Wreckless Read online

  Thank you for downloading this Sourcebooks eBook!

  You are just one click away from…

  • Being the first to hear about author happenings

  • VIP deals and steals

  • Exclusive giveaways

  • Free bonus content

  • Early access to interactive activities

  • Sneak peeks at our newest titles

  Happy reading!

  CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP

  Books. Change. Lives.

  Also by Katie Golding

  Moto Grand Prix

  Fearless

  Copyright © 2021 by Katie Golding

  Cover and internal design © 2021 by Sourcebooks

  Cover art by Kris Keller/Lott Reps

  Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  All brand names and product names used in this book are trademarks, registered trademarks, or trade names of their respective holders. Sourcebooks is not associated with any product or vendor in this book.

  Published by Sourcebooks Casablanca, an imprint of Sourcebooks

  P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410

  (630) 961-3900

  sourcebooks.com

  Contents

  Front Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  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

  Excerpt from the next MotoGP

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Back Cover

  For my husband—I remain your biggest fan.

  Wanna battle?

  Chapter 1

  Lorelai Hargrove—March; Doha, Qatar

  Third gear.

  The cool night air screams past me as I downshift in my approach to turn fourteen, a hard right corner on the Losail International track. A smile rushes across my lips as my Dabria lies deep into the tighter-than-tight turn, my knee scraping the Qatar track rippling past my helmet.

  I tuck in my elbow and control my breathing, harnessing all my anticipation into crisp, unbridled focus. Twenty-one laps down, two turns to go, and then I will fly over the finish line: the first woman in history to win a race in Moto Grand Prix. The first woman ever to race in MotoPro. And all I have to do is what I’ve done for ten years: beat Massimo to the finish line.

  Fourth gear. I tilt my bike vertical and charge toward the sharp left of fifteen. Fifth gear. Sixth. Golden dust flashes on my right, black pavement and gray bailout gravel rushing by my left. The stars of Doha are sparkling above me, but the stadium lights of Losail lead the way—a lit path on the dark track guiding me home to the checkered flag, riding the glory rained down on me from the thousands of screaming fans I can’t hear over my engine.

  They want it—for me to win—and I can’t wait to give it to them.

  Time to deal with Massimo.

  I fade left, forcing my oldest rival farther inside the lane than he wants to be. As far as I’m concerned, that’s what he gets. Massimo peeks at me over his shoulder, and I don’t care how sexy his stubble is. Today is the day I’m going to make history.

  Fifth gear. Fourth. Third, and lean.

  My body lies flat, my bike flexing under ruthless speed and gravity pulling it further down. It takes everything I have to stifle the primal fear that wants to creep in, screaming how I’m going to crash and die because I’m going too fast to hold it. There’s too much speed, too much weight, and the laws of physics don’t mean crap, because they don’t exist.

  I swallow the lies and bury them under the truth: even though looming death is on my left, my body is caught in the middle of a love-and-war affair between gravity and centrifugal force, and it’s the only place I want to be. But when I lean harder into the turn, Massimo’s blue chassis and front tire are all I can see around the curve, blocking my view of the finish line. And I’m sick of him taking my finish line.

  His right knee is closer to my helmet than my own gloves, the space between us growing dangerously closer. When I check, I’m clear to move: there’s at least a four-second gap between us and the rest of the field.

  See ya, sucker…

  With the first hint of victory swirling through me, I let off the accelerator so I can duck around behind Massimo. He should push dangerously right, but the jerk slows down with me. I curse in my helmet and speed up, over the games and ready to secure my win. He stays with me, then starts to drift outside and directly into my left knee and elbow. He’s out of the apex and taking me with him.

  I’m already calculating my options, none of them good. Once again, he’s risking my win, my bike, and my life. It’s crap like this that made me realize it doesn’t matter how intoxicating his smile is. The cold truth is we both need to win more than anything else, and if he’s going for the kill every chance he gets, so am I.

  I can’t afford to downshift into second gear and lose any more speed to get around him. Hard way it is. Gritting my teeth, I hold the turn, my arms and abs bellowing in anguish from the G forces, but I refuse to cower. I won’t drift farther right and toward the gravel bailout. I know I can hold it…

  My heartbeat thuds in my ears, my breathing fast and increasing. Blue paint and black tires are inching closer to my bright red fairings, and survival instincts tell me that if I don’t move over in the next half second, he’s going to hit me and crash me out, and… Shit!

  I let off the accelerator or risk losing it all, my engine slowing as I careen right, my tires bumping on the curbstone and the bike wobbling in the gravel. My breath cascades into my lungs as I grapple for control, my reflexes throwing a glance to my left to make sure I won’t run over Massimo and kill him. He should be sliding on the ground in front of me. Maybe tumbling down the dark pavement. There’s no way he held that turn at that speed when he was so far out of the apex. Except when I look, Massimo’s gone.

