Chapter 1: Wrenching Desire in the Dark
The wrench turned with a final, metallic shriek, the bolt surrendering to a torque that felt more like rage. Dominic’s knuckles were bone-white, not from the strain of the work, but from the smell of her—motor oil and vanilla lotion—filling his lungs as she leaned in.
“You’re stripping it,” Catalina said, her voice a low vibration against the back of his neck.
He froze. Her breath was warm on his skin. She was close enough that the faded denim of her overalls brushed against his arm. He didn’t pull away. He never did.
“I got it,” he muttered, finally loosening his grip. The bolt was fine. He wasn’t.
He slid out from under the lifted hood of the ‘68 Charger, the concrete floor cold and unforgiving against his spine. She stood over him, backlit by the single bulb hanging from the rafter. It flickered, casting her face in shifting shadows. Her hair was pulled back, a few dark strands stuck to her temple with sweat or garage humidity. He watched the line of her throat as she swallowed.
“Fuel line’s clear,” she said, turning to wipe her hands on a rag already black with grime. “You want to fire her up?”
“In a minute.”
He got to his feet, the muscles in his back protesting. The garage was their world. Old muscle cars in various states of repair sat like sleeping giants under tarps. Tools lined the walls, each in its outlined place. Order. Control. Out here, he knew what he was doing.
Catalina walked to the workbench, her movements efficient, familiar. She poured two mugs of coffee from a stained thermos, black. She handed one to him. Their fingers didn’t touch. They’d become experts at avoiding contact.
“Vince stopped by,” she said, leaning against the bench. “Said the meet at the dock is set for tomorrow night. Midnight.”
Dominic grunted, sipping the bitter coffee. “He bring the distributor?”
“Yeah. It’s in the box.”
“Good.”
Silence stretched, filled by the distant, watery rush of traffic on the 110. It was always there, that sound, a river they were anchored against. He stared at the Charger. They’d rebuilt it from a shell, just the two of them, over three long years. Every bolt, every wire. A piece of them was in its frame.
“You tired?” he asked, not looking at her.
“Aren’t you?”
“I’m always tired.”
He felt her eyes on him. That specific, weighty attention he could feel from across a room. It was the worst and the only thing he wanted.
“You’re thinking too loud,” she said, her tone attempting lightness. It fell flat.
“It’s the car. Timing’s still off.”
“Bullshit.”
He finally looked at her. Her blue eyes were sharp, seeing everything. They were his own eyes, reflected back with a terrifying, knowing clarity. The twin thing, people called it. They had no idea.
“What do you want me to say, Cat?” The name was out, soft and worn, a secret between them.
She put her mug down with a definitive click. “I want you to say we’re going for a drive. Right now. See what this thing can really do.” She nodded at the Charger. “Forget the meet. Forget Vince. Just you, me, and the open road.”
It was an old fantasy. A getaway. He’d played the scenario in his head a thousand times: just the two of them, windows down, disappearing into the desert night, leaving everything else in the dust.
“We can’t,” he said, the words ash in his mouth.
“Why?”
“You know why.”
“Because of what people would think? Or because of what you think?” She took a step toward him. The space between them crackled. The flickering light made it seem like the world was stuttering, unable to maintain a steady reality.
“Catalina.” Her full name was a warning, a barrier.
“Don’t ‘Catalina’ me. We’ve been doing this dance since we were sixteen, Dom. I’m tired. My feet hurt.” Her voice broke, just a little, and it was like a fault line opening in the concrete floor.
He saw it then—the same exhaustion that lived in his own bones. The same war waged in silence. It was in the way she held her shoulders, a permanent brace against an invisible weight. They were two mirrors facing each other, reflecting the same lonely image into infinity.
He moved without deciding to. One step closed the distance. He didn’t touch her. He just stood there, within the radius of her heat, her scent, the magnetic field that had pulled at him for half his life.
“There is no road,” he said, his voice rough. “Not for us. There’s this garage. The crew. The family. That’s all there is.”
“Family.” She let out a short, humorless laugh. “Right.”
The word hung there, toxic and unavoidable. It was the cage. It was also everything he lived for. The crew was his responsibility. She was his responsibility. And this thing between them… it was a wrecking ball. He couldn’t let it swing.
