The Fall Out

※※※ Cross

I was up next. No money on the line, no pink slips. Just a straight shot down the airstrip for pride, for the roar, for the chance to outrun the images burned into my brain.

I watched them. The whole fucking spectacle. The way he’d scooped her onto the hood of that ridiculous red car and settled between her legs like he owned the space. The way she’d leaned into him and whispered something that made him laugh. The race. His victory. And then... the kiss.

Not the calculated one from the club. This was different. This was raw. Triumphant. Real.

He’d handed her the keys to the purple Ninja like a knight offering a trophy to his queen. And the smile she gave him... fuck. It was pure. Unfiltered. A flash of the girl I knew, but it was lit by his victory, his attention.

Something inside me cracked open, cold and dark.

I was starting to think this was no longer a game. That whole show... it changed something. He’d chosen her, publicly, lavishly. Something I never could. I’d chosen the family. I’d chosen duty. I’d chosen to break her heart, and in doing so, I’d handed her to a man who could give her the adoration I’d denied her.

My silence, my cold act... It wasn’t pushing her away. It was shoving her right into his waiting arms. And he had very skilled, very willing arms.

I saw her swing a leg over the purple Ninja, the one he just won for her. She fired it up. The engine had a different pitch than the Ducati—deeper, meaner. She didn’t look at me. Not once. She looked back over her shoulder at him, and he gave her a nod, a smug, proud little tilt of his chin.

This is bad.

The thought was a cold knot in my gut. I couldn’t let this stand. I couldn’t win this race. Not like this. Winning would just be more of the same. More coldness. More distance.

I needed a reaction. Something raw. Something real. Even if it was hatred. Even if it was violence. Anything was better than that soft, private smile she’d given him.

I’m going to let her win.

The decision was instantaneous. A tactical pivot. If she ran, I would chase her. I just needed to get her alone. I needed to remind her—to remind us both—of what was really between us. It wasn’t clean victory and public devotion. It was blood and history and a claim that went deeper than any fucking bracelet or bike key.

The starter, some kid with a flashlight, waved us to the line. She pulled up beside me. Still, she didn’t look over. Her posture was perfect, focused on the strip of darkness ahead.

The flashlight went up.

It dropped.

We launched.

The H2 was a monster. It should have eaten her bike alive off the line. But I held back. Just a fraction. Let her get the jump. I stayed glued to her back tire, close enough to see the tension in her shoulders. She was good. Really good. The Union had taught her control and precision. She wasn’t just riding; she was commanding the machine.

Halfway down the strip, she must have realized it. I wasn’t gaining. I was hanging back, matching her pace perfectly. She glanced in her mirror. I saw the moment she understood. Her helmet tilted. Her body language shifted from focused intensity to something else—confusion, then dawning, furious comprehension.

He’s letting me win.

The thought was a tangible thing in the air between us. I saw her shake her head inside the helmet. Then she did something I didn’t expect.

She didn’t accept the gift. She didn’t blast ahead to claim her hollow victory.

She twisted the throttle harder, pulling ahead, but instead of slowing at the end of the marked strip, she kept going. She blew past the finish line, past the crowd, and veered off the main airstrip onto a narrow, crumbling service road that led into the maze of rusting hangars and dunes at the edge of the property.

She was running.

Perfect.

I gunned my bike and shot after her. The service road was a nightmare of potholes and sand, but she handled it with a reckless, furious grace. She was trying to lose me. She wove between decaying buildings, her headlight cutting frantic swaths through the darkness.

I stayed on her, my blood singing now. This was real. This was a hunt.

She took a sharp turn into an alley between two long, low hangars. A dead end. A chain-link fence blocked the far end, piled with rotting pallets and industrial debris.

She skidded to a stop, the back tire of the Ninja kicking up a spray of gravel and sand. She killed the engine, yanked off her helmet, and whirled to face me as I rolled to a stop behind her, blocking the way out.

