Outracing Demons: The Streets Series Read online

  Outracing Demons

  The Streets Series

  Ali Parker

  BrixBaxter Publishing

  Contents

  Find Ali Parker

  Description

  Introduction

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Epilogue

  Want More?

  Insider Group

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Find Ali Parker

  www.aliparkerbooks.com

  Description

  Hot. Fast. Dangerous.

  Only two things are capable of sating my hunger: racing and women.

  I’m a devil behind the wheel, and there isn’t another man in New York City who can beat me.

  Nor any dumb enough to try.

  But there was a woman who could. My ex-wife, Evie.

  And she did. Fucked me up real good.

  Thanks to her, I gave up my dream of racing, but I can’t run from fate forever.

  The evil bastards at her side have taken over the underground racing scene, but I’m diving back in deep.

  With my focus on the road, the last thing I need is a distraction, but that’s just what Laina is.

  My best friend’s little sister feels off limits, until she isn’t.

  Perfect curves and a smile that could melt hearts, this woman has me wanting to say yes from the start.

  She’s relentless and drives me mad with the desire to be bad one more time—just for her.

  I might be outracing demons, but I’m not running from anything.

  Not me. Not ever again.

  Introduction

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  Chapter 1

  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.

  Showing up down at the docks would have repercussions. Everyone would know I was back. Mark Denning, Sid Paul, and Evelyn—people I wished I never had to see again. People I hated for what they had done to me. But I wasn’t a fool. I needed closure, and what better way to achieve that than to beat them at their own game?

  Surely Mark and Sid thought they were a shoo-in for victors of The Streets this year. The other competitors might show them a good time, but nobody raced as dirty as the pair of them. They would do anything to win.

  So would I.

  “I’ll race,” I said.

  Rick clapped his hands together with excitement. “Hell yeah! Glad I didn’t splurge on this green beast for nothing.”

  “Are you racing?”

  He shook his head. “Nope. I already qualified for The Streets and have a starting spot at the first race next weekend. I got in for free.” He winked.

  “How’d you swing that?”

  “I made a deal with Harley.”

  “Which was?”

  He laughed. “If I could get you to come back, she’d get me in for free.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Of course. I should have known the two of you would be conspiring together on this one.”

  “It’s for your own good, man.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Besides, why would I want to fork out my money when I know you’ll kick my ass out there? I’m gunning for second or third. First is yours.”

  I smirked. “At least you know your place.”

  “Yeah, fuck you, too, Mason. You smug bastard.”

  I laughed and so did he, and then he went to the mini fridge in the corner of his garage and grabbed two beers. He tossed me a can, and I popped the tab and drank. “So what time do we have to be there tonight?”

  “Race starts at midnight, but you have to be there by ten to register. You’ve been out of the game for a while, so Harley will need some extra time with you.”

  Midnight. It seemed so far away. My stomach was already tight with nerves at the idea of being back in that world.

  I missed the cars. I missed the roar of the engines and the smell of gas thick and heavy in the air. I missed the wet pavement, the burning tires, the elated screams of excitement as I passed the finish line.

  I missed all of it and none of it all at once.

  Evelyn had ruined me. She and I had done the whole race thing together. We’d met on the track, and she had me wrapped around her little finger within hours. She was unlike any woman I’d ever met, and I followed her around like a lost puppy dog, desperate to know anything and everything about her. She was a veterinarian. Her passion for animals and people was what drew me to her. She was warm and friendly and sweet, and when I discovered she knew her way around an engine, I was in love.

  We dated for fourteen months before I proposed. She said yes, of course.

  Our wedding was a small affair. Neither of us had much family left, so we got married at our house in the backyard in the middle of summer. She wore a white sundress that went down to the ground. I remember she had grass stains all on the hem of it by the end of the night. She didn’t care. She told me it would be wrinkled after we fucked in it anyway.

  She was my girl. My everything.

  And then, all of a sudden after a year of marriage, she wasn’t.

  I was under no delusion that we were the perfect couple. We had our fair share of fights, and both of us were as stubborn as mules. It made for some epic shouting matches. She laid hands on me in fits of rage, and when I was forced to make her stop hitting me by holding her wrists, she’d get so turned on, we’d be fucking wherever the fight started. Kitchen. Living room. Backyard. It didn’t matter. The passion was insane.

