Chapter 48: "You Seem Like a Reasonable Guy. Wanna Race?"
The warehouse had gone from nearly-a-bloodbath to something weirder.
Nobody moved. Nobody spoke. Every eye in the building — including Kevin's, swollen as they were — drifted to the same place: Rango's pocket, from which Call Me Maybe continued to play at full volume, cheerful and completely indifferent to the situation around it.
Rango muttered something under his breath that wasn't fit for print, shot Dom one last hard look, and took three steps back toward the wall.
He kept his peripheral vision on the room. He couldn't ignore this call — Gloria had set that ringtone herself, specifically so he'd know it was her and pick up, because the last time she'd let him out of her sight for an extended period he'd ended up in a different continent for three years without warning.
He exhaled slowly.
Answered.
"Hey, sweetheart." His voice went from zero to warm in about half a second. "What's going on?"
"What? No — I just got done with a job, I was driving—"
A short pause while he listened, his expression doing complicated things.
"Baby. Come on. After you? I don't even see other women anymore. You know that." He turned slightly toward the wall, lowering his voice — not nearly enough. "How about this: come to New York early. I've been working on those French dishes you like. I'll make them every night. Different recipe each time—"
Silence.
Then, from somewhere behind him, the first suppressed snort.
Then another.
Forty-something of the hardest men in Brooklyn — guys who'd pulled triggers, stolen cars, done stints, survived things — stood frozen in place staring at the back of the man who, ten seconds ago, had looked fully prepared to put half of them in the hospital.
The same man who was now hunched slightly over his phone, voice gone completely soft, reassuring his girlfriend about French cooking.
Two of Dom's guys still had their guns half-raised, apparently unsure whether to put them away or just wait for clarification on what kind of situation this had become.
Rango caught the tail end of what Gloria was saying, and his smile went a little stiff. He turned back around, caught a look at the expressions in the room, and his eyes went cold — but he still leaned in toward the phone.
"Mm. Of course, baby—"
He kissed the air. Twice. Loudly.
"Pffft—"
That was all it took.
The warehouse broke. Laughter hit the ceiling, bouncing off the sheet metal, the kind of laughter that comes out of tension releasing all at once — guys doubling over, guys grabbing each other's shoulders, guys pointing.
Doug — missing several teeth, courtesy of about four minutes ago — was somehow laughing hardest of all, working around the gap in his mouth. "So you're a house husband?! This guy is a HOUSE HUSBAND—"
Rango's face went completely flat.
He pocketed the phone. Looked slowly around the room. There was a very specific kind of quiet fury available to people who are not embarrassed but are deeply offended, and Rango had located it.
"I swear to God." He pointed. One at a time. Finger moving around the room like a slow clock. "Every single one of you that just laughed — we are going to have a problem."
Nobody fully stopped, which made it worse.
He pressed the ball of his foot against the floor, felt the familiar electric warmth of the Race Car Brain ability humming at the base of his spine, and started doing the math on how many of these guys he could put through the walls before the others got their bearings—
"Alright. That's enough."
Dom's voice didn't boom. It didn't need to. It just landed, and the laughter drained out of the room like someone pulled a plug.
He walked forward — unhurried, the way he always moved — until he was standing directly in front of Rango. And then, to Rango's mild irritation, a slow smile pulled at the corner of Dom's mouth.
"I respect that," he said. It sounded genuine, which was the most annoying possible version. "A man who's got someone to go home to. That's not nothing." He tilted his head slightly. "Family man. Like me."
Rango looked at him. "Great. What do you want."
Dom's gaze drifted past him — to McQueen, sitting quiet and still near the broken roll door, looking for all the world like a normal, very expensive, extremely red sports car.
Something moved behind Dom's eyes. Appreciation, maybe.
"That's a Viper?"
"Close enough."
"Beautiful car." He nodded slowly. "I've got a '70 Challenger. Black." He didn't look away from McQueen when he said it. "There are maybe five people on the East Coast who could keep up with her."
Rango followed his gaze to the car sitting at the front of the warehouse — a wide, low, brutally proportioned muscle car that looked like it had been designed by someone who thought subtlety was a personal failing. Black, matte, exhaust note still ticking as it cooled.
He knew this car. He knew this whole situation, actually, the moment he'd walked in and seen the bald head and the white tank top and the guy literally using the word family as a philosophical position.
Which meant he also knew exactly how good Dom was behind the wheel.
Not great news.
Dom turned back to him, and the smile went a little sharper.
"You came in here showing respect, using the right words. I appreciate that." He jerked his chin toward Kevin. "So here's what I'm offering: you and me, right now, through the industrial park. One race. Twenty laps." A pause. "You win — you walk out with Kevin. No further conversation."
"And if I lose?"
"Kevin stays." Dom glanced at McQueen again. "And that car stays with me."
The crew behind him erupted — not quite laughter, more like the noise of people who think they already know the ending of a movie and are excited about it. Because they did know. Nobody in New York had beaten Dom in a straight race. Not ever. Not once.
To them, this wasn't a fair bet. It was just a slow-motion version of the same outcome, with better entertainment value.
Rango considered the situation for a moment.
Then he walked over to McQueen, put one hand on the roof, and kept his voice low.
"What do you think, buddy? How are we feeling?"
Beep beep.
McQueen's headlights clicked on and off — once, twice — like a wink.
Dom blinked. His crew went quiet for just a second, registering that something about that car was slightly off.
Then Dom crossed his arms and shook his head. "Modifications. Fine. You racing or not?"
"Racing," Rango said. "But not on the street. Right here — through the industrial park. One warm-up lap, twenty to win. And Dom?" He met his eyes. "If you're scared, you can say so."
Dom's jaw set. "Get in your car."
Ten minutes later, both cars sat side by side at the warehouse entrance, engines idling.
No starting grid. No podium girls. Just a crowd of mechanics and crew members packed three deep along the makeshift track, hollering like their rent depended on it — because, for some of them, it basically did.
They were loud for Dom. They were always loud for Dom.
Inside the Challenger, Dom rolled his shoulders, worked his wrists loose, and let himself settle into the seat the way he always did before a race — deep breath, eyes forward, everything else gone. He glanced sideways at the Viper.
He'd clocked the kid's drift when he came through the warehouse door. That was real. That wasn't a fluke. So he wasn't taking this lightly.
But there was a difference between being good and being this. Between someone who could drive and someone who'd spent thirty years making every East Coast circuit wish he hadn't shown up.
He expected to see Rango rigid in the seat. Hands tight on the wheel. Focused in that slightly panicked way of someone who knows they might be in over their head.
He looked over.
Rango had both feet up on the center console.
Cigarette burning lazily between two fingers.
Window cracked. Smoke drifting out. Expression that could only be described as vaguely waiting for something more interesting to happen.
He hadn't even looked at Dom.
A muscle jumped in Dom's jaw.
Son of a—
The mechanic at the front raised the checkered flag.
Both drivers went still.
The flag dropped.
The Challenger launched. All that American muscle unleashed at once — 425 horsepower ripping off the line, tires screaming, the car gone in a heartbeat, already three lengths clear before the echo of the start had finished bouncing off the warehouse walls.
Dom was on the gas, full commitment, already reading the first turn.
He'd won this race before it started.
He was certain of it.
He didn't look in the rearview.
He didn't need to.
Behind him, McQueen hadn't moved.
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