Brian's body reacted to the TV chase before his mind could decide what it meant.
He'd been standing in Toretto's shop, trying to keep his face neutral while that wide-bodied Acura carved through daytime traffic like it wanted to be famous. He could feel the old itch behind his eyes—the instinct to move toward sirens, to insert himself, to control the thing that was spiraling.
Then his pager went off.
Not the casual beep of a routine call. The kind of urgent vibration that made every muscle in his back tighten.
Brian glanced down. A number. A short message.
STATION. NOW.
Dom's shop noise went dim around the edges as Brian's mind snapped into cop-mode. He looked up at Dom instinctively, as if he owed an explanation.
Dom didn't ask for one. Dom just watched Brian's posture change.
Mia noticed the shift, too—her brows knitting slightly as Brian backed away from the counter.
"You okay?" she asked, soft.
Brian forced a small smile. "Yeah. I—uh—gotta take something."
Vince muttered something under his breath that sounded like of course you do, and Jacob—standing too still near the back—watched Brian with a quiet, unreadable focus that made Brian's gut twist.
Brian left without saying goodbye properly.
He hated himself for that more than he should've.
At the station, the atmosphere wasn't loud.
It was worse.
It was hushed.
The bullpen had the usual clatter—phones, footsteps, the distant bark of someone yelling at a copier—but around a particular cluster of desks there was a pocket of quiet tension, like everyone had agreed without speaking that certain words shouldn't carry.
Bilkins was there. Tanner too. And two people Brian didn't recognize at first because they weren't wearing uniforms and they weren't wearing the FBI's obvious arrogance, either.
They were in plain clothes. Clean. Controlled. Faces that stayed calm even when the room was hot.
Federal.
Brian felt his stomach drop.
Bilkins didn't waste time. "O'Connor. In here."
He led Brian into a smaller office and shut the door hard enough to make the glass rattle.
A TV was already on inside, volume low. The chase feed played again—the Acura whipping through an off-ramp, patrol units stacking behind it, the helicopter camera trying to keep up.
Brian opened his mouth to speak and realized nobody in the room looked surprised.
Bilkins pointed at the screen. "You see that?"
Brian nodded. "Yeah. It's—"
"It's not what you think," Tanner cut in, voice lowered like he didn't trust the walls.
Brian's eyes narrowed. "What does that mean."
Bilkins's jaw worked once, grinding down anger. "That 'driver' in the Acura? He's not a street racer."
Brian stared at him. "Then what is he."
One of the plain-clothes agents spoke, tone level, as if they were discussing weather. "He's ours."
Brian felt cold slide into his gut.
"You're kidding," Brian said.
The agent didn't blink. "It's a controlled operation."
Bilkins slammed a file onto the desk. "Controlled," he repeated, bitter. "You call this controlled?"
The other agent answered quietly, almost kindly, "We call it necessary."
Brian's voice came sharper than he intended. "Necessary for what."
The first agent's eyes met Brian's—calm, assessing, the gaze of someone used to owning outcomes. "To move the street racing community," he said. "To provoke response."
Brian's mouth went dry. "Response from who."
A pause.
Not for drama—for calculation.
Then the agent said it.
"Wanted."
The word felt heavier in this room than it ever had on a news broadcast. Here it wasn't a myth. It was a target.
Brian stared, disbelief hardening into anger. "So you ran a fake chase to bait him."
Bilkins's face tightened. "They didn't tell us until it was already live."
Brian looked at Bilkins sharply. "You didn't know?"
Bilkins shook his head once, furious. "We got told to stand down and stay out of the way. Like we're traffic cones."
The agent didn't apologize. "We needed local reaction without local interference," he said, as if that made it reasonable. "Wanted responds to spectacle. He responds to pursuit. He responds to perceived challenge."
Brian felt his hands curl into fists. "And if someone gets hurt?"
The agent's expression didn't change. "We chose a driver. We chose a route. We chose a vehicle capable of controlled evasion. We minimized risk."
Brian's laugh came out harsh and ugly. "You minimized risk by starting a police chase in L.A."
The agent's gaze stayed steady. "You've seen what Wanted does. He escalates. He breaks patterns. He vanishes. Traditional containment fails. We're not chasing a driver anymore."
The second agent added, quiet and precise, "We're chasing the enabling factor. Whatever makes that vehicle behave the way it does. Whatever keeps it alive. That's the priority."
Brian felt something in his chest go cold.
So that was it.
They didn't want the ghost because of what he'd done.
They wanted him because of what he had.