The only light came from the moon and the distant glow of the race. It painted her in stark silver and deep shadow. Her red hair was wild, her chest heaving. Her eyes weren’t cold anymore. They were blazing.

“What the hell was that?” she snarled, her voice echoing off the corrugated metal walls.

I got off my bike, letting my helmet drop to the ground with a dull thud. I took a step toward her. “A race.”

“You let me win.” It wasn’t a question. It was an accusation, laced with venom.

“Did I?” I took another step. The air between us crackled.

“Don’t play stupid. You hung back the whole time. Is this your new game, Enzo? Pity? You think I need you to let me do anything?”

Her use of my name—my real name, not ‘Cross’—was a jolt of electricity. “I think you’re playing a dangerous game with a dangerous man, and you’re in over your head,” I said, my voice low and rough.

“Klaus?” She let out a sharp, humorless laugh. “He’s predictable. He’s transparent. He wants something; he takes it. He doesn’t play mind games. He doesn’t break people and then pretend he’s doing them a favor.”

The words hit their mark. I closed the last of the distance between us. “Is that what you think I did?”

“I know what you did!” she shouted, the sound raw in the confined space. She shoved at my chest. “You made your choice! So don’t stand there and pretend you get to have an opinion on my choices now!”

I caught her wrist, easily overpowering her, and slammed her back against the cold, corrugated metal wall of the hangar. The impact knocked the breath from her lungs. She gasped, then screamed—a feral, furious sound—and fought me, her body twisting, her boots scrabbling against the dirt.

“Let me GO!”

“No.” The word was final. Absolute. I pinned her wrist above her head against the metal, my body crowding hers, eliminating any space, any escape. “You don’t get to run from this. You don’t get to hide behind him.”

She was panting, her eyes wild, her lips parted. The fury in her gaze was the most alive thing I’d seen in her since she returned. It was beautiful and terrifying.

Then I saw her free hand move. A blur of motion from her hip. The glint of moonlight on polished steel.

She’d pulled a small, wicked-looking tactical knife from a hidden sheath.

Before I could react, before I could even tighten my grip, she drove it forward.

Not a killing blow. Not even close. But a brutal, precise stab.

The blade sank into the meat of my side, just above my hip, punching through leather and skin with a sickening, wet thunk.

White-hot pain lanced through me, a shock so pure it momentarily blinded me. My grip on her wrist slackened. I stumbled back half a step, a grunt of agony forced from my throat. My hand went to my side, coming away slick and dark with blood.

She stood there, breathing heavily, the bloody knife held in a white-knuckled grip, her eyes wide with a mixture of triumph and horror at what she’d just done.

The pain was immense. But the sight of her, the feel of my own blood hot on my fingers... It ignited something else. Something primal and unstoppable.

A slow, dangerous smile touched my lips. My eyes locked on hers.

“Bad girl,” I whispered, the words a dark caress.

And then I moved.

The pain was nothing. A distant buzz. All I saw was red—the red of her hair, the red of my blood. Before she could raise the knife again, before she could even think, I was on her.

I knocked the blade from her hand with a brutal swipe. It clattered into the darkness. My hands were on her again, but not to restrain. To claim. I shoved her back against the wall once more, my body crushing hers, and my mouth came down on hers in a kiss that was nothing like the one she’d shared with Klaus.

This wasn’t triumph. This wasn’t performance.

This was punishment. This was possession. This was a wildfire, consuming everything in its path—four years of silence, of distance, of lies, of watching her with another man. It was all teeth and blood and desperate, furious need. I kissed her like I was trying to devour the ghost of the girl she was and weld the soldier she’d become back to me, no matter how much it destroyed us both.

She froze for a split second in shock. Then, with a ragged sound that was half sob, half snarl, she kissed me back.

It wasn’t surrender. It was a battle. She tasted sweet on my lips. I bit her lip between my teeth; she gave me a soft gasp, then she opened for me, and I darted my tongue in, tasting all of her. Her hands came up, not to push me away, but to fist in the leather of my jacket, holding on as if we were both falling from a great height.

