Faster Dirtier (Take Me...#5) (A Team Ferrelli Novel) Read Free

more established teams. When I was just getting started in racing, I
harbored my own dreams about ascending to glory as an F1 driver. That is, until
I started making the rounds, and realized right quick what a boys club racing
really is.
    In the entire history of F1, there have only been a handful
of women who have been allowed to participate, even peripherally. Certainly,
there have been no female world champions. Things are a little better down here
in F3, but the sport still has a long way to go, gender equality-wise. It’s
easy to feel jaded about the current situation, but even if my own racing
career only amounts to a slight nudge in the right direction, I’ll be content.
No matter how much of a long shot it may seem some days, I still have my dreams
of racing glory. If I can ever get on a decent team to be scouted from, that
is.
    “Ace! Hey, Ace!” I hear a welcome, familiar voice shout my
nickname from the stands.
    Squinting into the high noon sun, I spot the smiling face of
my older brother, Alec. We share the same freckled complexion and red-tinged
blonde hair—but though I’m built like a featherweight, he’s built like a tank.
The quintessential watchdog big brother. Alec’s beaming down at me from the
bleachers, looking proud as hell. It’s the same way he’s looked at me since I
was twelve years old and racing boxcars, but I’ll never stop being grateful for
his undying support. I bound up into the stands and let my brother hoist me up
into a celebratory hug.
    “I love you bro, but you’re gonna break a rib if you keep
this up,” I laugh, extricating myself from him enthusiastic embrace.
    “I’m just excited for you,” he grins, ruffling my hair. “A
whole second off your personal record? By the time next season rolls around,
there won’t be a driver out there who can hold a candle to you.”
    “You might be putting the racecar in front of the horse
there, bro,” I reply.
    He shakes his head, dispelling my pragmatism. Nothing will
ever convince my brother that I am anything short of the best F3 driver on the
planet. At 34, Alec is a good eight years older than I am, so our relationship
hasn’t really suffered from the usual sibling rivalry. We’re the only two
children of our late parents, Mary and Robert Vaughn. They moved from Scotland
to New York City when they were newlyweds. My dad was an English professor, and
my mother was a librarian. When they weren’t working hard to support their
fledgling family, they loved nothing more than spending time in New York’s fine
art museums, going to the theater and the ballet, even the opera when they were
feeling really fancy. Imagine their surprise when their two children ended up
being sports-loving, roughhousing rug rats. They never begrudged us our
interests and ambitions, only supported us the best they could.
    That is, until they were killed by a drunk driver while
heading home from a weekend away in the Adirondacks. It was a hit and run
accident, the other driver was never caught. I was only seventeen when it
happened, Alec was twenty-six. He had already enlisted in the Army by then, and
even served two tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, but he took me in without
question when Mom and Dad passed away.
    I’d already become obsessed with racing before my parents
were taken from us. From the age of ten, I couldn’t get enough of NASCAR,
IndyCar, and even the European leagues. And strangely enough, the fact that my
parents were killed in a car crash only made me more eager to devote my life to
racing. Maybe I’m trying to reclaim something through my sport, or demystify
the very machine that killed them all those years ago.
    Or maybe I just love it, psychobabble aside.
    Alec and I rest our elbows on the railing, looking out
across the FullSpeed test track. The place is hopping with energy as other
drivers get ready to take their wheels out for a spin. I’ve always adored the
atmosphere of a race track—be it as a spectator or a driver. But