Outside, a car door slammed. Voices approached—Vince and Jesse, probably, coming to talk about tomorrow’s run. The real world, with its crude, simple rules, was at the door.
Catalina’s gaze held his, defiant and hopeless. In the unstable light, for a fleeting second, he let himself imagine a different life. A different garage, in a different city, where she was his and it wasn’t a sin.
Then her expression shuttered. The vulnerability vanished, replaced by the tough mask she showed the world. She picked up her wrench from the bench.
“So we get the timing fixed,” she said, turning back to the Charger, her voice all business. “Check the plugs again. We can’t have her stumbling on the straightaway tomorrow.”
The moment was gone, folded back into the routine. The danger passed over, again. But the charge in the air remained, a live wire dropped in a puddle, waiting.
Dominic picked up his own mug, the coffee now cold. He watched her bend over the engine bay, her form a silhouette of everything he could never have.
“Yeah,” he said to her back. “Let’s check the plugs.”
The garage door rattled, started to rise. Vince’s loud laugh spilled in, followed by the night air. Dominic took a last, long look at her, then turned to face the door, his face settling into its usual, brooding lines. The world came flooding back in, but the echo of that almost, of that impossible, nearly spoken thing, thrummed in his chest like a second heartbeat.
“Don’t start,” he whispered to himself, a command and a plea, as the others walked in. He didn’t know if he meant the car, or the war inside his own head. Maybe both. He took the distributor cap from the box on the bench, his hands steady only because he willed them to be.
He took the distributor cap from the box on the bench, his hands steady only because he willed them to be.
The garage door clattered the rest of the way up, and Vince ambled in, all broad shoulders and loud confidence, with Jesse, a nervous spark of energy, trailing behind him. The spell was broken, the air now just garage air—oil and dust.
“There she is,” Vince said, slapping the Charger’s fender. “Beauty. Tomorrow night, she’s gonna make us a lot of friends very unhappy. And a lot of cash very happy.” He grinned, then turned his attention to Catalina. “Hey, Cat. Where’s your Mini? Didn’t see it outside.”
Catalina didn’t look up from where she was mock-tuning a carburetor screw. “Out with Letty.”
“Letty?” Vince’s grin widened. “What, I’m not fun enough for a girls’ night?”
This time, Catalina straightened up and looked right at him, her expression flat. “She wanted to do something alone with her Aunt Letty. ‘Without her childish Uncle Vince.’ Those were Mina’s words.”
Vince clutched his chest, feigning a deep wound. “Ouch. My own niece. A three-year-old assassin.” He turned to Dom. “You hear this? This is your fault. You let her watch those mob movies.”
Dom managed a half-smile, the familiar crew banter a life raft back to normalcy. “She’s got good taste. Now, you two just here to socialize, or did you bring the rest of the parts?”
Jesse held up a greasy paper bag. “Relays and the new coil wire. The good stuff, not the cheap crap.”
“Good.” Dom took the bag, his mind forcing itself into the comfortable groove of the work, the plan. “Midnight at the docks. We run clean, we run fast. No showboating until the second straight. Understood?”
Vince nodded, his joking demeanor set aside. “Cops been sittin’ on the overpass past the render plant lately. Leon’s crew spotted ‘em last Thursday. We’ll need to take the sewer access road to the start line.”
A new voice, smooth and calm, came from the doorway. “Sewer road’s clear. I checked.”
Leon, lean and watchful, leaned against the doorframe. He tossed a small, wrapped bundle to Dom. It landed with a soft, thick sound on the workbench. “Upfront money. As agreed.”
Dom didn’t open it. He just gave a single, slow nod. The weight of it—the cash, the race, the entire precarious operation—settled on his shoulders. This was his world. This he could handle.
Catalina watched him, her eyes tracing the line of his jaw, the set of his shoulders. He could feel her gaze like a physical touch. He concentrated on the distributor cap in his hands, the precise alignment of the contacts.
