Fast & Hard (The Fast 1)

“Fuck Celeritas!” I smack the steering wheel. “I don’t give two shits about Celeritas, Mallory, I don’t want you around him!”

“Then I’m asking you to let this go and don’t let him provoke you for me. So that I don’t get fired.”

There’s a tear rolling down her cheek again but I can’t look at her. I am too furious. I don’t think she really fucked Dickhead in the bathroom. I mean, minimally, Mallory’s not exactly a bathroom quickie kind of girl. But something is going on. She’s lying to me.

Goddamn this noise inside my head. I can’t go through this again, it’ll kill me this time. She’ll kill me.

I don’t speak the rest of the way home, my mind going faster than the car as I think about the locked phone, the increase in the number of alleged meetings, all the text messages from Aria and Cody all of a sudden. Hell, in France after I blew the car up and wanted to leave the track, she told me she wanted to stay and watch the rest of the race with the guys, that she’d meet up with me later. Why didn’t that tip me off?

Because I’ve been an idiot.

???

A thousand times last night I almost got up and stormed into her apartment. All night I fought the urge to argue and demand answers. All night I went back and forth asking myself if I am seeing things, being paranoid because of past transgressions.

But she lied. At the bare minimum, she made me a promise and is choosing her job duties over everything I told her. I’ve never brought anyone home or told her the things I told her. Years together with Kate and I never let her meet my parents.

In a particularly low and gross moment in my life I can never get back, I poured over all of DuPrick’s media and the Celeritas pages looking for any incriminating evidence, photos of them together. I went through all of Mallory’s accounts. I don’t even know what I’m looking for but I didn’t find it and then I felt even worse.

I didn’t even do that when I saw, with my own eyes, Digby banging Kate on my bed. I saw it with my own eyes so I didn’t have to go looking for proof, but I realize I also never felt like this about Kate. I was pissed, not hurt. Now it’s pain pressing down on my chest like a million tiny daggers.

She had to know it would hurt me to find her in the bathroom with DuPrick, his dick in his hands. But she wouldn’t cheat, leave me for him, would she? What else is going on if she’s lying to me, if she can’t keep the simple promise to stay away from him?

My phone buzzes again and I assume it’s another message from Mallory that I read over and over but can’t respond to yet. But it’s Matty and I’m late, I was supposed to be in the gym fifteen minutes ago. I run my f

ingers through my hair. Work, Matty, and Celeritas will have to wait, this is more important.

Lennox: Help me understand. Can we talk?

Mallory: I’m in a meeting. Later? Please?

Another meeting. How convenient. It’s just as well, I need to do something with this frustration and making myself crazy isn’t helping.

Two hours of cardio, boxing, and the speed-bag has helped to take the edge off even if my mind is still in warp speed. I’d prefer to stay longer, keep at it, picture Digby’s face on the heavy bag. But Matty’s pissing and moaning about strained muscles and I don’t enjoy ice baths. And I need to resolve this with Mallory, now.

Matty’s been eying me suspiciously the whole time but the nice thing about Finnish culture, they don’t talk a lot. Small talk is considered rude and worse, inefficient. I appreciate that when he does speak, it’s the truth, there’s no hidden agenda. What a rarity.

I consider asking his opinion as I sit on the weight bench and wipe the sweat off, but he’s just going to reiterate that I’m an asshole. He won’t expand or go into details, because being an asshole pretty much sums it up perfectly.

My entire life has been dominated by my career since I was old enough to walk. She’s entitled to the same. I can deal with that, I’ll support her. I can’t deal with her around Digby and not trusting me to stay away from him. Lying to me, hiding things from me. Just act fucking Finnish and tell me the truth so I can fix it.

“Phone’s been going off all day.” He tosses it to me and goes about re-racking weights.

I set it down next to me on the bench, not wanting to look, and run the towel through my sweaty hair. Buzz buzz buzz. Buzz buzz buzz. Over and over. I just want a minute to think but it’s relentless. I give up and glance sideways at it on the bench. A picture of Mallory flashes on the screen then disappears.

What is that about? I pick up the phone and swipe it open. Sixteen messages from some foreign phone number not in my contacts. I look through the first few photos.

Mallory on a couch. Mallory bent over plugging a cord into an outlet. A side profile of Mallory tying her hair up. What the hell is this?

“Matty, you recognize this number?” I hold the phone up so he can see it.

“377, that’s Monaco’s country code,” he answers immediately, throws another weight onto the rack, then makes the connection at the same moment I do. He’s over my shoulder in an instant, watching as I swipe through the rest of the pictures.

Mallory with a glass of wine next to her laptop. Mallory smiling at something. Someone’s hand on her knee. Then I get to Mallory in a bedroom, her back facing the camera. Then one of her pulling a Celeritas shirt over her head, her back naked except for red bra straps. I don’t make it any further.

I recognize those brick walls now, the old leaded windows in the photos.

I storm out of the gym with Matty beside me. We don’t speak but we both know where we’re going.