  He’s just freaking gone.

  A roar rises from the stands as my head whips forward, and blue paint is meters ahead. He didn’t crash, somehow pulling off that screwed-up apex without hitting the gravel.

  I swerve back onto the racetrack, my determination screaming as I shift up fast from third gear to fourth. Massimo’s transmission roars deep in sixth, and his helmet peeks over his shoulder. When he sees the space between us on the last straightaway, the asshole pops a freaking wheelie as he takes the win.

  The stands explode, booming his name
as green, white, and red flags billow from every direction. Television cameras rise on cranes as fireworks light up the night sky, and I curse where no one but me can hear it, soaring across the finish line behind him two seconds too late.

  Bye-bye, history. And first place.

  ***

  I step down off the podium, squinting from the lights and my cheeks hurting from smiling as I pump my silver trophy in one hand and a bottle of champagne in the other. A new wall of screams erupts from the fans in the stadium, all shouting every translation of congratulations while waving signs with my name and picture and #77.

  The whole place is a massive party waiting to explode. It always is after the night race in Qatar: the first Grand Prix of the nineteen-race circuit that takes us all over the world from March to November. There’s also nothing quite like the capital city of Doha—spicy desert air, the hum of Arabic tickling your veins as you sit in traffic, staring up at a skyline that beats New York any freaking day of the week. Especially at night, when the buildings are lit up so the world is a neon rainbow reflected in the Persian Gulf.

  It’s a hell of an upgrade from my family’s ranch in Memphis, where the horses are treated like kings and farmhands come and go like seasonal allergies. But partying in Doha isn’t an option for me when my diet is on lockdown, I’ve got a plane to catch for the next race, and really, I’m counting the minutes till the cameras are off me so I can cry in private over my first MotoPro loss.

  Everyone expected me to win this one. Which I know because they didn’t have a problem telling me beforehand—my mom, my dad, even Billy King. The reigning World Champion’s ankle is still healing from his brush with a bull, and he whispered to me on our flight from Memphis that I need to enjoy every minute of Qatar. Because after that, he would be fine and was coming for me. But taking advantage of Billy being slow didn’t even matter when Massimo was still too fast.

  After one last wave, a smile and flirty wink to the crowd, I head toward the door that leads to the pit boxes where our crews will meet us. I tuck my trophy under my arm to haul it open. But I get knocked aside when Santos Saucedo brushes past me, whistling his way down the hall with his third-place trophy propped on his shoulder. Jerk.

  I follow him into the hall, the sounds of the crowd and the stadium disappearing behind the door. Even though I shouldn’t, I drink deeply from my bottle of champagne. I knew it wouldn’t be easy to be a woman in the racing world. I certainly didn’t expect the guys to take turns braiding my hair between practice and qualifying sessions. But I never expected the ostracizing to last all the way from the Rookie Cups to MotoPro.

  “Lulu,” an Italian accent drawls behind me, and I lengthen my strides away from the worst of them. It doesn’t do me any good. Two seconds later, I have Massimo in my face. Then he drops to his knees.

  My patience is already nil and quickly creeping into the negative as Massimo smiles up at me with his arms outstretched, the champagne we sprayed on the podium still sparkling in his black hair: shaved brutally short on the sides, long and thick on top, and all slicked back in that weird Italian bouffant thing.

  He’s been wearing the same bad haircut since we were fifteen, and I refuse to tell him. It’s the best running joke I can think of. Although it’d probably be a lot funnier if he didn’t pull the look off so well, balanced against the controlled stubble darkening his cheeks and nearly black around the line of his jaw.

  Taryn swears I called him “damn hot” one night when she and I went swimming in a bottle of tequila. But I have no memory of saying that, and I’m betting she made it up just to mess with me. She knows that is not—and never will be—an option.

  “Marry me, Lorina,” Massimo says in his thick Italian accent. I roll my eyes, so not in the mood for his crap right now. This is no less than the fifth time he’s done this. Usually, he’s drunk, but sometimes, his wins pull out his proposals. Like beating me to the flag is the way to get me to the altar. Yeah, okay. “Today is the best day of my life. Marry me.”

  I shrug, wondering if there’s a path of least resistance here that I haven’t tried before. “Yeah, all right.”

  His smile stretches wider. “Sì?”

  “No!”

  I walk around him, but he’s back in an instant. Guess that didn’t work. “Why are you always so difficult, Tigrotta?” He leans closer, whispering, “You know you love me.”

  I elbow him out of my personal space, tucking my trophy under my arm and turning to face him. He’s still freaking smiling as I jam my finger into the front of his leathers. The plate underneath protecting his lungs and ribs is like a block of cement, and I wonder if his heart beneath is made out of the same stuff. “How could you do that to me today? I don’t care what the win is. We aren’t supposed to try to hurt each other.”

