“Yes. This is on me,” he said. “I chose to race. I know what I’m doing. I just didn’t expect someone to set me up. This isn’t Kelsey’s fault.”

I steadied myself, feeling how absurd it all was.

Why did they think I would go after Kelsey?

I was the one more seriously injured.

None of this was my fault.

Yet standing here, I felt like the guilty one—like a vicious woman who needed to be stopped before she did something unforgivable.

I raised my hand, cutting off Tucker before he could keep explaining.

“I’m not mad.”

I looked at him and spoke slowly.

“Tucker, if you want to die, then go die. It has nothing to do with me.”

With that, I turned and walked away.

Behind me, he called out once.

“Honey—”

But the next second, Kelsey let out a soft cry.

“Ah… it hurts.”

Tucker hesitated, then stopped and turned back.

In a room full of “family,” not one person noticed the blood soaking through the fabric over my knee.

At the end of the hallway, I took out my phone and dialed a number.

“Hunter.”

My voice was quiet.

“Can you come pick me up?”

There was a brief pause, then a low, amused voice.

“What, the young heiress finally remembered me?”

“Stay there,” he said. “I’ll be right there.”

Verity’s POV