A moving vault.
A piece of technology that didn't belong, and everybody in power had decided they were entitled to it.
Bilkins looked like he wanted to throw the FBI men out of his office with his bare hands. Instead he spoke through clenched teeth. "If your boy gets killed, it lands in our city."
The agent nodded once. "Understood."
Brian stared at the TV again—at the Acura's exaggerated body kit, the performance of it, the deliberate loudness.
It wasn't a racer.
It was a lure.
And Brian—who'd been risking his cover in Dom's world, who'd been telling himself he was doing this to protect people—felt like he'd been turned into a pawn in a hunt that didn't care about collateral.
He looked back at Bilkins. "What do you want me to do."
Bilkins exhaled hard, voice low. "Stay in Toretto's orbit. Watch for movement. If the street starts shifting because of this—if Wanted shows—"
The agent finished the sentence without emotion. "You notify us."
Brian's jaw tightened. He hated the way it sounded like ownership.
He nodded anyway, because not nodding would change nothing.
But as he walked out of the office, he felt something crack inside him: a clean belief he'd carried that the badge meant the system cared about the right things.
It didn't.
It cared about results.
It cared about assets.
And if that meant lighting the street scene on fire to smoke out a ghost, it would do it and call it strategy.
Back at Toretto's, Jacob watched Brian leave in a way nobody noticed.
Because Jacob was very good at not being noticed when he needed to be.
He kept his face calm while the TV droned and the Acura ran and the police followed. He listened to Dom and Letty comment on the recklessness. He watched Mia's worry tighten her mouth.
And all the while, the system's warning sat at the edge of his vision like a knife held just out of sight.
DANGER: ENFORCEMENT VECTORNOTE: BAIT EVENT ACTIVEPROBABILITY: WANTED EXTRACTION ATTEMPT (RISING)RECOMMENDATION: SECURE ASSETS / UPGRADE QUIETLY
Jacob didn't need the reminder.
He could feel it in the air.
The city was being stirred.
Not by racers.
By men in suits who wanted to drag the myth into daylight and strip it for parts.
Jacob excused himself without making it a thing.
"Tired," he said simply, and Mia nodded like she understood. Dom barely reacted—Dom always noticed, but Dom didn't always speak.
Jacob drove home in the Supra with his jaw clenched, hands steady, heart too loud.
He didn't go straight to Cooper's Auto.
Not at first.
He drove to the private lot.
The expensive one.
The one that felt like a confession every time he paid for it.
A security gate. Cameras. Bright floodlights that made the night look sterile. A guard who barely glanced at him because money made people invisible in a different way.
Jacob parked, walked along rows of steel boxes, and stopped at a shipping container that looked like every other container in the world—except this one held his monster.
He unlocked it.
The door creaked open, and the BMW M3 GTR sat inside in darkness, blue and silver faintly catching the spill of floodlight like a sleeping god.
Jacob stood there for a second, breathing.
He didn't want to get back in it.
That was the truth he hated most.
Because the car represented freedom and terror and addiction all at once, and he had begun to fear what happened to his soul every time the engine came alive.
But the system didn't care about his soul.
It cared about survivability.
It cared about escalation.
It cared about being "Most Wanted" like it was a title to be defended.
Jacob stepped into the container and the door shut behind him, cutting off the lot's sterile light. He switched on a work lamp and the BMW glowed under it, perfect and predatory.
The HUD unfolded.
BOUND VEHICLE: BMW M3 GTRSTATUS: OPTIMALMOST WANTED PROTOCOL: AVAILABLEUPGRADES SUGGESTED: STEALTH / PURSUIT COUNTER / DURABILITY++
Jacob's mouth tightened.
"Quiet," he whispered, as if the system could hear tone.
The system responded anyway, clinical.
QUIET UPGRADES AVAILABLE:– Signal Obfuscation (Tier 1)– Thermal Damping (Tier 1)– Reinforced Impact Core (Tier 2)– Tire Compound: All-Weather Grip (Tier 1)– ECU Ghost Map (Tier 1)NOTE: Installation available in container environment
Jacob stared at the menu and felt anger flare—not the hot rage of the chase, but the slow fury of being pushed.
He didn't want to become a weapon.
But enforcement had just made it clear they weren't trying to "catch" him anymore.
They were trying to take what made him impossible.
So Jacob did the thing he always did when fear and anger met:
He prepared.
He purchased upgrades with shaking hands.
Not flashy ones. Not showboating.
Quiet ones.
