I stood there stunned taking in the situation. Suddenly, my lips seemed to be parched. My arms shook together and I clamped it to keep it from shaking. I didn't know why I was so taken aback with her.

"Hello, Scarlet." The sweet voice was doing it's best to deceive me. But I knew well. "Are you okay? You seem a little lost."

Ashley Matthews stood at the entrance with her two bodyguards smiling at me. Her shoulder length hair swayed as her blond tips kissed her neck. She had worn a jean jacket above her bra, which alone made her look classy if not anything else. She walked further maintaining a feet distance between us just as her bodyguards stood a foot away from her.

"What can I get you?" I asked looking away. "You said a dark coffee, is that all?"

I didn't know why I was afraid of her. It was not like she had a gun with her to point and shoot me all the time, but something about her sweet smile and voice, screamed murder. I knew she was dangerous the moment I knew her.

Even Robert seemed to lose his voice when she was near. Perhaps that was one of the tactics to keep the sleeping zombie from waking up.

Ashley waved her hand at me and scoffed. "Scarlet, you and I both know that I didn't come here for coffee." She said, moving towards the table I had laid down for them to sit. "Maybe we can sit and talk?"

I heaved a sigh at her suggestions. She always danced around the subject not giving anything away much. Her visit only resulted in me getting a pounding headache. If I could help it, I wanted to shove her away.

"What do you want, Ashley?" I said, crossing my hands. Though I was having a thousand battles inside me, my voice seemed calm and collected, which took me by surprise for a while.

As my words travelled, the two bodyguards took a step towards me. One of them hit his palm with his curled fist while the other put his hand behind his back. Shock and fear clutched my soul and I looked at Ashley wondering what I had done wrong.

I was too fast to tell that I wasn't being pointed by a gun. At that exact moment not knowing how to protect myself with armed men, I stood helpless. But Ashley only smiled back looking at me. She shook her left hand twice and the guards took back their original position.

"I told you we need to sit for this." She repeated again. She came back to me and led me to the same chair, making me sit first. "They don't like it when I'm addressed by my name." I looked at her if she was crazy. "But you may call me, after all we are going to race together, right? Boys, you got that?"

Her boys didn't make a sound and looked at her wide eyed as she sat down opposite to me. She played with her hair and tucked it behind her ear which was only half brown. The whitish part of her skin ran from her ear to her nose dividing it in the middle and then to her eyes. It was as if one could trace a map on her body. From the neck, the whitish part changed its course and it turned brown down to her cleavage.

"Fascinating, isn't it?" She said, when I was still checking her out. "I had it since I was small. It only grew to my face a few years back."

"So, why are you here?" I asked, not wanting to give her a friendly hand.

"Direct to the business." Ashley said as her tucked hair fell back to kiss her cheeks. "Like father, like daughter. But I hope you won't make the same mistakes as him."

"If it is about me driving you, then I think you should just wait for the time to come." I said.

Ashley laughed at my words, not caring if I was hurting her. "I got to know that you chose legal races recently."

Did that mean she was the one to pester Calvin to get me to illegal races? Had Cal reported back to her that her plans didn't work on me? I wanted to know. It was as if I was playing a hide and seek with her, playing only in the shadows and leaving all the dirty work to someone else.

"Yes, I did." I said.

I was sure that she had got the information and I didn't want to deny that. I had chosen something legal and I sure wasn't afraid of it. I sat straighter. I hadn't done any mistake here, she was the one to crookedly win over my father and was now claiming all her wins back. She was the evil one and I had nothing to be scared... yet.

"You do know that with me you are playing on the illegal ones, right?" She asked, as she balanced her arms on her elbow, intertwining her fingers. She pursed her lips and raised one eye brow at me. I wondered if she had played the role of a bad guy all her life to get that look embedded on her face.

I nodded my head, my confidence level still stable with her looks. It wasn't like she was going to kill me then and there. She seemed like that cat who would torture the mouse till it lost its breath to kill it. There was some sort of callous satisfaction with that slow death. With her eyes gleaming at me, I knew that I was right.

