Chapter 1 Adeline
Adeline POV
"Adeline, tell the lawyers the truth, okay? Tell them exactly what you saw," my mother said with red eyes and a stuffed nose. She had been crying all night.
"Mom, do I really have to go? I want to stay and take care of you. You don't look too good."
"I'll be fine, just do as I say." She said softly, planting a soft kiss on my cheeks as the prosecutor called me to the witness stand.
I never knew that would be the last time my mother would be a real mother to me. I never knew that would be the last time I had a family.
"Adeline Marie Dmitriev, do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?"
I raised my right hand, my palm so small compared to the bailiff's. The courtroom was massive, full of strangers whose eyes felt like needles on my skin.
"I do." My voice came out as a whisper.
The prosecutor was a tall woman with kind eyes. She knelt in front of the witness stand so we were eye-level. "Adeline, can you tell us what you saw on the night of March 15th?"
My father sat at the defendant's table in an orange jumpsuit. He wouldn't look at me. But I kept waiting for him to turn, to give me some sign that it was okay, that he forgave me for following him that night when I should've been in bed.
"I... I followed Daddy." The words stuck in my throat like shards of glass. "He said he was going to meet someone, but it was really late, and I wasn't feeling sleepy yet."
"And where did your father go?"
"Mr. Henderson's house. Our neighbor on Maple Street."
"What happened when you got there, Adeline?"
I saw the scene flash before my eyes. The dim porch light. Mr. Henderson opening the door with a confused expression. My father's friends, the members from his gang, standing behind him in the shadows.
"Daddy was angry. He was yelling at Mr. Henderson about money. Said he owed the gang and didn't pay." My voice broke. "Mr. Henderson said he needed more time, that he had the money but needed one more week."
Mom made a sound from the gallery—half sob, half gasp. I couldn't look at her either.
"What happened next?"
"Daddy got really mad. He... he started hitting Mr. Henderson." I stopped. I had to breathe. The prosecutor waited. "He wouldn't stop. He kept hitting him even after Mr. Henderson fell down. There was so much blood on his face."
The courtroom erupted. The judge banged his gavel. My father's head dropped to the table.
"Did Mr. Henderson survive, Adeline?"
"Yes. But the ambulance had to come. He was unconscious for a long time."
"What did your father do after he assaulted Mr. Henderson?"
"He was still really angry. Then he saw me hiding behind the bushes." This was the part that still gave me nightmares. " He looked scared when he saw me. He grabbed my hand and pulled me home. He kept saying, 'You can't tell anyone, Addie. You were asleep. You didn't see anything. Promise me.'"
"Did you promise?"
I finally looked at my father. He was staring at me now, his eyes red, his jaw clenched so tight I thought his teeth would crack.
"No," I whispered. "I didn't promise."
It seemed my testimony was all the judge needed to judge him guilty. He was given fifteen years, with the possibility of parole in ten, on the charges of aggravated assault and gang-related violence.
The last thing my father said to me was in the hallway outside the courtroom. The bailiffs were about to take him away. But he stopped before me, leaned down, his face close to mine, close enough that only I could hear.
"You will regret this," he whispered. “I'll make sure of it.”
I was only twelve.
Now it's fourteen years later.
I rev my bike engine, the familiar roar drowning out everything else. The warehouse district is alive tonight—engines screaming, money changing hands, and the sharp scent of gasoline mixing with cigarette smoke and sweat. This is my therapy and sort of salvation for me.
"Ghost!" Tommy Chen waves me over, grinning like he always does before a race. "Thought you weren't coming tonight. Heard you got some fancy internship or something."
"Royal & Associates," I say, pulling on my helmet. "Starts in January."
"Damn, look at you. A real lawyer now." He shakes his head. "Your family must be proud."
I laugh, but there's no humor in it. "Yeah. Real proud."
My family? What a joke.
After my testimony, everything fell apart. My father's family—grandparents, aunts, and uncles—all blamed me. They called me a traitor. A liar, even though I told the truth. They stopped coming around, stopped calling, even stopped inviting me and my mom to family gatherings, and started calling me the girl who destroyed the Dmitriev name.
So I stopped being a Dmitriev.
I changed my surname to my mother's maiden name when I turned eighteen. Legally became Adeline Volkov. And I felt light. It felt like shedding a skin that had never fit right.
Mom never said anything about it. She never said much of anything after the trial, either. She didn't blame me out loud like the others did, but I could see it in the way she looked at me—like I was a stranger. Like I was the reason her life turned to shit.
Three months after Dad went to prison, she brought home her first boyfriend. Marcus. Then went ahead to date more.
She stopped working her two job shifts to keep us afloat and started depending on men with money, which made her more and more distant from me as the year went by. Each boyfriend was a little richer than the last. Each one leaving her a little harder and a little more desperate.
By the time I was sixteen, I had stopped expecting her to come home at night. Stopped expecting her to remember my birthday or ask about school.
I was totally on my own now.
I put myself through college working three jobs. Waitressing, bartending, anything that paid. I studied law because it felt like the ultimate fuck you to everyone who had called me a traitor for telling the truth. If seeking justice made me the enemy, then I'll become a lawyer and do it professionally.
I graduated top of my class and got accepted to one of the best firms in the city. I should feel victorious.
Instead, I feel nothing.
Except when I'm here. Racing.
"What's the pot?" I ask Tommy.
"Three grand. You in?"
"Always."
I swing my leg over my bike, and the world narrows to this—the engine beneath me and the track ahead with the razor-thin edge between control and chaos. This is the only place where my anger goes quiet. Where I don't think about my father's hatred, my mother's neglect, or the twelve-year-old girl who destroyed her family by telling the truth.
Here, I'm just Ghost. The maniac who takes corners at impossible speeds. The rider who's never been beaten before.
The flag drops.
I gun the engine and explode forward. Feeling the adrenaline as I raced five laps around the abandoned factory, speeding through tight corners that could kill you if you hesitated even for a second.
But I don't hesitate. I never do anyways.
My competitors fall behind one by one. I push harder, faster, the engine screaming beneath me. This is the freedom I crave and the only time I feel alive. When I'm flirting with death at ninety miles an hour.
I cross the finish line four seconds ahead of the nearest rider.
The crowd erupts. Someone's blasting music. People are cheering, chanting "Ghost! Ghost! Ghost!"
Tommy jogs over, laughing and shaking his head. "Undefeated. You're a goddamn legend, Ghost." He hands me a thick envelope with my cut. Three thousand dollars cash.
"Another round?" he asks. "We could double it. I've got some guys from the south side who want to challenge you."
I'm about to say yes when my phone buzzes in my jacket pocket.
Once, twice, seven times in rapid succession. I pulled it out, and my blood ran cold.
Ten missed calls from my mom and a text message sent three minutes ago.
Mom: Come home now. We need to talk.
My stomach drops.
Mom and I barely speak these days. She's too busy with whatever boyfriend is currently paying her rent, and I'm too busy building a life that has nothing to do with her.
And whenever she says, "We need to talk." It's never good.
"Ghost?" Tommy said, watching me with concern. "You good?"
"Nah. I have to go." I pocket the cash and kick my bike to life.
"What about the second round?"
"Rain check." I pull my helmet back on, my hands shaking slightly.
I tear out of the warehouse district, the celebration already forgotten. Dread settles in my chest like a stone with a little bit of anxiety, which I hate.
What could she want this time?