On the work lamp's cone of light, the BMW didn't transform dramatically. It simply… tightened again. Like invisible seams were being reinforced. Like heat signatures were being muffled. Like the car was learning how to be harder to see, harder to read, harder to kill.
Jacob leaned over the hood, hands on cold metal, and breathed through the ache in his chest.
He wasn't upgrading to chase cops.
He was upgrading to survive the people who would stop at nothing to own him.
Outside, the city buzzed with its new bait-chase, the Acura screaming down routes chosen by men in suits.
Inside a shipping container, Jacob Cooper prepared his ghost in silence.
Because he could feel it, deep in his bones:
This wasn't about racing anymore.
It was about extraction.
And the next time Wanted appeared, it wouldn't be the street that came for him.
It would be enforcement with a plan.
...
Two days after the Acura chase, Los Angeles moved like it had a bruise.
People still met. They still clustered under sodium lights and underglow like moths around heat. But the laughter died quicker now. The scanning eyes lasted longer. Even the music felt like it was trying too hard to convince everyone the city wasn't watching.
Jacob arrived in his Supra a little after midnight and parked on the edge of the gathering where he could leave fast if he had to. He told himself he was here because Dom's world had started to feel like the only place he could breathe without the system whispering at him.
That was only half true.
He was also here because Mia would be here, and the way her concern softened when she saw him made him feel briefly, dangerously human.
The meet was busy but controlled: cars lined in loose rings, people leaning on hoods, talk rolling in low waves. Hector's crew was there, loud and familiar. A few older heads stayed near the shadows, watching the road more than the cars, like they'd learned to respect how quickly a night could turn.
Jacob stepped out, scanned the crowd, and felt it immediately.
A new presence.
Not supernatural. Not like the BMW's mythic weight.
This was more mundane—and somehow more unsettling: someone trying to belong.
He stood near a car that fit the era but still looked curated: a white 2000 Honda Civic Si (EM1), lowered just enough to look purposeful, clean wheels, tidy engine bay glimpsed under a partially popped hood, a subtle lip kit and a wing that didn't scream for attention. It wasn't cartoonish. It wasn't overbuilt. It was the exact kind of car that told the scene, I know what you respect.
The driver wore the same careful calibration.
Mid-to-late twenties, easy smile, hands open, posture relaxed in a way that made people relax back. He laughed like he meant it. He listened like he cared. He bought a couple of waters for the kids hovering nervously at the edge and suddenly half the lot decided he was "good people," because generosity was the fastest disguise in the world.
When someone asked where he was from, he didn't say something slick.
"San Diego," he said with a grin. "Got tired of running the same streets. Came up to see if L.A. really lives up to the stories."
It landed perfectly—humble, excited, not threatening.
When someone asked his name, he didn't hesitate.
"Evan 'Sunny' Caldwell," he said, and the nickname rolled off his tongue like it had been tested in a mirror. "Everybody calls me Sunny. I'm not trying to bring clouds."
People chuckled. A couple nodded like they'd already decided to like him.
Jacob watched from a distance and felt cold settle behind his ribs.
Because the friendliness was too smooth. Not fake exactly—more like rehearsed. Like a persona built in a room where people practiced being likable until it worked.
Mia was near Dom's Charger with Letty, eyes tracking the lot the way they did now—always a little wary. When she saw Jacob, her shoulders eased a fraction.
"Hey," she said.
"Hey," Jacob replied, and the warmth in her voice hit him like sunlight he didn't deserve.
They stood close enough that their arms almost brushed. Jacob tried not to lean into it. He tried not to let wanting make him sloppy.
He glanced toward Sunny again.
Mia followed his gaze. "New guy," she murmured.
Jacob nodded. "Yeah."
"He seems…" Mia searched for the word. "Nice."
Jacob's mouth tightened slightly. "He seems practiced."
Mia's eyebrows lifted. "Practiced?"
Jacob softened immediately. "Just… good at talking."
Mia watched Sunny laugh with a group of racers and shrugged, but Jacob could feel her caution too—quiet, instinctive, the same way Dom's caution lived in his silence.
Brian was there, and Brian didn't like Sunny within a minute.
Jacob didn't need to read minds to see it. Brian's posture tightened whenever Sunny drifted toward Dom's orbit. Brian's eyes stayed a little too focused, tracking the new guy the way a predator tracked another predator wearing a sheep's coat.
Vince disliked Sunny even more, and Vince didn't bother hiding it.
"That dude's fake as hell," Vince muttered, loud enough for Leon to hear.
