Emmeline was furious with her boyfriend once she found out his little secret.

He had decided to get into street-racing using cars boosted with meteor rock. He had recently brought her to one of his races. As great as it was to see him so happy, she did not like him dabbling in something super dangerous and completely illegal.

She was extremely uncomfortable at the races. Everyone there was the complete opposite of how she was. They were all loud and raucous and liked to wear skimpy, tight clothing.

She tried to explain to him that it wasn't a good idea to get involved with these people, but she didn't want to sound like a pushy girlfriend who wouldn't let him do what he wanted.

All the same, if he kept doing this, he was going to get himself killed.

Pete came up to her and kissed her outside of the Talon. "What's wrong?" he asked when he noticed her expression.

"It's…the racing."

"Oh, great, am I going to get a lecture from you and Clark?"

"Look, Pete, I just don't want to lose you. I love seeing you so excited when you win, but…if you die, it's not going to be worth it."

"Em, I'm good at racing. I've never had people cheering my name before. It's an incredible feeling. When I'm racing, I feel like I'm on top of the world. And that nothing can bring me down."

Emmeline frowned a little. He used to talk about her that way. "I'm sure that's a wonderful feeling. But again, it's not going to matter if you end up dying."

"Don't worry about me. I'm one of the best racers out there. You're gonna come to tonight's race, aren't you? I need my girlfriend there supporting me."

Emmeline sighed. She'd rather be there in case something happened than hear about it in the paper the next day. "Yeah, I'll be there."

"Great! I'll pick you up at 9:00."

He gave her a quick kiss on the cheek and headed back to Dante's garage.


That night, Pete came and picked Emmeline up in one of Dante's cars. Needless to say, her parents watched her leave the house skeptically. They didn't have a problem with Pete at all, in fact they loved him and enjoyed his company, but it struck them as odd that he showed up in a car like that.

Emmeline was unusually quiet on the car ride to the race. Pete noticed, but he didn't say anything about it. Once he won tonight, he was sure that she'd be singing his praises along with everyone else.

Pete parked his car, and he and Emmeline stepped out to a whole throng of excited race fans.

"I'll see you when I win," Pete smiled.

He kissed Emmeline before going over to his car he used for racing.

"How you feeling, Boss?" Dante asked excitedly as Pete got in the car.

"Like I'm about to own the road!

"All right!"

Emmeline watched as Dante leaned down to Pete's window and they had some kind of private conversation. From the look on Pete's face, Dante hadn't said anything good.

A woman came up to Pete and tried to kiss him, but he didn't let her. So she settled for kissing him on the cheek.

Emmeline wasn't the jealous type, and she didn't doubt Pete's feelings for her for a moment. But that didn't mean she liked watching other girls hug and kiss him.

The woman went in front of the two racing cars and pulled out a yellow scarf. With an overly sexy flair, she brought her arm down and the two cars jetted off from the starting line.

Pete was behind for a couple miles which surprised Emmeline. He hadn't lost a race yet and he had been so excited for tonight. However, after only a few more seconds, green sparks appeared in the exhaust pipe, and Pete's car sped forward. He passed his opponent easily and finished first.

"Come here, Em!" he called as he got out of the car.

Reluctantly, Emmeline went over to him. There were way too many people around her and she felt very small and insignificant. Pete putting his arm around her didn't help one bit. Didn't he know that she hated places like this? Didn't he know that she wasn't happy?

"Congratulations, Boss," Dante said, pushing Pete and Emmeline to the side.

"Thank you," Pete smiled. "Hey, Dante, look, about that whole cheating thing…it's like I didn't have it in me."

Dante had wanted him to cheat? She knew this guy was shady.

"Yeah, it isn't in you?" Dante roughly pushed Pete which made him lose his hold on Emmeline. "What do you think this is? Some little backyard game of Hot Wheels? I'm out $20,000 dollars because of you."

Pete's eyes widened a little. "Sorry."

"Sorry's not gonna cut it. So you're gonna give me the keys to my car, you're gonna pay me my 20 G's, and I never want to see your face again."

Pete looked around and saw that he and Emmeline were surrounded by Dante's thugs who towered over them by a couple feet. "Dante, where am I gonna get $20,000 dollars?"

"Oh, you're gonna figure it out. 'Cause if you don't…the only car you're gonna be driving in is a hearse." Dante looked over at Emmeline. "And if that happens, then that means she'll be up for the taking."

He roughly pulled the girl into his arms. Emmeline squealed helplessly and looked at Pete with fear in her eyes. She tried to get out of Dante's hold, but he was too strong for her. It didn't help that she was practically paralyzed.

"Get me my money," he ordered before pushing Emmeline back to him.

Pete quickly caught her and held her protectively away from Dante.

Dante and his friends walked away from him.

"Em…"

"I want to go home," Emmeline said firmly.

"Alright. Let's go."

The ride back was even more awkward than the ride there. Emmeline didn't say a word, and Pete didn't know what to say either. How was he possibly supposed to find the money to pay Dante back? If he didn't, he had no doubt Dante would kill him, and then who knew what he was going to do to Emmeline?

Once they pulled up, Emmeline quickly opened the door.

"Let me walk you in," Pete insisted.

"No, I'm fine, thanks."

