Magnate (Acquisition 2)

“Ready to go a little faster?”

“Faster than this?” I asked as the countryside whizzed by.

“Way faster. Straightaway up ahead. Hold on to your tits, Stella.”

I laughed, but the roar of the engine drowned out the sound as he pushed the bike harder and we hurtled forward, passing a couple of cars until we made it to the straightaway. The road rose up to meet us as he leaned forward, me glued to his back. We sped so fast that we were nothing but a whoosh of speed and sound, oncoming cars only a transitory blip. My heart pounded, pure adrenaline pumping through my veins.

“Wooo!” Teddy’s voice in my ear. No, it was both of ours. Both of us let out the exhilaration and soaked up the danger, the life, and the realness of the moment.

His heart pounded against my palm, matching the chaotic beat of my own. This was the freedom I longed for, a beautiful escape, if only fleeting.

We glided for a little while longer before he let off the accelerator, the bike calming down though our hearts still raced.

He reached back and squeezed my knee. “Fuckin’ A, right?”

“Couldn’t have said it better myself.”

We rumbled into town, the familiar streets no longer holding the same charm for me they once did. He drove through the town square. We passed the courthouse where my father’s trial had been held and the jail where he’d been taken after his arrest. Dark memories tempered the excitement of only moments before.

“Can we go left here?” I asked.

“Sure. Whatever you want.” He turned as I’d directed, and I gave him a few more instructions before we cruised down my old street.

“Down toward the end.” Toward my father’s house. There was no reason for me to do it, to torture myself like this. But I had to see.

We rolled up and I gasped. The house’s roof was gone, the top of the windows blackened, and the front porch fallen in.

“What is it?” Teddy cut the music. “What’s wrong?”

“That’s my father’s house.” Worry twisted my insides.

Teddy pulled into the drive and stopped, shutting the engine off and kicking out the stand. He helped me off and I walked up to my home, or what was left of it. I pulled off my helmet and tucked it under my arm.

“What happened?” Teddy stood beside me and craned his head back to see the charred tips of what remained of the sloping eaves.

“I don’t know. I had no idea…” All I could do was stare, shell-shocked that this piece of my past had been erased. All my paintings, the mementos I had to remember my mother—gone.

Teddy pulled a glove off and went to the nearest window before pressing his fingers along the wood. “Not wet and the inside looks dry, too. It must have happened a while ago.”

“Why would no one tell me?”

“Because you didn’t need to know.” Vinemont’s hand clapped down on my shoulder and I jumped.

Teddy turned. “Sin—”

Vinemont cut him off. “Imagine my surprise when I was driving home after spending all night at the office and I saw a bike speeding past me at an insane clip. Who could it be?” He squeezed my shoulder so I couldn’t turn around and face him. “I wondered who was foolhardy enough to drive at such a breakneck pace, who was dumb enough to ride at his back, and further, who did I know that had such a fast bike?”

I gripped his fingers and pried two of them loose before darting forward and whirling. “Keep your fucking hands off me, Vinemont.”

He wore a dark blue dress shirt, the throat open, and a pair of black slacks. The sun lit his hair, coloring the deep brown a milk chocolate. He had a shadow of light stubble across his cheeks, rough and masculine. In his eyes I saw a seething anger.

“Look, Sin. I’m sorry. It was my idea, though. Not hers.” Teddy walked up beside me. “You don’t need to like, punish her or anything.”

“I don’t need to be having this discussion while at least two neighbors are watching through their curtains, no.” He kept his voice low, but each word was tinged with wrath. “But here we are anyway. One big happy fucking family.”

“Sin, we’ll go the speed limit on the way back, okay?” Teddy grabbed my helmet and lifted it above my head.

Before he could put it on, Vinemont said, “Leave it. She’s riding with me. You are riding ahead of me the whole way and we are going the speed limit. Got it?”

“I’m not a kid, Sin. I don’t have to do what you say.” Teddy handed my helmet back to me and squared his shoulders.

“I have ways of keeping you in line. Don’t make me use them.”

“What, are you going to cut me off?” Teddy threw his hands out to his sides and his voice rose. “Make me pay for college? What are you going to do?”