Leon sighed. "Vince, everybody's fake until they're not."
Vince's mouth curled. "Nah. He's fake all the way."
Sunny eventually drifted toward Dom with the confidence of someone who'd already been accepted by the crowd just enough to push.
Dom stood with his arms crossed, calm as ever, gaze steady. Letty leaned beside him, eyes sharp. The air around Dom always felt like a boundary line.
Sunny approached with that easy grin, hands open.
"Dom Toretto," Sunny said warmly. "Heard stories."
Dom didn't move much. "Stories get told."
Sunny chuckled like Dom had just made a joke. "Fair. Look—no disrespect. I came out here because I love this. The real scene." He nodded toward the cars, toward the people. "Not the TV stuff. Not the 'Wanted' circus. Just… this."
The way he said Wanted was almost perfect—distancing himself from the heat while proving he knew the language.
People around them nodded, charmed.
Jacob felt his stomach turn.
Brian's eyes narrowed.
Vince scoffed openly. "You talk a lot for someone who says he's not here for TV."
Sunny glanced at Vince and laughed it off like Vince was a little dog barking. "Man, I'm just trying to be respectful."
Then Sunny looked back to Dom and made it public.
"I heard you race," Sunny said, voice rising just enough to draw attention. "Heard you don't duck anybody."
The crowd leaned in. A challenge was oxygen.
Dom's expression stayed calm. "I don't duck. I don't entertain strangers either."
Sunny's grin didn't falter. "Then let me stop being a stranger."
He nodded toward his Civic. "One run. Clean. No drama. Just to say I stood on the same line."
Brian stepped forward half a pace without thinking, irritation sharp enough to show. Vince stepped forward too, ready to explode.
"You don't 'stand' with Dom," Vince snapped. "You earn it."
Sunny spread his hands, still smiling. "That's what I'm trying to do."
Dom didn't answer right away. He stared at Sunny like he was measuring the man beneath the friendliness.
Jacob stood beside Mia and kept his voice low, anchoring himself in normal words because the trap tightening in the air made his skin prickle.
"He's pushing," Mia whispered.
Jacob nodded once. "Yeah."
Mia looked up at Jacob, unease in her eyes. "Why would he do that?"
Jacob didn't have an answer he could say out loud.
Because the truth was simple and ugly:
Sunny wasn't here to be accepted.
He was here to move the scene.
And as Sunny stood under the streetlights looking like a friend everyone wanted to like, Jacob felt the system's earlier warning echo in his bones—cold and certain:
Danger wasn't coming from a racer.
It was coming dressed like one.
..
Two days after the Acura chase, Los Angeles moved like it had a bruise.
People still met. They still clustered under sodium lights and underglow like moths around heat. But the laughter died quicker now. The scanning eyes lasted longer. Even the music felt like it was trying too hard to convince everyone the city wasn't watching.
Jacob arrived in his Supra a little after midnight and parked on the edge of the gathering where he could leave fast if he had to. He told himself he was here because Dom's world had started to feel like the only place he could breathe without the system whispering at him.
That was only half true.
He was also here because Mia would be here, and the way her concern softened when she saw him made him feel briefly, dangerously human.
The meet was busy but controlled: cars lined in loose rings, people leaning on hoods, talk rolling in low waves. Hector's crew was there, loud and familiar. A few older heads stayed near the shadows, watching the road more than the cars, like they'd learned to respect how quickly a night could turn.
Jacob stepped out, scanned the crowd, and felt it immediately.
A new presence.
Not supernatural. Not like the BMW's mythic weight.
This was more mundane—and somehow more unsettling: someone trying to belong.
He stood near a car that fit the era but still looked curated: a white 2000 Honda Civic Si (EM1), lowered just enough to look purposeful, clean wheels, tidy engine bay glimpsed under a partially popped hood, a subtle lip kit and a wing that didn't scream for attention. It wasn't cartoonish. It wasn't overbuilt. It was the exact kind of car that told the scene, I know what you respect.
The driver wore the same careful calibration.
Mid-to-late twenties, easy smile, hands open, posture relaxed in a way that made people relax back. He laughed like he meant it. He listened like he cared. He bought a couple of waters for the kids hovering nervously at the edge and suddenly half the lot decided he was "good people," because generosity was the fastest disguise in the world.
When someone asked where he was from, he didn't say something slick.
"San Diego," he said with a grin. "Got tired of running the same streets. Came up to see if L.A. really lives up to the stories."
It landed perfectly—humble, excited, not threatening.
