Chapter 373: Brake Check

By the time the first stretch fully opened, the two cars were already fighting for the same piece of track.

Lucas had left the line cleaner. The black Silvia held that early advantage longer than anyone on the lot expected, body low, throttle measured, tires biting through the scarred asphalt without drama. Behind the barriers the viewing edge was packed with phones and sharp voices, but the track itself stayed empty. Only the cars belonged out there.

Buster hated every second of it.

He forced the Mark II up on power and used the short straight to take the nose back. The engine roared in a deep violent pull as the Toyota finally shouldered ahead.

VRRROOOOOM.

The lead brought no relief. Having the outsider behind him should have felt like control. Instead it felt like being hunted by a man who had no right standing in this place at all.

His hands tightened on the wheel until the leather creaked.

It was not only the race.

It was the girls.

All the ones who usually waited for him after a win. The ones who screamed his name from the barriers. The ones who used to look at him like he owned the whole damn lot. That morning their eyes had already started drifting. He had seen it before the flag even dropped. Phones turning. Smiles changing. Attention sliding toward the handsome stranger in borrowed metal like Buster had suddenly become background noise.

That bastard walked in with a clean face and easy posture, and half the lot forgot who ran this place.

Buster’s jaw flexed hard.

’You think you can come here, look like that, and take my light?’

’You think you can take my girls too?’

Anger rolled through his chest, hot and ugly.

Fine.

If Lucas wanted to play king for a day, Buster would teach him the lesson of his life. Not with words. Not with a clean pass. With something the pretty boy would feel in his bones before the race was even over.

He kept just enough space ahead to look honest.

Then he let Lucas come.

The black Silvia closed in hard, engine note climbing as Lucas pushed for the lead again. From the barriers it still looked like a straight fight. Rechelle could barely breathe. Hector had gone pale watching his own car hang onto a man who refused to back off.

Buster waited.

He needed speed. He needed Lucas greedy. He needed nowhere left to run.

The stretch opened rough and narrow under the sun. Lucas was right there, full throttle, the gap shrinking fast. For one second the Silvia’s nose sat close enough that a clean pull could put him back in front.

Buster smiled without humor.

Then he killed the speed.

His foot smashed the brake like he was trying to put the pedal through the floor. The Mark II’s rear end squatted hard. Tires locked and screamed. The whole car snapped slower in Lucas’s face with no warning at all, a sudden wall where open track had been a heartbeat earlier.

SCREEEEEEE—

Someone at the barrier shouted.

Rechelle’s voice tore out of her. "NO!"

Hector slammed both hands into the fence so hard the metal jumped. "MOVE! MOVE!"

Inside the Silvia there was no time to think.

Lucas saw the brake lights flare and the Mark II stop in front of him like a trap. His body moved first. He hit the brakes hard enough to throw his weight into the harness, felt the Silvia dive forward, felt the tires howl against the scarred asphalt. The rear of Buster’s car rushed up so fast it filled the whole windshield.

Close.

Too close.

For a split second the only thing between them was noise and heat and the certainty of a crash that did not quite land.

Metal never touched.

But the near miss hit harder than contact. Lucas’s arms locked on the wheel. His breath stayed trapped in his chest. The whole car shook under the force of the save.

Then Buster was already gone, throttle buried, the Mark II leaping forward like nothing had happened.

VRRROOOOOOOM.

Lucas recovered in the same breath.

It was only his reflexes that saved him. One slower reaction and the Silvia would have climbed into the back of the Mark II at full speed. One heartbeat late and Hector’s car would have been folded metal on the scarred asphalt. Lucas knew it. His hands still felt the near miss.

His foot left the brake and buried the throttle in one clean motion. The Silvia answered hard, engine note climbing sharp and angry as the black car surged after Buster down the stretch.

VRRROOOOOM.

The message landed clearer than the shock.

Buster had not been trying to win.

He had been trying to break him. To put him in the wall. To teach a public lesson in front of the whole lot so the handsome outsider would learn his place and never forget it.

Behind the barriers the noise dropped for a second. Not silence. Something tighter. The kind of quiet that hits when everyone realizes a race has turned dirty. Phones stayed up. Bodies pressed against the fence. Nobody stepped onto the track. The blonde who had dropped the flag stared with her mouth open, all the earlier play wiped off her face. Rechelle’s hands were shaking against her own arms. Hector looked like he might be sick watching his car survive a trap that should have ended it.

Lucas did not look at any of them.

He stayed locked to Buster’s bumper, eyes flat, breathing controlled, the Silvia riding the Mark II’s rear like a shadow that refused to die. The rough middle section rose ahead of them. Old impact scars. Broken grip. The part of the track where mistakes became expensive and bad intentions got room to work.

Buster glanced once in the mirror and grinned.

That grin did it.

Lucas felt something cold settle into place behind his ribs. The clean race was gone. The fair fight was gone. This bastard had tried to put him in the wall for the crime of being watched, for the crime of being handsome, for the crime of standing in a place Buster thought he owned.

Fine.

If Buster had no plans of playing clean, then Lucas would not play clean either.

He kept the throttle down and closed the last of the space between them. The black car was meaner now. Committed now. The near-death still burned in his arms as both machines dove toward the rough middle together.

Closer than before.