Oil and Fire
1292 Words
Lena
The door hadn’t even fully settled into its frame before I was moving. My heart hammered against my ribs like it wanted out, but my hands—my hands stayed steady. They had to. In this garage, emotion is a luxury I can’t afford. If I let the way Max Rossi looked at me crawl under my skin, I’d cross-thread a bolt or crack a seal, and that kind of mistake costs money I don’t have.
I stare at the black machine parked in the center of the floor.
It doesn’t belong here.
The thing looks like it should be behind velvet ropes in a museum dedicated to modern warfare—not sitting on cracked concrete in a dying town where people forgot how to dream.
I reach for my toolbox, then stop.
“Two hours,” I mutter to the empty garage. “He thinks he can just dictate the clock?”
I march to the door and yank it open.
Rain slams down like a grey curtain, blurring the world into streaks of charcoal. “Hey! Rossi!”
He’s already walking away, maybe ten yards out, moving with that same predatory calm he had inside the club. Like the dark belongs to him.
He stops.
Slowly turns.
The rain slicks his dark hair back as he raises a single eyebrow, silent, waiting.
“The cash!” I shout over the thunder. “You said you don’t leave your property with strangers. Well, I don’t touch property for free. Seven hundred. Now. Or the bike stays out in the rain.”
For a long moment he just stares.
I think I’ve pushed too far.
His jaw tightens. The muscles in his neck flex under the leather vest. Then he starts walking back toward me.
Every step feels like a countdown.
He stops at the threshold, dripping rain onto the concrete. From his pocket he pulls out a roll of cash thick enough to choke a horse. He peels off seven crisp bills and slaps them onto the counter.
“I like a woman who knows her worth,” he says in that low, dangerous voice. “Most wait until the job’s done before demanding payment.”
“I’m not most women,” I say, stuffing the money into my coverall pocket. “Now go find a diner or a gutter to wait in. Come back in two hours.”
“I’ll stay.”
Before I can protest, he steps inside and shuts the door behind him.
“The rain’s a nuisance,” he adds casually. “And I find your… structural duct tape fascinating.”
“You stay, you stay quiet,” I snap, grabbing my tools. “And if you touch a single wrench, the price doubles.”
“Hard to bargain with a man who’s already paid, Lena.”
I ignore him.
Sliding onto the creeper, I roll under the bike. Cold metal fills my vision. The smell of oil and steel calms my nerves. Machines make sense. People don’t.
Still, I feel him standing there.
Like a shift in the room’s gravity.
“The manifold’s custom,” I say, shining my flashlight along the intake. “Who built this? It’s not from a shop.”
“A friend,” Max replies. “Someone who understands that sometimes you need to move faster than the law allows.”
“Sounds like a good way to end up scraped off pavement,” I mutter, loosening a stubborn bolt. “Your intake boot’s cracked. Heat cycles. Or someone’s over-torquing clamps.”
“I tend to hold things too tight.”
The bolt snaps free with a sharp crack.
But my brain stalls on his words.
I roll out from under the bike and sit up. Max is staring down at me, eyes hooded and unreadable.
“Is that supposed to be a warning?” I ask.
“Observation,” he replies calmly. “You’re an engineer at heart, aren’t you? You look at this machine and see equations. Why are you stuck in a place like this, Lena? A woman like you should be reading blueprints in a skyscraper.”
“You don’t know anything about me,” I snap, standing. “This garage was my father’s. It’s a legacy. Honest work. Something I doubt you know much about.”
His gaze darkens.
“Honesty is a luxury for people without enemies,” he says quietly. “You think an iron pipe and a locked door keep you safe? The world doesn’t care about your legacy. It only cares about what it can take.”
“Is that what you do?” I challenge. “Take?”
“I protect what’s mine.”
He steps closer. Heat radiates off him.
“And I remember the people who help me,” he adds. “And the people who don’t.”
“Is that a threat?”
“Depends how you hear it.”
The air between us crackles.
Finally I shove the cash back toward him. “Take it. Take the bike. I don’t need your business.”
He glances at the money… then back at me.
Something like surprise flickers across his face—followed by a sharp curiosity.
“Keep the money,” he says quietly. “Fix the bike. I want to see if those hands are as stubborn as your mouth.”
I turn back to the engine before my pulse gives me away.
For the next hour, I work.
Rain pounds the roof. Tools click and scrape. Metal hums beneath my fingers as I strip panels, replace the intake boot, and reset the vacuum lines.
Max never interrupts.
He just watches.
Not the way men at the club watch women.
This feels different.
Like he’s studying me… memorizing something.
“Finished,” I say at last.
I hit the starter.
The engine purrs to life—deep, smooth, perfect.
Max approaches slowly. He twists the throttle, listening to the response.
Then he nods once.
“You’re good, Lena. Better than they said.”
“I know,” I reply. “Now get out. My mother needs her medicine.”
He swings onto the bike and pulls on his helmet. For a second he reaches toward me, like he might touch my face again.
Instead he taps the fuel tank.
“This isn’t the last time we’ll see each other.”
Not a question.
A promise.
“Don’t count on it,” I shoot back. “I don’t entertain mafia in my spare time.”
He freezes for half a second.
Then laughs softly.
“Mafia? You have quite the imagination.”
He kicks the bike into gear and roars into the rain. Gravel sprays behind him as the taillight vanishes down the dark road.
I think he’s gone.
Until the brake lights flash twice at the edge of the trees.
Then disappear.
I stand there in the doorway long after the sound fades, the wind cutting through my damp clothes.
The garage suddenly feels too quiet.
My pocket is heavy with the seven hundred dollars.
Too heavy.
I look at the oil stain where his bike sat… then at the empty road.
I told him I’m a professional.
I told him I’m not like other women.
So why did he leave the money without even asking about the extra hundred I charged him at the door?
And worse… why do I have the sinking feeling that those seven hundred dollars weren’t payment for fixing his motorcycle at all?
What if they were something else entirely—something far more dangerous?
What if Max Rossi didn’t just pay for a repair tonight… but quietly marked the beginning of a debt I don’t even know I owe yet?
- Writer
