neatly cut with a hidden notch.

The cut wasn't large. While the car was still, it wouldn't even leak.

But at high speed, the moment the brakes were hit hard and pressure surged through the line, the brake fluid would spray out from that notch instantly.

Even more fatal was the faint smell of alcohol in the air.

He'd poured alcohol into the brake fluid.

Alcohol would corrode the rubber seals, then vaporize quickly under high heat and create vapor lock.

That would make the brakes fail completely without warning.

It was crueler than simply cutting the line. Harder to trace, too. Afterward, it could be written off as a heat-related mechanical failure.

The method was exactly the same.

Twenty-eight years ago, my father's car lost control at Turn Seven because of this exact sabotage.

At 280 kilometers an hour, he punched straight through the tire wall.

My father had waited in a wheelchair for twenty-eight years.

I crouched there and stared at the cut brake line for a long time.

In my ears, I heard again the hoarse, wheezing sound in my father's throat before he died.

I didn't take out my phone to film it.

I didn't shout for help.

I didn't run to the race officials.

I simply stood in silence and wiped away any fingerprints that might have been left on the bodywork with my sleeve.

Then I picked up the helmet resting on the hood.

I was going to make him watch with his own eyes.

Watch how he'd be sent to hell by a "loser."

Holding the helmet, I walked out of the garage and ran straight into Wade, who'd been looking everywhere for me.

"Where the hell have you been? The race is about to start. Get to the grid!" Wade cursed.

I ignored him and walked straight toward the starting grid.

Mason was already sitting in his car, sneering at me through the window.

He rolled the window down and made a throat-cutting gesture at me.

"Ready? Don't piss your pants later, little loser." Mason slapped my shoulder.