  I’d been foolish to believe it would be enough.

  I remembered the day I went to Mark Denning’s house after thinking he’d kidnapped my wife. My rage had been uncontrollable. Benji and Rick were with me for backup. I’d had no idea how bad things were going to get. All I could think about was reaching my girl. Saving her. Sparing her from that monster.

  When we arrived and the door opened and I found her standing there of her own free will, smiling at me in a way that made my insides squirm, everything fell apart. She told me she was through with me. Then she pointed a gun at my chest.

  Thinking about how it all went down still made my head spin.

  “Hey, Mason?”

  I looked up at my brother. He was leaning against his workbench on the far side of the garage. His beer was in one hand as he braced himself against the bench with the other.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Do you think Evelyn will be there?”

  Clearly, he’d been lost in thought over the same things. That day had been hellish for him too. He’d nearly died after all.

  I sighed and drained the rest of my beer. “Who fucking knows?”

  “What will you do if she is?”

  I looked him in the eye. “Not a damn fucking thing. I’m going to win. That will be enough.”

  Chapter 2

  Laina

  I flipped the visor down and used the little mirror to line and fill in my lips with my favorite shade of red. Benji, my older brother, was in the driver’s seat drumming his fingers on the steering wheel to the beat of the rock song playing through the speakers. His head bobbed to the beat as his dark green eyes scanned the intersection as he waited for our light to change.

  My best friend Ginny Brown was in the back seat of his supercharged coupe. She glanced at me in the mirror and gave me a wide smile.

  “You look excited, Gin,” I said as I screwed the cap back onto my lip color.

  She nodded eagerly and then disappeared from my view as I flipped the visor back up. I twisted around in my seat to face her.

  “I am excited. I haven’t been to one of these races in months. Maybe even a year. Thank you for inviting me tonight.”

  “Of course,” I said before knuckling Benji’s upper arm. “Benji and I are happy to have you along with us. Besides, if you weren’t tagging along, I’d be standing on the sidelines by myself while the boys race. And that’s no fun at all.”

  Benji pulled away from the line when the light turned green. “I’m still not happy about you being the flag girl,” he muttered before taking a right turn.

  “Flag girl?” Ginny asked.

  I nodded. “Yep. Harley asked me to start the race. I get to wave the flag to let the drivers know the race is on.”

  “Hence the skimpy outfit,” Benji said sourly.

  Ginny giggled in the back seat as I looked down at myself. I wasn’t dressed skimpily. I had on a pair of high-waisted leather leggings, thigh-high black boots, and a black crop top. Only a couple inches of my stomach was showing, and it was above the belly button area. The black denim jacket I had on also hid some of the skin. “This is not a skimpy outfit.”

  Benji looked me over. “No?”

  “No. It’s not. I’ll point out skimpy outfits when we get there. Girls show up in bathing suits to these things, for crying out loud. And look at this weather. It is not swimsuit appropriate.”

  The sky was so heavy with clouds, the stars were impossible to make out as we drove farther to the outskirts of the city down to the docks. I was certain it was going to rain. Hence the boots.

  “I
wouldn’t have let you come if you tried to wear a swimsuit,” Benji said.

  I rolled my eyes. “You’re not the boss of me, you know.”

  “On the contrary.”

  “Children,” Ginny piped up from the back. She leaned forward and gripped the sides of mine and Benji’s seats. “Let’s play nice. It’s going to be a fun night. And who knows? Maybe Benji will be first across that finish line, and he’ll be leaving forty grand richer.”

  Benji chuckled and glanced at her in the rearview mirror. “I’m not in this one to win it, Gin. I just want to place in the top half so I have a spot in The Streets next weekend.”

  Ginny pouted. “Oh, come on. You never know. Winning isn’t totally off the table.”

  “A little birdie told me Mason Thomas was racing tonight. So I’m fairly certain I won’t be crossing the line at the front of the pack.”

  I looked sharply at my brother. “Mason is racing?”

  “So I hear.”

  “From who?” I asked.

  He shot me a sheepish smile. “Why so curious, sister?”

  I looked out the passenger window. The first raindrop of the night hit near the top and trickled down. “I’m not. I’m just surprised is all. I haven’t seen him since, well, you know. The whole Evelyn thing.”