"You are going to get eaten alive there, darling." Ashley said as a matter of fact. "Calvin says that he still hasn't gotten that document done. Should I call him and tell him you changed your mind?"

"Ashley," I drawled, finding an unknown confidence boom in me. "I do have a phone on me. If I change my mind, he'll be the first one to know."

As my words reached the air, her pretty smile, dimmed a bit. She sure wasn't hoping my comebacks to get her. But she was good at it. She recovered faster and her smile was back in place.

"Very well then." She clapped her hands together. "Boys?" She held out her left hand to the boys who were standing behind her. One of the guys took out a few sheets from underneath their shirts. The plastic was removed and the sheets were given to her. "Then you might as well sign this."

She pushed the sheets in front of me and a pen was placed next to it. I looked at her and then at the sheets. The white paper seemed like a death warrant and I hesitated.

"Go ahead." She said, waving her hands in front of her to make me reach her papers. "It's an agreement that you will race as per my wishes in a race that's in next two months. If you don't agree to that then you will vacate your house and garage this instant." She shrugged as if it was not a big deal at all. "And you if agree and then lose..."

"Then you'll have the garage and home anyway along with the money that it's worth." I completed, going through the sheets.

All the races and practices had finally come down to this. One agreement that made me look at life in a whole new sphere and horizon. This new turf was scary and though I knew I had people behind me, I was the only one with the wheel on my hand.

"Yes," She said impressed. "And if you win, which is highly unlikely, I'll leave you alone. At least for this race."

I heaved a sigh and looked at the paper, trying to read and understand if it held what she was telling me. Though most of the words were advocate handled, but the gist was the same. There were many rules on how she or I will not harm each other in anyway apart from the race and stuffs. I realized that Ashley had come fully prepared for this. As if she had been planning for this for a long time. She had got all the papers done and she had left me no choice but to sign the sheets without any hindrance.

I took the pen and signed my name. I pushed it away from me and handed it to her.

"I will need a copy of that." I said.

"Sure. I had to wait till you were legally an adult for this." She said, checking the papers. When she was satisfied with it, she gave it to one of her guys and he went out, probably to get the sheets Xeroxed for me. "Though I must tell you, you were already an adult at an age of six, wasn't it?"

At her words, my ears pricked and I looked at her with wide eyes. How had she known that? Sure, my mom was a racer, but it was hardly unlikely that she would get to know about my age to that correct decimal. Did she know my mom?

"You knew her?" I asked, confusion etched on my face. If she knew her then why was she torturing our life? Who ever lived to know my mother, knew for a fact that Casey Stone was a good woman. Though she was raised in racer ways, she was too kind and too honest to make enemies.

At that Ashley laughed, throwing her head back. Her nose wriggled as she wiped her eyes, the marks stretching on her beautiful face.

"Oh, I wish." She shook her head, her hair brushing her shoulder. She pulled her jean jacket closet to her and leaned further. "But I knew her man."

"What! How... you did?" I asked, surprise and shock on my face was clearly visible.

It seemed as if she was transported back in time, thinking about the days she had known him. Her face was calm, and suddenly I saw that she had lost all her evilness and seemed pure, like an angel. Then her expressions changed. From sadness to anger and finally it settled on revenge.

What had happened?

When I had asked Dad about it, he seemed very cool about the whole issue, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. But I knew there was something that I was missing.

"Oh, I did." Ashley said. "He was one wicked man."

"Don't you dare talk about my Dad like that." I warned.

Though he might have had a few rough days, he had done everything he could to make sure that his family was well off than others. He had done his best given the circumstances.

"Oh, you don't give me that." Ashley said. "You don't know him like I do."

"For heaven's sake, he's my father!" I said, standing up banging my hand on the table. "I know him better than anyone else. I have seen his pain and happiness all together. He was there for me when I needed him and that is something everyone wishes for."

He had provided me and had taken good care about my education. Who had that eligibility when it came to racer's kids, especially when they relied on illegal races to feed their family? It was always a death day for them to win, not a race alone.

"Oh, he wasn't there alright?" She said standing up. The body guards moved far to give her the space that she needed. She looked mad, her anger boiled in her eyes and I didn't think I had seen anyone angry like this before. "He left you to fend for yourself. He was a coward, a fucking coward!"

