Chapter 328: Let Me Drive

The doors shut, and for a second the car held only quiet.

Then Rechelle turned toward him.

"Wait."

Lucas looked over.

"I’m the one who should be showing you around," she said. "Not you showing me around."

A small smile pulled at his mouth. Rechelle did not give him room to keep it.

"Let me drive."

Lucas stared at her. "Drive?"

"Yes." She was already opening her door. "Let me show you around."

She stepped out before he could argue. Lucas sat there a second longer, watching her walk around the front of the car like the decision had been made the moment she said it, then exhaled and got out as well. By the time he reached the passenger side, the arrangement had flipped completely. He dropped into the seat he almost never used and shut the door.

Rechelle took the wheel.

One mirror check. One grip on the leather. The engine came alive under her foot like it recognized a different kind of handler.

Lucas had just started turning his head when she swung them out hard.

The rear stepped wide. His shoulder slammed into the door. The whole cabin tugged sideways, clean and violent, and whatever warning he had been about to give about the pedal died in his throat. Rechelle caught the exit of the turn with a precision that did not belong to someone borrowing a car for fun, then buried the throttle.

The engine climbed fast.

Streetlights started ripping past the windows. Lucas looked from the road to her face and back again. No panic. No playful grin. Just focus, control, and a speed that made the car feel lower and meaner than it ever had under him.

She took the next corner harder.

The tires bit, protested, then held as she forced the line tighter than courtesy allowed. A pair of headlights flared in the mirror and fell away just as quickly. Lucas’s hand found the door handle without him deciding to reach for it.

"Rechelle."

"Mm?"

"This is not a track."

"Then the road should stop feeling like one," she said, and shifted again.

They shot through a short straight so fast the buildings on either side blurred into strips of light and glass. At the end of it she braked late, turned in early, and let the back end slide just enough to make Lucas’s stomach drop before she caught it and powered out. It was aggressive. Clean. Unapologetic.

A car horn sounded somewhere behind them, distant and useless.

Lucas stared at her profile.

"You do this often?"

"Only when the car can take it," Rechelle said. Then, after a beat, "This one can."

She cut across a lane, timed a gap that most drivers would have waited on, and punched through it without hesitation. The city opened wider ahead of them, night traffic thinning just enough for her to keep the speed high. Every time Lucas thought she would ease off, she found another reason not to.

"This car is super cool," she said finally, eyes still on the road.

Lucas’s mouth opened, ready to take the compliment and add something of his own.

She did not let him.

"Why didn’t you buy the Bugatti Chiron Super Sport 300+?" she asked, casual as weather. "It’s faster. And cheaper than this one."

Lucas turned fully toward her.

The engine was still working hard under her foot. The city was still peeling away outside. And the woman who had thrown him into the passenger seat, drifted the first corner, and been treating public roads like a private circuit was now grading his purchase out loud.

"...I’ll consider that," he said.

The urge to talk up his own car died on the spot. There was no point. She had said it too easily, too precisely. Famous model names were cheap. The way she ranked them was not.

Rechelle’s mouth curved, satisfied, and she kept driving.

A traffic light ahead turned amber. She judged the distance, committed, and cleared the junction as it went red, the car settling into another hard pull of speed on the far side. Lucas let out a short breath that was almost a laugh.

"You’re insane."

"You’re still in the seat," she answered.

"That is not the defense you think it is."

She smiled wider and took the next ramp like she had built it herself.

Only after several more aggressive stretches did the pace finally begin to change. The road widened into a brighter district, denser with expensive frontage and deeper night light. Rechelle eased down through the gears, not gently, but with the same control she had used at speed, and a building came into view on the right.

Glass. Polished stone. A wide entrance glowing under clean signage.

A luxury bar.

Lucas tracked it as she brought them in. He had expected a viewpoint, maybe a quiet stretch of Westheaven, maybe some local place she wanted to claim as hers. Not this. Not a room that looked like it charged for the air as much as the drinks.

Rechelle stopped the car, killed the engine, and opened her door.

"Come on," she said, stepping out. "Let me show you nightlife in my city."

Lucas followed Rechelle through the entrance, and the bar hit them at once.

Music blasted from every side, heavy enough to sit in the chest. Lights cut across glass and moving bodies. The room was packed and loud, not only with drinking but with open competitions at the counter ~ groups shouting counts, slamming empty glasses down, laughing too hard when someone fell behind. It was lively in a way that felt slightly unhinged, expensive, and wide awake all at once.

They found space near the bar. A bartender came over fast, already reading them as new money worth serving properly. Rechelle started ordering without hesitation. Lucas let her lead again, eyes moving once across the room while the drinks were being pulled.

Outside, another car slid into a space near the entrance and stopped.

The doors did not open immediately.

Inside, several men sat close together, voices low, attention fixed on the building Rechelle and Lucas had just entered. They were not ordinary guests looking for a night out. The way they watched the door, the way none of them reached for phones or jokes, made that clear enough.

Something else had arrived with the evening.

And it was already watching the same entrance.