Chapter 2

The world blurred after that.

My family' s lawyers were quick.

The disinheritance papers arrived by courier.

Signed, sealed, delivered.

My trust fund, gone.

My name, dragged through the mud in gossip columns, painting me as a fool.

The Cole Shipping empire would now officially pass to Marcus.

He' d always wanted it.

I tried to find work in finance, my old field.

Doors slammed shut.

"Reputational risk," they called it.

Blacklisted.

My small apartment, the one I' d moved into to be closer to Chloe' s "workshop," became a cage.

Rent was due.

I had nothing.

The eviction notice was polite but firm.

I sold my watch, my good suits.

Anything of value from my old life.

It wasn't much.

I ended up in a dusty, forgotten town miles from the city.

The kind of place where hope went to die.

A local stock car racing track, small-time, gritty.

The owner, a gruff old man named Sal, looked me over.

He saw the desperation in my eyes, not my resume.

"Know anything about engines?" he' d grunted.

"A little," I' d said. My father had insisted on me learning practical skills, ironically.

"You can sweep floors, fetch tools. Pay' s crap."

"I'll take it."

So, I became a low-paid assistant mechanic.

My hands, once used to signing million-dollar deals, were now calloused and stained with grease.

Real grease this time.

Nights were spent in a tiny, roach-infested room above a noisy bar.

The smell of stale beer and fried food was constant.

I ate instant noodles, cheap sandwiches.

The hunger was a dull ache, a reminder of how far I' d fallen.

Ethan Cole, the golden boy, was dead.

This new person, this ghost, just tried to survive each day.

Sometimes, late at night, the image of Chloe' s smirking face, the glint of the Shelby Cobra, would flash in my mind.

The humiliation would wash over me again, hot and suffocating.

I learned to push it down, to build walls around that memory.

It was the only way to keep going.

Months passed.

The seasons changed.

The raw edges of my despair began to dull, replaced by a weary resignation.

I focused on the work.

The roar of engines.

The smell of gasoline and hot oil.

It was honest, at least.

No pretense here.

Just dirt, speed, and the occasional broken bone.