By the final hairpin, Drayke was redlining, desperate. He tried a “scandi flick”—a weight-shift maneuver he’d seen online—but his car was too heavy, too angry. The rear kicked out, then gripped, then snapped. The Corvette spun into a tire barrier with a sickening crunch of fiberglass.

“Still running that four-cylinder?” he called out. “This isn’t a video game, kid. No reset button.”

Kaito followed. He didn’t stomp the gas. He breathed into it. The Silvia’s turbo spooled, and at the apex, he feathered the clutch. The car pivoted like a dancer, rear bumper kissing the tire wall without a scratch. He held the drift through the transition, weight shifting smoothly, front wheels pointing exactly where he wanted to go—not where the car wanted to fall.

He stepped out of the Silvia. The Wolves stared, not at the wreck of their leader’s car, but at the skinny kid with the faded sticker. Drayke crawled from the driver’s side, dusting glass from his jacket. He didn’t speak. He just tossed his keys on the ground between them.

Kaito slid into the driver’s seat, the worn steering wheel familiar as his own palm. “Rules?” he asked, not looking up.