“That doesn’t explain the burning cars on the road, or why you drove past the bridge to Briar Falls,” Skeeter grunted, giving me a knowing look. I shrugged.
“They were on our tail the whole time so I didn’t want to risk it. I think they made a trap for us but fucked it up. It went off just after we passed it.”
He dropped his hand onto my shoulder firmly, letting me know he wasn’t falling for my shit. “Let’s talk about this inside, shall we?”
We started walking towards the door, and Caden grabbed Zavier’s shoulder, shoving him after us. “You too, Lopez.”
I bit back a sigh, knowing I wasn’t getting out of this. Especially when we were marched right past Diesel who gave me a disappointed look. He and Slash would’ve been the two most likely to side with me, and it appeared there was no chance of that happening tonight.
Skeeter steered me into the office and put both hands on my shoulders to gently push me down into a chair at the massive table where they held most of their crew meetings. I placed my bat on the floor by my feet, glancing up at him.
“This is starting to feel like an interrogation,” I joked as everyone else crowded around the table, Skeeter’s eyes narrowing on me.
“D told us about your little run-in with that asshole in Rawson Grove the other day. He mentioned you’re friends with Ander fucking Lavaro,” he said tightly.
My heart beat quickly in my chest at the thought of them being onto me. Being caught moving drugs was one thing, but losing the ability to race? I’d lose my fucking mind without that as an outlet. The track didn’t hit the spot like the street races.
I kept my face blank, tilting my head slightly. “Turbo? Yeah. We’re friends, I guess. We hang out if we run into each other, but it’s not like we go out of our way to party together or anything. Where’s Mom?” I had hope that she’d side with me. She was a sucker for my bullshit.
“Was that punk with you tonight?” Skeeter asked instead, and I noticed Marco and Hunter weren’t there either. That made me suddenly nervous. Something like this would’ve made them all gang up on me, so they were either hunting down Turbo, or something else was wrong.
“I saw him earlier in the night,” I said smoothly, telling a half truth. “Why? Did he see us being chased and call you guys or something?”
I was pretty sure he was going to burst a blood vessel.
He moved away from me, his jaw set tight. “You have one chance to tell me the truth, Riley. Don’t fuck with me right now. I’m seconds away from tearing the Lopez kid’s head from his shoulders.”
“I’m telling the truth!”
Diesel walked over, resting his hip against the table and crossing his arms. He sighed, his face filled with hurt. “Hunter hacked the cameras in Hawthorne and Crestford. We had eyes on you until not long before the bridge. Ander was tailing you until just before Crestford, then he trailed off to get ahead of you. You were working together on something, and you told me you weren’t involved with his bullshit.”
“Where’s Mom?” I asked again, my voice tight. “No one got me into any kind of trouble. You guys promised you wouldn’t spy on us like that without a reason.”
“She’s at Devil’s Dungeon with Hunter and Marco dealing with drunk idiots who tried to break in after closing. Don’t change the subject, and we had a reason to spy on you. BG called and wanted to know if we’d heard from you, because he got a call from someone who recognized your car in the Heights. They said you were being followed by someone.”
Relief seeped into me at knowing Mom wasn’t out there hunting Turbo down to blow his brains out. I didn’t need those two worlds colliding.
“What the hell were you doing tonight, Riley? Be honest with me,” Skeeter said as he blew out a breath, his muscles relaxing a fraction as he pushed his reddish-brown hair back from his forehead. “Are you in some kind of trouble?”
“Look, I have a lot of respect for Turbo, and we were just hanging out. We’d planned to go and scare some of the Crestford Academy brats who live on campus because we were bored. Things went south and I didn’t want to bring you guys into it,” I lied, his brow creasing.
“What did the people chasing you want?”
“They assumed, since I was hanging out with Turbo, that we were exchanging goods of some kind. What did you call them?” I asked as I turned to Zavier. “Trust fund babies?”
Everyone’s eyes turned to him, and he nodded, more than happy to throw a bunch of rich assholes under the bus.
“I’ve heard about them a lot lately. Bunch of rich kids running around with guns, acting like gangsters. They’d been told to keep an eye on Ander’s deals. They didn’t know Riley was the person with him, and they shit their pants when they realized. They just saw Ander’s car and figured it was a job.” It was close to the truth.
Skeeter eyed me silently for a while before giving me a single nod. “Alright. Can you giveTurboa message for me?”
“I’m likely to stumble across him again soon, so sure.” I nodded as if I didn’t have his phone number, a dark smirk tugging at Skeeter’s lips.
“If I find out he’s involving you in his shit, I’ll tear him to pieces. Slowly and painfully. We leave him alone since he keeps his bullshit out of Ashburn Valley, but if he drags you into anything? He’ll be in my trunk with his hands cut off in seconds.” Then he turned to Zavier, narrowing his eyes. “That goes for you too. Drag my kids into anything bad, and you’ll cop the same fate. Understood?”
“Understood,” Zavier said calmly, fishing my keys from his pocket and holding them out for me. “Here. I’d better head home.”
I waved him off, surprising everyone. “Use it to get home. It’s late, and I doubt your friends want to climb out of bed to give you a lift.”