It was the beginning of the war. That was till he got there and I realized I did not want to play this game; if she wanted me, she should choose.

※※※Lissa

The world narrowed to the space between our bodies, white-hot fury in his eyes. My breath sawed in my lungs, raw from screaming and from fighting. The feel of his hands on my wrists, the solid weight of him pinning me—it was a brutal, terrifying echo of a thousand training scenarios, but laced with a history that made my bones ache.

After the mind-fucking kiss. I wanted more.

He took a step back, putting more distance between us, his posture stiff with pain but his retreat deliberate. He was disengaging. Not because of the wound, I realized with a sudden, sick lurch. But by choice.

The roar of an approaching motorcycle engine shattered the tense silence, growing rapidly louder. Headlights swept across the alley, illuminating the scene in a stark, moving tableau: Enzo, leaning against his bike, hand clamped to his side, and the intimate, violent space we’d carved out.

Klaus skidded the Ducati to a stop at the mouth of the alley, blocking the light. He killed the engine and was off the bike in a fluid motion, his face a storm of confusion that quickly hardened into cold, protective fury as he took in the scene. His eyes darted from me to the bleeding Enzo’s, to the way we were standing—too close, drenched in violence and history.

“Lissa?” Klaus’s voice was sharp, a command. “What happened?”

He started toward me, but his gaze was locked on Enzo. A challenge.

Enzo didn’t even look at him. His eyes were still on me, that weary, icy stare cutting through the chaos. He straightened up with obvious effort, removing his hand from his side to show the dark, glistening stain. A deliberate display.

His voice, when he finally spoke, was addressed to me alone, low and utterly drained. “I don’t want to play this game.”

The words weren’t a surrender. They were a revocation. A refusal to participate in the toxic dance of provocation and reaction we’d been locked in. He was looking at the bloody knife, at Klaus standing ready to defend me, at the whole messy, performative drama, and he was opting out.

Then, without another glance at either of us, he turned painfully, picked up his helmet from the ground, and swung a leg over his bike. He winced as he settled his weight, but his movements were precise. He kick-started the bike, the engine roaring to life, a sound of pure, contained power.

He didn’t look back. He simply guided the bike in a tight turn, forcing Klaus to step aside, and then he was gone, the roar of his engine fading into the night, leaving behind only the smell of exhaust, blood, and the echoing silence of his words.

I don’t want to play this game.

Klaus was at my side in an instant, his hands on my shoulders, turning me to face him. “Are you hurt? Did he touch you?” His eyes scanned me for injuries, his thumb brushing a smudge of dirt from my cheek.

I had wanted a reaction. I had gotten one. But what changed? One minute he was sticking his tongue down my throat; the next, he stepped back. Was it Klaus coming here, cutting this meeting short?

“I’m fine,” I said, my voice hollow to my ears. I pulled away from Klaus’s grip and walked stiffly to where the knife had clattered after he knocked it from my hand. I picked it up, wiped the blade clean on my jacket, and sheathed it.

Klaus watched me, his expression unreadable. “You stabbed him.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

I finally looked at him. “Because I felt trapped.”

Klaus studied my face for a long moment. He saw the turmoil I couldn’t hide. He nodded slowly, a calculating light in his grey eyes. “Okay,” he said simply. He didn’t press. He just put his arm around my shoulders, pulling me against his side. “Let’s get out of here. You’re riding with me. We’ll have someone collect the Ninja and the Hellcat tomorrow.”

He led me to the Ducati, helped me onto the back, and I wrapped my arms around his waist, resting my head against his back. As we sped away from the dead-end alley, the wind whipping past us, I closed my eyes.

I had poked the bear. And the bear had simply walked away, leaving me standing in the darkness with a bloody knife and a hollow victory. The game, it seemed, was over. And I had no idea what came next.

※※※