  His dark eyes flash and burn a little more fiercely, a dangerous smile curving his lips. Like that’s supposed to scare me. “No?”

  I push my finger harder into his chest even though it makes my knuckle ache and he probably can’t even feel it. “No.” Of all the people I figured would wager a win against my life and still dive for the flag, I never expected it from him. He knows what it’s cost me to be here, how hard I’ve had to fight to be on the grid beside him. “You crossed the line, Massimo.”

  He swallows, but he doesn’t apologize. He never has, whether I deserved to hear his “Mi dispiace” or not. I grit out a frustrated huff and storm around him. I’m barely past his shoulder when he snatches my hand, tugging me back into his chest.

  My eyes fly wide, adrenaline from the race still pumping strongly in my veins and surging even faster at the regret sinking the corner of his mouth. I check around for anyone else in the hallway who could report to the world that one of Moto Grand Prix’s most talked about rivalries filters a little differently behind closed doors. But luckily, or maybe not, we’re completely alone.

  Massimo’s grip on my hand loosens to just a gentle press of his palm covering mine, keeping the back of my hand flat against his leathers. It’s too much—how close he is, how his eyes seem to peer straight through me and see it’s not the loss making my eyes want to prickle with betrayal. It’s the fact that he thought five points were worth me possibly ending up broken in the hospital, never able to race again.

  Stay focused, Hargrove.

  “Well?” I do my best to keep my voice steady under the intensity of his stare, his bottle of champagne dangling forgotten in his other hand and his trophy gone, possibly on the floor. “Are you going to apologize to me or not?”

  “You want me to apologize for crossing a line? Sì, it is true. I did, Lorina, and I will not lie to you and say I did not.”

  His grip on my hand tightens, and my eyes drop to where he has them secured against his chest. His personally crafted version of my first name isn’t new, nor is the softness in my chest when he says it. But when he leans forward to whisper in my ear, his lips are so close that I can almost feel his stubble scrape my cheek, and I’m no longer the fearless moto racer from fifteen minutes ago. I am now completely frozen.

  Talking is one thing. Whispering, alone, while he’s holding my hand, is another.

  “I crossed the line,” he breathes, and a shiver I’m not proud of trembles through me. “I crossed the finish line, first.”

  I reel back, my gaze narrowed as Massimo puckers a kiss at me. I snatch my hand away from him, Massimo throwing his head back in laughter as he turns, striding down the rest of the hallway. Once he’s a few steps away, I pick up the tattered shreds of my dignity and stuff them back into my racing boots, carrying me down the hall behind him.

  I should be used to it by now: his jokes that aren’t funny, his pranks that only serve to piss me off. But it still hurts.

  As soon as we’re in pit lane, Massimo’s manager and crew rush over to hug him while screaming victory accolades in Italian. Basically treating him like the God’s gift t
o racing he thinks he is. So he won here at Qatar—big deal. There are eighteen races left in the circuit, and the competition is far from over.

  Heading into my garage, I leave Massimo for where my own crew is waiting by my bike. It helps a lot that Billy and his younger brother, Mason—my Dabria teammate—have left their own pit boxes and are waiting to congratulate me. We may be competitors on Sundays, but Billy and Mason stumbled into their racing careers as farmhands on my mom’s ranch. So it’s kinda nice to have their country accents around when we’re traveling in Europe so much.

  “Lori, gimme some sugar, girl!” our manager, Frank, bellows before he runs over to wrap me in a hug, even though I probably smell like pure Pennzoil.

  When I pull back, I give him a sweet smile as I hand him my trophy. “You know your old gut can’t handle no sugar.”

  Frank bursts out laughing as he drops a kiss to my forehead. He turns to the King brothers and my other crew members, already busy passing around my trophy.

  “Hell of a race, Lorelai,” Billy says in a drawl that’s thicker than my leathers. He tips his Yaalon-covered cowboy hat at me before he ducks off to a corner of my pit box, his cell phone permanently pressed to his ear. He’s been that way ever since he and Taryn got back together, but at least she seems happier. For now.

  “He isn’t kidding,” Mason adds, holding out his hand. I clasp it in mine, my teammate’s crystal-blue eyes still alive from the battle on the track that landed him in fifth place to my second. He pulls me in for a bro hug, the only one who ever does, reeking of sweat and cologne over the faintest trace of whiskey. “Hope no one breaks the news to Massimo that we’re still getting the kinks worked out of the engines.”

  I laugh, loving the way he thinks, and I lean back to point at him. “I won’t say a word if you don’t.”

  Mason scrunches up his face at me under his cowboy hat, the picture of innocence. “A word about what?” He winks and lets me go, probably to go bug his brother. Fine by me. There’s one other hug I need before we head home to Memphis for the two long weeks before we race in Argentina.