"Shut up!" I said, jumping right in to defend my father.

Sure, he had left me alone, but everyone did mistakes. It was only natural to learn from it. And Dad had learnt from it. He was a changed man now.

The racing world might not have forgotten him, but he had completed a one eighty turn to face a new start in his life. Perhaps the fact that he had lost everything to her and putting me in the core of danger had woken him up.

When my words hit her head, she turned towards me, malice and rage dancing salsa. She came forward towards me and all my confidence that I had stored till now seemed to shake. Before I could take a step forward, she clutched my face in her hands.

The pain was the first thing that my mind registered. Her neatly made manicured fingernails bit into my sink, leaving marks. Her face which was designed, now seemed to intimidate me. My hands and legs seemed to have lost it's movement and they stood frozen at their spots.

Out of all times, I had never once been manhandled. Yet, here I was standing in the most innocent of places, being held by a lady. My inner fears started to climb up and my eyes stung. I felt helpless and alone, not able to do anything about it.

For the first time in my life, I was scared. Scared, not for the life, but for something greater than that.

"Listen to me, you rotten pig." She cursed. "You are still a child. You have no idea about what kind of things are possible here in this game."

The way she was putting her sentences together made my head spin.

"You have only seen a part of your Dad's face." She spit. "He snatched everything not only from me, but from you as well."

Ashley had held me very tight, not letting me free to move my mouth to say that she was wrong. I wondered if she was released from the mental institution. My Dad could never hurt a fly let alone our lives. She had clearly got everything wrong and I wanted to correct her and make her apologize for her suggestions.

I struggled under her strong fingers to get myself out. I kicked my legs to get away from her. Looking at my helplessness, she let go of me. Her fingernails had bitten into my cheeks and I didn't know if they were leaving a mark on them.

"My Dad is one of a kind." I said. "I don't know what happened, but I'm sure you have got the wrong guy to blame."

"Wrong guy?" She asked. Her laughter too seemed evil and unnatural. "You have been living under the shadows."

Her words were playing again, giving some context and taking it away as soon as I reached for it. She always had these theories when I was in the racing field ready to race. But today, even though I wasn't behind the wheels she was telling stories to destroy my inner peace. I wanted to cry and shout, but nothing came out.

I had never doubted my father until she came along. I didn't know who she was except for the fact that she had won a race that my Dad was with. Now she talked as if she knew my father like the back of her hand.

How could she think that I was okay to trust her and nod to whatever she had to say about the person who was there with me all these years?

"There is no shadow." I said, rubbing my chin where she had held on to me. It ached, but I held my ground. The pain that my tender heart was taking was too much than the small scratch she had infected me with. "It was you all along. You are the one who has put us to this state! You are the one responsible for all this and you are the one in shadow, working underneath it all!"

"Me?" Ashley asked. "Just ask your Dad who was responsible for this to happen? I told you to ask him, did you? You didn't!"

I looked away. I had and I had got my answers to the questions I had.

Ashley pulled my shoulders such that I was facing her again. Her eyes were red now and if I didn't know better I would have thought that she had been crying all this while.

"I know you love you father dearly, but when you know the truth, you are going to run away from him, not looking back." She said, her voice heavy and filled with sincerity. For a second, I thought I believed her. There was the certainty in her eyes that were shining through those unshed tears.

I looked at her, not blinking my eyes, for the fear that I might wake up not knowing the truth as she called it. "What is the truth?" I murmured.

I feared this and though I knew there was more to what she was saying, I felt like I had to know this. I had been fighting my Dad's battle all this while and I deserved to know what had happened with them. The revenge I saw in her eyes was not from a small race. They carried the memories of the past and since then those flames of vengeance had been shining, keeping her alive.

The café door opened and the guy who had gone to get the Xerox came back. She threw the papers at me and then, like the wind, she was gone.

"Casey Stone was murdered by your own father." Ashley said, before leaving me alone with the words she had left behind. "Your father killed your mother."

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A/N: TaDa! Biggest cliffhanger ever! Do you believe it? Or is Ashley just saying things to get the family wrecked?