When someone asked his name, he didn't hesitate.
"Evan 'Sunny' Caldwell," he said, and the nickname rolled off his tongue like it had been tested in a mirror. "Everybody calls me Sunny. I'm not trying to bring clouds."
People chuckled. A couple nodded like they'd already decided to like him.
Jacob watched from a distance and felt cold settle behind his ribs.
Because the friendliness was too smooth. Not fake exactly—more like rehearsed. Like a persona built in a room where people practiced being likable until it worked.
Mia was near Dom's Charger with Letty, eyes tracking the lot the way they did now—always a little wary. When she saw Jacob, her shoulders eased a fraction.
"Hey," she said.
"Hey," Jacob replied, and the warmth in her voice hit him like sunlight he didn't deserve.
They stood close enough that their arms almost brushed. Jacob tried not to lean into it. He tried not to let wanting make him sloppy.
He glanced toward Sunny again.
Mia followed his gaze. "New guy," she murmured.
Jacob nodded. "Yeah."
"He seems…" Mia searched for the word. "Nice."
Jacob's mouth tightened slightly. "He seems practiced."
Mia's eyebrows lifted. "Practiced?"
Jacob softened immediately. "Just… good at talking."
Mia watched Sunny laugh with a group of racers and shrugged, but Jacob could feel her caution too—quiet, instinctive, the same way Dom's caution lived in his silence.
Brian was there, and Brian didn't like Sunny within a minute.
Jacob didn't need to read minds to see it. Brian's posture tightened whenever Sunny drifted toward Dom's orbit. Brian's eyes stayed a little too focused, tracking the new guy the way a predator tracked another predator wearing a sheep's coat.
Vince disliked Sunny even more, and Vince didn't bother hiding it.
"That dude's fake as hell," Vince muttered, loud enough for Leon to hear.
Leon sighed. "Vince, everybody's fake until they're not."
Vince's mouth curled. "Nah. He's fake all the way."
Sunny eventually drifted toward Dom with the confidence of someone who'd already been accepted by the crowd just enough to push.
Dom stood with his arms crossed, calm as ever, gaze steady. Letty leaned beside him, eyes sharp. The air around Dom always felt like a boundary line.
Sunny approached with that easy grin, hands open.
"Dom Toretto," Sunny said warmly. "Heard stories."
Dom didn't move much. "Stories get told."
Sunny chuckled like Dom had just made a joke. "Fair. Look—no disrespect. I came out here because I love this. The real scene." He nodded toward the cars, toward the people. "Not the TV stuff. Not the 'Wanted' circus. Just… this."
The way he said Wanted was almost perfect—distancing himself from the heat while proving he knew the language.
People around them nodded, charmed.
Jacob felt his stomach turn.
Brian's eyes narrowed.
Vince scoffed openly. "You talk a lot for someone who says he's not here for TV."
Sunny glanced at Vince and laughed it off like Vince was a little dog barking. "Man, I'm just trying to be respectful."
Then Sunny looked back to Dom and made it public.
"I heard you race," Sunny said, voice rising just enough to draw attention. "Heard you don't duck anybody."
The crowd leaned in. A challenge was oxygen.
Dom's expression stayed calm. "I don't duck. I don't entertain strangers either."
Sunny's grin didn't falter. "Then let me stop being a stranger."
He nodded toward his Civic. "One run. Clean. No drama. Just to say I stood on the same line."
Brian stepped forward half a pace without thinking, irritation sharp enough to show. Vince stepped forward too, ready to explode.
"You don't 'stand' with Dom," Vince snapped. "You earn it."
Sunny spread his hands, still smiling. "That's what I'm trying to do."
Dom didn't answer right away. He stared at Sunny like he was measuring the man beneath the friendliness.
Jacob stood beside Mia and kept his voice low, anchoring himself in normal words because the trap tightening in the air made his skin prickle.
"He's pushing," Mia whispered.
Jacob nodded once. "Yeah."
Mia looked up at Jacob, unease in her eyes. "Why would he do that?"
Jacob didn't have an answer he could say out loud.
Because the truth was simple and ugly:
Sunny wasn't here to be accepted.
He was here to move the scene.
And as Sunny stood under the streetlights looking like a friend everyone wanted to like, Jacob felt the system's earlier warning echo in his bones—cold and certain:
Danger wasn't coming from a racer.
It was coming dressed like one.
...
Dom didn't smile when he accepted.
