The Mafia's Racer Bride

Chapter 3

Kelsey Schmidt

The words hung in the suffocating night air, freezing the blood in my veins.

Before my brain could even begin to process the horror, my phone violently vibrated in my suit pocket. The sudden noise shattered the silence. Panic clawed up my throat, and I stumbled backward into the shadows, terrified they would catch me listening.

The rest of the night blurred into a waking nightmare. I forced myself through the after-party, playing the part of the triumphant winner before getting into the earliest flight back to Portland.

When I finally pushed open the front door of our house, Kennedy was sitting in the dark living room, waiting like a spider in its web.

“I secured a massive partnership for you,” he said, his voice dripping with forced, oily casualness. “An exclusive investment group out of New York. They want to sponsor your car, put their logo front and center.”

My stomach plummeted into an abyss. I swallowed the lump in my throat and forced my voice to stay steady. “If they want a sponsorship, they need to talk to the Mercedes management team, not me—”

“Enough of your backtalk, Kelsey! You have a flight booked to New York tomorrow. They want a private meeting with you!”

“But I have mandatory team training!”

“I said enough!” His roar shook the rafters of the dark, oppressive house, echoing off the bare walls like a gunshot.

“I understand,” I whispered, staring blankly down at the marble floor as he turned and stalked away into the shadows.

And in that instant, the jagged pieces of the puzzle slammed together with sickening clarity.

“Deliver her to us, or you will die.”

The words echoed in the cold night air, sticking to my ribs like frost. They weren't talking about a racing contract. They were talking about me. My own flesh and blood had put a price tag on my body, trading me away to monsters just to wipe clean a ledger of endless debts and poker losses.

I wasn't stupid. This wasn't a business meeting. It was a human transaction. I was going to be handed over like livestock to settle a debt higher than the sky.

I couldn't stay here another second. I needed help. I needed him.

I silently slipped out of the house, plunged into the freezing Portland drizzle, and drove blindly through the slick streets until I found a quiet downtown parking garage. The shadows were thick, swallowing the harsh yellow glow of the overhead fluorescent lights like a mouth. My hands shook so violently that I dropped my phone twice against the steering wheel before I finally managed to punch in the sequence of numbers I had memorized a decade ago. The numbers I had never once had the courage to dial.

Every second stretched like a tightrope pulled to snapping point. I couldn't even remember the last time I had seen his face.

All I remembered was my eighteenth birthday, when a massive, heavy custom racing helmet had arrived anonymously at my front door, accompanied by a card bearing a single, bold signature that said A.

He was a ghost from my childhood, a terrifying myth my grandfather Henri had left behind like a loaded weapon, a name whispered only in the darkest, most untouchable corners of the West Coast underworld. I knew how dangerous he was, and that was precisely why I had spent years running from the thought of calling him. But now, standing at the edge of the abyss, he was my only way out.

I needed Anthony Pierson French.

My father is the one who’s really close to Anthony. When Margaret French, Anthony’s mother, fell ill, and she and Anthony faced homelessness, my grandfather Henri opened his home without hesitation. He treated Margaret as a daughter and Anthony as a grandson. I heard that story multiple times at all of my father’s party that made me remember it.

When the line finally clicked, a deep, resonant silence met my ragged, terrified breathing on the other end.

"Anthony," I choked out, my voice cracking, betrayed by the sudden, hot rush of tears I had fought so hard to suppress. "Anthony, please..."

"Kelsey," his voice came back instantly through the speaker. Low, steady, and razor-sharp, cutting through the panic like cold steel. There was no hesitation, no confusion. Just absolute, immovable focus. "Talk to me."

"Something's wrong," I sobbed, gripping the steering wheel so hard my knuckles popped, my eyes darting frantically to the dark, empty exit ramps of the garage. "My father... he's acting strange. He keeps talking about New York. He's planning something, Anthony, I can feel it, and I think they're going to take me."

On the other end of the line, the ambient sounds of whatever opulent room Anthony was sitting in vanished entirely. A terrifying, dead silence settled over the connection.

When he spoke again, the temperature in my car seemed to drop twenty degrees. The casual warmth I had foolishly dreamed of vanished, replaced by something ancient, dark, and lethal.

"Where are you?" he asked.

"Downtown garage of 5th—"

"Go back to your house," Anthony commanded, his tone leaving zero room for argument. "I'm coming. No one is touching you."