It's All My Fault

I was kidnapped by a madman, lived in captivity for four months, and saved by a stranger.

This wasn’t exactly how I wanted my life to change, but it works. I guess. My fresh start away from the public eye is in full swing. I can get a clean slate from my friends and my family—from my dad, who may or may not have sold me. Yeah, that’s right. My dad may have sold me to Leonardo Marquez. Even if he didn’t, my family couldn’t keep me safe, and I don’t think I can go back to them. They can mourn me, get closure, and continue with their own lives without me.

I just have to work through my trauma first, get back on my feet, and keep myself from falling in love with the Hendrix brothers. Easier said than done. Especially when I’m introduced to the drifting world. Competition is where I thrive and the only thing that would keep me from starting over elsewhere.

Ilya Hendrix, leader of the Northgate Hellions and former professional drifter, can teach me everything I need to know to win and feed my need to compete. But he has a past with the man who took me. Leonardo stole his wife from him twenty years ago, and Ilya couldn’t save her.

Drifting puts me back in the limelight and straight into danger, because Leon runs a rival organization, an organization that competes in the underground drift ring. Ilya will never let that happen, because I’m his do-over, the way to make up for letting his wife die. He’ll stop at nothing to keep me safe, even if it takes my choice away from me.

If I leave the life I’ve known behind, including abandoning my new found feelings for Ilya and Aleksei, I can live a free life—free of everything I’ve known, which unfortunately includes any sort of competition.

Or, I can stay and go back to my family, my friends… and the boyfriend I’ve let believe I’m dead. Ilya and Aleksei can still be in my life as I navigate how to blend my two worlds and fight against a belief I’ve pounded into my brain since I was young: a conventional relationship is the only kind relationship for me. That doesn’t work anymore because I want Aleksei and Ilya. And if I stay, will I end up with Benny as well? Will he understand the decisions I’ve made?

That doesn’t even cover the things I keep hearing about Trace and his feelings for me. That’s another thing, altogether.

If I stay, I can compete and drift, become a professional. I just have to decide if this path is worth the danger Leonardo Marquez poses.