He sighed as he watched her walk up to the house. He had really screwed up.


The next day at the Torch office, Chloe and Emmeline were hard at work when Clark waltzed in with some VIN numbers allegedly from Dante's garage.

"So you think Dante is more grand theft auto than Indy 500, huh?" Chloe asked as she began to do some research on her computer.

"Why else would he have a personal collection of license plates with brand new registrations that match?" Clark told her.

"Journalistic obsessions aside, it almost seems like you have kind of a vested interest in this story."

"You know how it is, Chloe. Once you get started on a really good story, you can't stop until you get to the bottom."

Chloe took a deep breath and looked over at Clark. "I just chatted with the motor heads up in auto shop. Your source wouldn't happen to be Pete 'The Boss' Ross, would it?" Clark and Emmeline shared a guilty look. "I understand protecting your source. But we're talking about a friend of mine who's putting his life at risk every time he goes for the checkered flag."

"Pete asked me to keep it a secret. I'm keeping my word."

"Yeah, but Clark, you of all people should know that when your friend is doing something reckless, sometimes keeping a secret hurts more than it helps. He needs a friend. Now, Pete might listen to me."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It's called sibling rivalry. You and Pete are practically brothers. Now, from what I've heard, sometimes it's difficult to take advice from your sibling." She looked over at Emmeline. "And you two are dating, and as far as I'm concerned, you're still in the honeymoon phase of your relationship. Neither one of you are willing to hurt the other."

Clark and Emmeline shared another look. As much as they hated it, Chloe had a point. Pete wasn't really listening to either of them about his newest hobby.

Chloe went back to typing on her computer. "Whoa. You were right about Jason Dante. He could be the poster boy for LoJack. All the VIN numbers you took down are for stolen cars."

"It's all the evidence we need. I'm gonna go talk to the sheriff."

Clark quickly left the office to go put a stop to Dante and save Pete.

Emmeline looked at Chloe. "What kind of girlfriend am I? I'm not even sticking up for the guy I love."

"I know you tried," Chloe responded. "I think Pete unknowingly took advantage of your shy demeanor. He knew you wouldn't be able to stop him from doing this. I don't think he meant to, but it happened."

"Well, let's just hope he listens to you. Because things are certainly not looking good for him right now."


The doorbell rang at Emmeline's house and she quickly went to go answer it. When she opened the door, her eyes widened at the sight of Pete cut up and bloodied. She put a hand to her mouth.

"What happened to you?" she asked quietly.

"Dante…"

Emmeline's eyes watered a little. "I told you not to get involved with them."

"I know, I'm sorry."

"Come in. Let me get you cleaned up."

Pete slowly took a seat on her couch in the living room while Emmeline went to grab some alcohol and bandages.

"Is anything broken?" she asked as she came back.

"No. I would know by now."

She sat next to him and poured some alcohol on a piece of gauze. He winced as she gently pressed it to his wounds.

"What happened?" she asked.

"Clark called the cops, and Dante thought it was me. He sent some of his guys to teach me a lesson. And it doesn't even matter because Dante has paid off one of the cops so he could wipe the place down before everyone got there."

"Pete…what are you going to do about this?"

"I don't know. I've asked Clark for help, but he's not doing anything."

"What do you expect him to do?"

"You know that Clark can do anything when it comes to helping people. But he won't do it this time."

"Again, what do you want him to do? Just pay off this guy? With what money? And if you give him money this time, he'll keep asking for more. What do you want to do then?"

Pete refused to meet her eyes. "I don't know…I'm so sorry I got you involved in all of this."

Emmeline didn't say anything back. She just continued to clean his cuts, too angry at him to offer any encouragement. What could she even say to him? She had no idea how he was going to get out of this.


Emmeline hadn't answered any of Pete's texts or calls all day. She believed he was sincerely sorry, but that didn't mean that she was ready to just put everything in the past.

Her doorbell rang, and she had a pretty good idea of who it was. Sure enough, when she opened it, Pete was standing there.

"Hey," he said awkwardly.

Emmeline looked at him hardly. "I heard Dante was killed in a car crash."

"Yeah."

"I guess that means your debt's gone."

"I didn't want this to happen, Em. Look, I said I'm sorry. I know that this was all a mistake."

"You don't understand! It wasn't about the racing. I mean, I didn't like you doing it, but…it was more than that. It was the way you talked about it. As if it was the best thing to ever happen in your entire life. As petty as it may sound, you used to talk about me that way. I felt like I just dropped a rung on your priority list."

"That's not true."

"Then why did you insist I come to those races? You know perfectly well that I am very, very uncomfortable in those kinds of places. I want nothing more than to support you doing things you love, but I was surrounded by people who are not like me. You know firsthand that it is very hard to get me to open up. And I have opened up completely to you. But it took over two years. I may have changed a lot from when you first met me, but that doesn't mean I'm totally different. You were only thinking about how you felt in that moment. You didn't even give me a second thought."

"Em, why didn't you say anything before?"

"What was I supposed to do? Whenever I talked about racing, you stopped listening to me so you could just talk about how awesome it was. Pete, I have been your friend for two years, your girlfriend for several months now. I started dating you, and I told you that I love you. Why wasn't that enough for you?"