“We’ll take two cars,” Dom said, his voice all business. “Cat, you’re with me in the Charger. Vince, you and Jesse lead out in the Camaro. Be the eyes. Leon, you’re sweep on the bike. Any sign of trouble, any sign at all, you call it and we scatter. This isn’t about pride. It’s about the money.”
“It’s always about the money,” Vince laughed.
“Not always,” Jesse muttered, almost to himself, polishing a relay with his sleeve.
A heavy quiet followed, broken only by the buzz of the faulty light. Dom’s and Catalina’s eyes met across the hood of the car. For a fleeting second, it wasn’t about the money at all. It was about the pact, the silent and terrible one that lived between them in glances and missed breaths.
Leon cleared his throat, the sound like gravel. “I’ll be at the choke point from nine. You need anything before then.”
“We’re good,” Dom said, finally looking away from his sister. “We’re all good.”
One by one, they filtered out, leaving brother and sister alone again with the car and the hum of the city. The charged silence returned, thicker now, amplified by the discussion of risk and law.
Catalina walked around to his side of the bench.
Catalina walked around to his side of the bench. The space was narrow, crowded with toolboxes. Her arm brushed his as she reached past him for a socket wrench that wasn’t there, a pretense so thin it was painful. He didn’t move. He let the contact happen, a searing line of heat through his sleeve.
“You’re lying to them,” she whispered, not looking at him, her voice so low it was almost lost in the hum of the overhead bulb. “The timing’s perfect.”
“I’m not lying to them.”
“Then who are you lying to?”
Before he could answer, before the words could fracture the last fragile seal between them, the sound of a car pulling up, tires crunching on gravel, cut through the night. Doors opened and closed. Then, tiny, rapid footsteps pattered toward the garage entrance, a joyful staccato on the concrete.
The world, the dangerous, silent world of just the two of them, shattered.
A small figure burst into the pool of light from the open doorway. “Mommy! Daddy! We’re back!”
Mina, a whirlwind of three-year-old energy in pink sneakers and a jacket covered in glittery dinosaurs, sprinted across the garage floor, her arms wide. She launched herself at Catalina, who caught her with a soft, reflexive grunt, the sudden, pure joy on her face transforming her completely.
“Hey, baby bug!” Catalina said, her voice bright and warm, a different person entirely. She buried her nose in Mina’s dark, messy hair. “Did you have fun with Aunt Letty?”
“We got ice cream! And I got a new dinosaur! He’s green!” Mina squirmed, then reached her sticky hands out toward Dominic. “Daddy, up!”
The word, so innocent, so full of love, hit him like a physical blow. It was a title he’d die to protect, and a prison he’d carved for himself. He forced a smile, the muscles of his face unfamiliar with the motion, and scooped her from Catalina’s arms. She smelled of chocolate, kid-sweat, and strawberry shampoo.
“Green, huh? The fastest color,” he said, bouncing her lightly on his hip.
Letty appeared in the doorway, her keen eyes scanning the scene—the proximity of the twins, the charged air that hadn’t yet fully dissipated. She leaned against the frame, arms crossed. “Someone would not take no for an answer on the sprinkles. Blame her.”
“Sprinkles are important,” Catalina said, brushing a crumb from Mina’s cheek, her finger lingering for a second on the soft skin. Her eyes flicked up to Dominic’s over their daughter’s head. The mask was back, but the crack he’d seen moments before was still there, just beneath the surface.
“Story, Daddy?” Mina demanded, tugging on his shirt. “The one with the race car?”
“In a bit, mija,” he said, his voice rough. He set her down gently. “Daddy and Mommy have to finish up with the real race car first.”
“Can I help?” Mina scrambled toward the Charger, her small hand reaching for a shiny wrench on the floor.
“No, no, mija, that’s dirty,” Catalina said, smoothly intercepting her, swooping her up again. “How about you go show Aunt Letty your new dinosaur in the house? We’ll be right in.”
Letty pushed off the doorframe, reading the room. “Come on, champ. Let’s go find that dinosaur a place to sleep.” She held out her hand. Mina, after a moment of deliberation, went to her, chattering about the ice cream flavors.
Letty paused, her gaze landing on Dominic. “You good?”
“Always,” he said, the lie effortless and heavy.