He didn't puff his chest or play to the crowd. He just stared at Sunny for a long beat, the kind of stare that made the streetlights feel colder, then nodded once like he'd been forced into a decision he didn't want to make in public.
"Fine," Dom said. "One run."
The lot exhaled in a ripple—cheers, whistles, the hungry sound people made when they thought they were about to witness something that would become a story.
Sunny's grin widened, easy as ever. "That's all I'm asking."
Jacob watched Dom's face and felt the tension behind it. Dom wasn't agreeing because his pride needed it. Dom was agreeing because refusing would let this new guy keep pushing, keep talking, keep stirring the scene until it snapped somewhere worse.
And Dom had always preferred controlled danger over uncontrolled chaos.
Dom walked toward the Charger without saying another word.
Letty followed, eyes sharp, posture relaxed but coiled, like she wanted to be in the passenger seat just in case the night turned ugly. She didn't get in—Dom shook his head once, subtle. A private message: I need you watching the lot, not strapped to my fate.
Jacob's stomach tightened.
Because Dom had kept the upgrades quiet on purpose.
No bragging about brakes that didn't fade. No talk about traction that bit cleaner. No hint that Dom's Charger had been sharpened by something that didn't belong in 2001.
Dom wanted the advantage to remain invisible.
Dom wanted the world to underestimate him.
Brian stepped forward next, and Jacob felt the shift before Brian even spoke. The jealousy was there, sure—quiet and stubborn—but the bigger thing was the way Brian seemed almost relieved to have something clear to do.
Race.
A straight line. A finish. A set of rules even if the cops watched from the shadows.
"I'll run," Brian said.
A few heads turned. Not because Brian was a legend—he wasn't yet—but because he'd been around enough now to be recognized as Dom-adjacent. And in this city, adjacency mattered.
Sunny looked pleased, like Brian's involvement confirmed the night's importance. "Good," Sunny said. "More the merrier."
Hector's people started calling out bets and names, and one of his crew—lean, loud, confident—rolled his car forward with a grin that said he wanted to be part of whatever story got told after.
"Put me in," the guy shouted, and Hector laughed and slapped his roof like a blessing.
So the lineup formed without anyone needing to announce it:
Dom in the Charger, quiet thunder under the hood.Sunny in his clean Civic, friendly smile too steady.Brian in his Mitsubishi, hungry to prove something he couldn't name.And Hector's guy, eager and loud, representing the part of the scene that thought danger was entertainment until it became an ambulance.
The cars rolled out toward the race stretch in a slow, deliberate migration. Engines idled like restrained animals. People piled into passenger seats, phones and camcorders raised, headlights sweeping across faces.
Jacob didn't follow.
Not right away.
He stayed near the edge of the lot because he'd reached a different kind of conclusion.
If Sunny was bait, if Sunny was enforcement wearing a smile, then the trap wasn't going to snap on the street.
It was going to snap in the people.
And the person most likely to react the wrong way was Vince.
Vince stood near the back, arms crossed, expression sour, watching Dom like Dom's choice to race had personally offended him. He looked like a man who wanted to be the loudest warning in the room and hated that nobody asked him for permission.
Jacob walked up slowly—hands visible, posture calm.
"Vince," he said.
Vince didn't look at him at first. "Not now."
Jacob didn't take the bait. He stayed steady. "It'll take ten seconds."
Vince finally cut his eyes toward him, irritated. "What."
Jacob kept his voice low so it wouldn't turn into a show. "That new guy," he said, nodding toward Sunny's direction, "is a problem."
Vince scoffed immediately, the sound sharp and dismissive. "He's just another clown trying to make a name."
Jacob's jaw tightened. "No."
Vince's eyes narrowed. "You don't know that."
Jacob leaned a fraction closer—not threatening, just insisting on being heard. "I do."
Vince's mouth curled. "Oh yeah? You got instincts now?"
Jacob didn't flinch. "Yeah," he said quietly. "I do."
Vince laughed once, but it came out dry. "Man, you've been here like a week and you're already acting like you know the scene."
Jacob felt the familiar sting of that—outsider, stranger, not-family. He swallowed it down and kept going.
"This isn't about the scene," Jacob said. "It's about pressure. The city's hot. The cops are hot. Everybody's looking for a reason to crack down harder. And that guy—Sunny—" Jacob paused, letting the name land, "—is too clean."
Vince's expression flickered, and Jacob saw it: the first real crack in the dismissal. Vince didn't like the word clean. Vince lived in grease and loyalty and messy truth. Clean meant outsiders. Clean meant people who didn't bleed the same way.
