Chapter 371: Any Car You Own

Buster heard him clearly.

The grin only got wider, like Lucas had said something cute instead of dangerous. He stepped in close enough for the whole lot to see, tapped him on the shoulder the way an older man taps a boy he is about to teach a lesson, and let the warmth in his voice do the insulting.

"Son, keep daydreaming. It looks good on you."

A few people laughed. One of the girls near the black coupe bit her lip and watched Lucas instead of Buster, which only made the local champion’s smile tighten.

Lucas looked at him and said nothing. He did not push the hand off. He did not answer. He wanted the outcome more than the argument.

Buster turned away with a clap of his hands. "Alright. Let’s start the cars."

That was when Lucas felt the gap.

He had accepted the race and refused the head start in front of everybody.

What he did not have was a race car.

The BMW was no weak machine. On open road it was a monster ~ heavy pull, clean grip, the kind of car that made other drivers move out of the lane without knowing why. Lucas had felt that much on the way here. But a monster on the highway was still not the same thing as a car that had been stripped, tuned, and beaten into shape for a scarred track like this. Buster’s Mark II had been built for exactly this kind of fight. Taking the BMW out there would not be confidence. It would be stubbornness.

Rechelle saw the realization hit him before he said it out loud.

She caught his arm and pulled him back half a step, voice low and quick.

"Wait."

"I need a car."

"I know." Her eyes flicked once toward Buster’s machine, then back to him. "The BMW can eat road all day. It’s not eating that. You’re not taking it against a purpose-built car on this track."

Lucas followed her look. The Toyota Mark II JZX100 sat heavy and modified, hood still open, the kind of build that looked slow until it moved. He knew enough from games and clips to understand the shape of it. What he did not have was her real-road knowledge.

"Stay here," she said, and walked.

---

She did not go toward Buster.

She cut across the lot instead, past the idling engines and the girls still watching Lucas, all the way to the far edge where the noise thinned out. A bald man was bent under an open hood there, working like the rest of the morning had nothing to do with him. Slow passes of a cloth over clean metal. No glance up when someone shouted about the race. No interest.

Rechelle stopped beside him.

"Hector."

He kept wiping for another second before he even turned his head. "What."

"I need a favor."

That got his hands to slow. Not because he liked the sound of it. Because favors on this lot usually cost something.

"What kind of favor."

She nodded at the black car beside him. "I need that."

Hector finally stopped. His hands left the engine one at a time, and when he straightened up the look on his face was already halfway to insulted.

"No."

"I’m not asking to keep it. One run."

"One run is how people start explaining dents to me. Still no."

"I didn’t come here to race today," she said. "Buster got loud. He’s trying to put on a show in front of everybody."

Hector leaned just enough to look past her toward the circle, then shrugged like none of that was his problem. "Then let him put on his show. What’s that got to do with my car."

"It’s not for me."

That made him turn fully toward her.

"Then who."

She tipped her chin across the lot. "The man I came with. Him."

Hector followed her gaze.

Clean shirt. Clean jacket. Girls still watching him like the race was already secondary. Hector let out a short, unimpressed breath.

"That one? He doesn’t even look like he belongs on a track."

"It’s his first time here," Rechelle said. "Doesn’t mean he can’t drive."

"First time." Hector wiped his hands on a rag hard enough that the cloth twisted in his grip. "So let me understand this. Buster got his feelings hurt, and now you want my car under a complete outsider."

"Yes."

He gave a dry little laugh and shook his head. "He looks like he showed up for a fashion line, not a heat."

"He can drive."

"Everybody’s cousin can drive." Hector pointed at the black car without looking at it. "That one stays put. I’m not standing here watching some pretty outsider fold my work into the barrier because Buster breathed on him."

Behind them Buster was already shouting about lining up. People were drifting toward the start. Every second she spent here was another second Lucas stood out there with no machine and too many eyes on him. If she waited too long, either the lot would start laughing or he would climb into the BMW just to shut Buster up. She had brought him here. She was not about to watch the morning turn him into a joke.

She stepped in closer.

"If anything happens to your car," she said, "you choose any car from my collection."

Hector went quiet.

He had heard her fine the first time. He just needed a second to believe it. Everybody on this lot knew what Rechelle’s collection was worth. His car was sharp, but it was still one car. Hers was a different league.

He watched her face, waiting for the joke.

"Say that again."

"If he damages it, you pick any car I own."

"Any."

"Any."

Hector blew out a breath. "Only an idiot takes a deal like that without checking if you’re serious."

"I am."

He looked at her, then at Lucas, then at his car. The refusal was still on his face, but the hunger under it was getting harder to hide.

"Anything happens to it," he said, "I’m not talking. I’m collecting."

"I know."

"And if he bins it on the first turn~"

"Then you walk into my garage and take your pick."

Hector stared at her for a long second. Then he dug into his pocket, pulled out the keys, and held them up between two fingers.

"He messes up my car, I take one of yours."

Rechelle took the keys. "He won’t."

She turned and headed back across the lot before he could snatch them back. Behind her, Hector stayed by the open hood, already looking like he hated the deal and wanted it anyway.

Lucas was waiting.

Buster was still smiling.

Now the race had a second car.