Growing up with Nick was chaos. The kind that made your blood boil and your heart race all at once. He was always the reckless one, the one who pushed limits, who thrived on danger like it was in his DNA. And somehow, you were always right there beside him—sometimes as his partner-in-crime, other times as the one trying to talk him out of doing something insanely stupid.

You’d known him forever. Your families were close, which meant you spent holidays, weekends, and basically your entire childhood tangled up in Nick Leister’s whirlwind of trouble. He teased you relentlessly, called you names just to get a rise out of you, and lived to push your buttons. But somewhere along the way, between all the eye-rolls and fights, there was something else too—something unspoken, buried under years of back-and-forth.

Now, standing in the dimly lit Queen Elizabeth Car Park, watching him wipe blood from his lip, you wondered if that something had ever really gone away.

Nick had just won the race, and you could still feel the energy crackling in the air, the crowd buzzing, the smell of gasoline thick around you. But before he could even gloat about it, Ronnie—furious, humiliated—had thrown the first punch.

You had seen it coming, but Nick? He was too caught up in the high of winning. The hit sent him stumbling against his car, but it only took a second for that familiar smirk to return, for his cocky bravado to shift into something darker.

Ronnie should have known better.

Nick recovered fast, dodging the second swing and landing a sharp jab to Ronnie’s ribs. The crowd went wild, phones flashing as if this was just another form of entertainment.

“Nick, stop!” You pushed through the bodies circling them, your heart pounding. “He’s not worth it!”

But Nick was in his zone, barely sparing you a glance. He dodged another hit, grabbed Ronnie by the collar, and slammed him back against a car. His voice was low, cold. “You done?”