Vince tried to keep his tone mocking. "He bought some waters and smiled. Big deal."
Jacob shook his head slowly. "No one buys kindness that fast unless they need it."
Vince's gaze sharpened. "You saying he's a cop."
Jacob didn't say yes. He didn't say no.
He let the implication hang long enough to feel like a weight.
"I'm saying he's not here for Dom," Jacob said. "He's here for what Dom represents. He's here to make people move."
Vince stared at him, jaw working, pride fighting the uncomfortable truth of it.
Then Vince did the thing he always did when he was actually listening:
He didn't admit it.
He just went quieter.
His eyes drifted toward where Sunny stood, laughing with someone like he'd been part of the scene forever. Vince watched the way Sunny's posture stayed just a little too balanced, the way his gaze swept the crowd in quick, controlled arcs.
Vince's voice dropped half a notch. "You really feel that."
Jacob nodded once. "Yeah."
Vince exhaled slowly through his nose, like anger was the only emotion he trusted. "If you're wrong—"
"I'm not," Jacob said, soft but firm.
Vince held Jacob's gaze for a long beat, then looked away like looking too long would make it real.
He didn't thank Jacob.
He didn't apologize for brushing him off.
He just nodded—barely—and muttered, "I'll keep an eye."
It was Vince's version of agreement: reluctant, resentful, but functional.
Jacob felt a small, uneasy relief.
Because if Vince was watching Sunny, Vince might not do something stupid.
Or Vince might do something even worse.
Jacob didn't know which way Vince's paranoia would cut.
He only knew it was better than Vince sleepwalking into the trap.
The engines in the distance rose—cars moving into position.
The crowd began to flow after them like water, drawn toward the race stretch where the night would decide who mattered.
Jacob stayed behind a moment longer, eyes on Vince, then on Sunny's disappearing silhouette, then on the dark road where Dom had just taken his newly sharpened Charger to keep a secret.
Jacob's chest tightened with a thought he couldn't shake:
If Sunny truly was bait, then this race wasn't about ego.
It was about response.
And the problem with response was that you didn't control it once the line dropped.
...
They came back to the meet like returning soldiers—engines hot, faces bright with leftover adrenaline, the air still vibrating with the story the road had just written into their nerves.
The four racers rolled in first, then the wave of spectators followed—headlights sweeping the lot, people shouting names, laughter cracking open like cans. Dom's Charger settled into place with a deeper confidence, the new upgrades hiding under steel and silence. Dom climbed out slow, expression controlled, but the brief glance he gave his own hood said he'd felt the difference.
Brian stepped out of his Mitsubishi a second later, jaw tight, eyes bright and restless—like he'd driven with something to prove and wasn't sure if proving it helped.
Hector's guy hopped out laughing, already talking louder than necessary.
Sunny's Civic eased in with an easy, polished glide.
And Sunny stepped out like he was already part of the scene.
He clapped a couple guys on the shoulder, smiled wide, said "good run" in a voice meant to carry. He held his hands open like he wasn't a threat. He laughed in a way that invited people to laugh with him. He played the role of the new guy who just wanted to be included—loud enough to be seen, friendly enough to be forgiven.
Jacob felt it land wrong.
Not because Sunny had done anything overt. Because it was too clean. Too smooth. Too curated for a scene that survived on rough edges and mistrust.
Jacob didn't stay fixed on Sunny, though.
His eyes kept searching for Mia.
He'd watched her earlier—near Dom, near Letty—steady as a heartbeat. But now the lot had tightened and shifted, bodies clustering and moving, and Jacob didn't like the feeling of not knowing exactly where she was.
He scanned between cars—under-glow washing over ankles, cigarette tips blinking like tiny warnings, faces half-lit by dash lights.
Then the night cracked.
A siren rose in the distance and didn't fade.
Then another joined it, then another, until the sound turned into a harsh chord that climbed and climbed like the city itself was screaming.
Heads turned.
A lookout's voice ripped through the lot. "COPS!"
The meet tried to become smoke.
Engines turned over all at once, a wave of starter motors and revs. Doors slammed. People scattered, sprinting between cars, shouting warnings, tripping over curbs in panic. Under-glow streaked across the pavement like spilled paint.
Police units poured in from two directions—Crown Vics and black-and-whites with lights exploding red-blue, sirens ripping the air apart. They didn't creep. They hit the perimeter with intent: blocking the widest exits, herding cars into narrower lanes, shouting commands through megaphones that sounded more like threats than instructions.
Jacob's stomach dropped.