She nodded once, a silent communication of understanding and unasked questions, and led Mina out of the garage, the little girl’s voice fading into the night.
The silence that followed was different now. It was haunted by the ghost of a child’ laughter, by the echo of a word that defined and condemned them both. The garage felt less like a sanctuary and more like a crime scene.
Catalina stood with her back to him, her hands braced on the workbench, head bowed. “She looks more like you every day,” she said softly.
He didn’t answer. He couldn’t. The truth was a living thing trapped in his chest.
She turned around. The vulnerability was gone, replaced by a fierce, desperate resolve. “This can’t go on, Dom. We can’t… I can’t live in this pause anymore. We either move forward or we stop. For real.”
“There is no forward,” he said, the words final. “There’s Mina. There’s the family. There’s what’s right.”
“What’s right?” A bitter laugh escaped her. “You think this is right? This… limbo? This lying to everyone, especially to her?”
“It’s the only way to protect her!”
“From what? From us?” Her voice cracked. “We are her us. We’re all she has.”
He took a step toward her, then stopped, his hands curling into useless fists. “If this ever got out… what people would say… what it would do to her…”
“I don’t care about people!” The force of her whisper was like a shout. “I care about us. I care about you. And you care about me. You can stand there and tell me you don’t, but your eyes… your eyes have always told the truth, Dominic.”
He was drowning. She was the only shore, and reaching for her would pull them both under. The weight of their secret, of their daughter, of the crew, pressed down on him, a gravity from which there was no escape.
A car roared past on the street outside, a violent reminder of the world waiting, a world of simple speeds and finish lines. Here, there was no finish line. Only an endless, exhausting race.
“We have a run tomorrow,” he said, his voice hollow, retreating into the practicality of survival. “We need to focus.”
She stared at him, her eyes searching his for the man she knew was buried beneath the duty. She must have seen only the wall he’d spent years building, stone by stone. Her shoulders slumped, the fight draining out of her, replaced by a profound fatigue.
“Fine,” she said, the word flat and final. “We’ll focus.”
She walked away from him, over to the Charger. She picked up a clean rag and began meticulously, pointlessly, wiping a spotless fender. The distance between them was only ten feet, but it felt like a canyon had opened, raw and uncrossable.
Dominic stood rooted, watching her. The ghost of her warmth still lingered on his arm where she’d brushed against him. The scent of her vanilla lotion mixed with the garage’s oil and metal. He memorized the slope of her neck, the tension in her jaw. This was the only forward he could allow. This silent, shared agony.
He turned, walked to the sink, and washed the grease from his hands. The water was cold. He scrubbed until his skin was raw.
“I’m going to check the route with Leon,” he said, not looking at her, drying his hands on a towel. “I’ll be back late.”
He didn’t wait for a response. He just walked out, into the dark, leaving her alone with the car and the crushing weight of what they could never have.
He just walked out, into the dark, leaving her alone with the car and the crushing weight of what they could never have.
The night air was cool, a shock after the garage’s oily closeness. Dominic reached the driver’s side door of his truck, the metal handle cold under his grip. He stopped, his forehead resting against the window. His reflection stared back, a ghost of a man trapped in glass. From inside the house, a squeal of laughter cut through the hum of the city. Mina’s laughter.
His hands fell to his sides.
The slam of the screen door echoed behind him. He didn’t turn. He knew the rhythm of her walk, the soft scuff of her boots on the asphalt.
“Dom.”
He didn’t move.
She came around to face him, her features softened by the yellow light from the kitchen window. The fierce resolve from moments ago was gone, replaced by something older, wearier. “You wanted to bring your daughter to bed. You wanted to tell her a story.” Her voice was quiet, stripped bare. “Let’s bring our daughter to bed. Then you can go check the route.”
He finally looked at her. The canyon between them was still there, but she was throwing a rope across. A fragile, practical rope.
“Tell Leon Mina wanted a story from her Uncle Dom,” she added, the faintest hint of their old shorthand returning. I’m asking you to stay. Just for a minute.
He nodded, once. A short, sharp motion. He pulled his phone from his pocket, thumbs moving over the keys. Running late. Mina duty. Start without me. He sent it to Leon, then silenced the phone.