His first instinct was to move toward Mia—find her, anchor her, get her out.
But the lot was a shifting maze now, bodies and headlights turning every line into chaos.
And then Sunny did what Sunny always did:
He made himself the center.
Not because he knew anyone suspected him. Not because he understood Jacob's internal calculus. Just because his persona demanded it—because he'd built himself as the guy who looked fearless under pressure.
He didn't slip out quietly like a smart racer.
He popped his Civic's door, stood up in the chaos, and waved both arms in a big, theatrical gesture like he was directing traffic.
"MOVE!" Sunny shouted, loud enough to cut through the panic. "Everybody move! Go, go!"
It sounded helpful.
It looked like a flare.
Spotlights snapped toward him almost immediately—not searching, not sweeping—locking. As if the cops' attention had been waiting for a focal point and Sunny obligingly provided one.
Jacob watched it happen and felt cold creep up his spine.
Because the police response was aggressive everywhere else—hands on holsters, cars angling to trap, officers moving hard.
But around Sunny, the pressure felt… different.
Not soft. Not friendly.
Just strangely shaped.
Sunny jumped into his Civic and launched forward, tires chirping as he cut toward an opening. A cruiser surged in behind him with lights and siren… but the angles weren't tight. The units didn't box him instantly. They didn't slam him the way they'd slammed others in recent weeks.
Sunny weaved through the chaos with dramatic flair—wide swings, sharp corrections, the kind of driving that looked good to anyone watching from a distance.
And the cops let him keep moving.
Vince saw it.
Jacob saw Vince see it.
Vince's face changed—swagger draining into something colder. That look he got when suspicion became pattern. When his gut stopped arguing with itself and just decided.
He shoved through the crowd hard, elbows out, eyes locked on the way Sunny's Civic seemed to have a lane open whenever it needed one.
"Look at that," Vince snarled to nobody in particular. "Look at that!"
Jacob tried to move toward Vince, to stop him from doing something stupid, but bodies surged between them and a car reversed too fast, nearly clipping Jacob's knee. Jacob had to jump back, pulse spiking.
Vince broke free into a clearer lane between cars and—this time—yelled toward Jacob, not Sunny.
His voice cut through the sirens, raw and furious.
"You were right!" Vince barked, eyes wide with vindication. "That guy's a problem!"
Then Vince was gone, sprinting toward his own car with the kind of urgency that meant he wasn't thinking anymore—only reacting.
Jacob's chest tightened.
That wasn't relief.
That was a fuse catching.
Jacob pushed through the chaos, shoving past a cluster of people ducking low as a cruiser rolled by. He tried to follow Vince, but the lot kept reconfiguring—cars peeling out, others stuck at blocked exits, officers shouting, people scattering in every direction.
He lost Vince.
And the moment he lost Vince, Jacob's priorities snapped back to the one thing that mattered more than theories:
Mia.
"Mia!" he shouted, louder now.
His voice got eaten by sirens and megaphones.
He spun, searching again—hair, posture, the familiar steadiness of her presence.
Then he saw her.
Near the edge of the lot, half behind a car with its door open, Mia stood with her eyes wide, breathing quick, one hand gripping the door frame as she looked for Dom.
Relief hit Jacob so hard it almost made him stumble.
He forced his way to her, heart hammering.
When he reached her, he touched her arm lightly—steady, grounding, not pulling.
"Mia," he said, voice tight.
She turned, saw him, and the fear in her face shifted into something else—relief braided with anger, the kind of anger that came from being helpless.
"Where's Dom?" she shouted.
Jacob scanned the lot again, trying to spot Dom's silhouette in the flashing light, trying to read the chaos the way Dom would—where the exits were, where the cops were pushing, where the safest path might be.
Sunny's Civic was already disappearing down a side road, still drawing the noisiest chunk of pursuit behind it like a bright lure. The lot's remaining cops pressed in harder now, trapping slower cars, grabbing at people who couldn't disappear fast enough.
Jacob's fingers tightened around Mia's forearm just slightly.
"Stay close," he said.
Mia nodded once, jaw clenched.
And as Jacob looked out over the broken meet—sirens, lights, bodies running—he felt the trap in his bones with sick certainty:
Sunny hadn't needed to know anyone suspected him to play his part.
He'd simply done what he was designed to do—be seen, be loud, be a moving center of gravity.
The real danger wasn't that Sunny understood Jacob.
It was that the city's enforcement machine didn't need Sunny to understand anything at all.
It only needed the street to react.
And it had.