They walked back to the house together, not touching, the distance between them precise and charged. The kitchen light was too bright. Letty was at the sink, washing a single ice cream bowl. She glanced at them, her gaze knowing and careful, then dried her hands. “I’m gonna head out. See you tomorrow.” She didn’t wait for a reply, just grabbed her jacket and was gone, leaving them alone in the quiet.
Mina was in the living room, her green dinosaur having a roaring battle with a couch cushion. “The T-Rex is winning!” she declared.
“Time for the monster to go to sleep,” Catalina said, her voice shifting seamlessly into its mom-register, warm and firm.
“No! He’s not sleepy! He had sprinkles!”
Dominic walked over and scooped both girl and dinosaur up. “Sprinkles make you fast, not awake,” he said, hauling her onto his shoulder. She giggled, kicking her little feet.
They moved through the routine like a well-practiced, silent dance. Brushing teeth, a small struggle over pajamas, the negotiation of which stuffed animals got to stay in the bed. Catalina smoothed the sheets while Dominic sat on the edge of the mattress, Mina tucked under his arm, her dinosaur pressed under her chin.
“Story,” she demanded, eyes already heavy.
“What kind?”
“Race car story.”
He took a slow breath. He could feel Catalina standing in the doorway, watching, a part of the shadows. “Okay. Once, there was a very fast car. The fastest. And it loved to race more than anything.”
“What was its name?”
“... Charger.”
Mina giggled. “Like our car.”
“Yeah. Like our car.” He kept his voice low, a rumble in the quiet room. “But this Charger had a problem. It was so fast, it was always ahead of everyone else. It got lonely way out in front, with no other cars to see in its mirror.”
“Did it have a friend?”
“It had… a partner. Another car just like it, built from the same stuff. They were a team. But they couldn’t race together. The rules said they had to race on different tracks.”
Mina’s eyelids fluttered. “Stupid rules.”
A punch of pain, sharp and sudden, hit him in the chest. He felt Catalina shift in the doorway. “Yeah,” he whispered. “Stupid rules. So the fast car would race, and it would win, but winning didn’t feel so good. Because at the end of the race, all it wanted was to see its partner in the next lane. And it never could.”
“That’s a sad story,” Mina murmured, snuggling deeper into his side.
“It is.”
“Tell a different end.”
He looked down at her, her dark lashes fanning over her cheeks. So much of her was him. So much was Catalina. A living testament to their impossible choice. “The different end is that the fast car took the biggest win of its life… and used it to buy a big, big garage. A garage so big it could fit two tracks inside. And the rules… didn’t matter so much anymore in its own garage.”
Mina was asleep, her breath soft and even. He sat there for a long moment, her weight solid and real against him. The fiction hung in the air, a pathetic, beautiful lie.
He gently untangled himself, placing her dinosaur beside her, and stood. Catalina was still in the doorway. He walked toward her, and for a second, in the dark hall, they were just two shapes, close enough to touch.
“You should tell Leon you’re staying home,” she said, her voice barely a breath.
“I checked the route in my head. It’s clear.”
“Dom.”
“I have to go.”
He didn’t move. She didn’t move. The space between them was a live wire. He could see the pulse in her throat. He could smell the faint, clean scent of her skin beneath the garage smells.
Her hand came up, not to touch him, but to hover near his face, a question in the dark. He stopped breathing. Every cell in his body screamed to close the distance, to answer that question with everything he had.
From Mina’s room, a small sigh. A rustle of sheets.
The spell broke. Catalina’s hand fell. She took a step back, turning her face away. “Drive safe,” she said, the words final.
He walked out of the house, this time for real. The night was colder. He got into his truck, the engine growling to life. He didn’t look back at the house. He couldn’t.
He drove toward the docks, the city lights bleeding into streaks. The story he’d told Mina echoed in his skull. A big garage. A different set of rules. A fairy tale for a three-year-old.
The real rules were the ones written in blood and family. The real race was the one he ran every day inside his own head, a loop with no finish line. He pressed the accelerator, the speed climbing, trying to outrun the truth in the rearview mirror. But some things were always right behind you, keeping pace, no matter how fast you drove.