Chapter Two
Present Day
The abandoned building had once been a hotel.
Rangi Te Aho could still see the bones of it in the way the hallways opened into wide communal spaces and the shattered marble reception desk that leaned drunkenly against one wall.
Time and neglect had stripped the place down to concrete, rusted pipes, and broken glass.
The wind pushed through the empty structure with a hollow whistle, carrying the smell of dust and old smoke.
It was the kind of place people forgot about.
Which was exactly why they were hiding there.
Rangi sat on the cracked tile floor with his back against a support pillar, one leg stretched out in front of him while the other bent enough to keep pressure off the bruise blooming along his ribs.
Blood had dried along the edge of his sleeve where a shallow cut had split the skin earlier that evening.
Nothing life threatening, but enough to remind him how close things had come.
Across from him, Alexios Petrakis, his best friend since they were twelve and his lover since they were eighteen, leaned against the wall near the broken windows, one boot braced against the concrete as he checked the magazine of the pistol resting in his hands.
Click.
Slide back.
Click.
Routine.
Rangi watched him for a moment before letting his head fall back against the pillar. The last forty-eight hours had been a mess of engines, gunfire, fists, and narrow escapes.
The racing circuit had always been dangerous. That was the point and the appeal. But lately it had become something else entirely.
"How many this time?" Alexios asked quietly.
Rangi didn't need clarification. "Three.”
Alexios exhaled slowly. "Too many."
Rangi nodded once.
Three drivers had disappeared after the last race. Not crashed. Not arrested. Just gone. Vanished the same way the others had over the past year.
The Crucible Circuit liked to sell itself to drivers as freedom. Fast cars. Big money. No rules except the finish line. But the deeper you ran inside it, the clearer the truth became.
The races weren't the business.
They were the audition.
Drivers pushed harder with every event. More money. Longer routes. More dangerous terrain. The organizers watched everything—telemetry, vehicle response, decision-making under pressure.
They were profiling drivers. Collecting them. And once a driver proved exceptional, the invitations changed.
Private runs.
Special cargo.
Higher stakes.
Drivers who said yes gained access to routes and money that could change a life. Drivers who said no started having problems. Vehicles sabotaged. Law enforcement suddenly appearing at the wrong moment.
Or simply disappearing.
They had known the circuit was a cover for something. He hadn't realized how big the machine behind it really was until the last race turned into a full ambush. They had joined to shut this shit down from the inside, but it was proving harder than expected.
Alexios slid the pistol back into the holster at the small of his back before pushing himself away from the wall. He crossed the room and lowered himself beside Rangi with a quiet grunt.
The Greek's lip was split, and one eye carried the dark swelling of a fresh bruise.
He still looked unfairly handsome.
"So," Alexios said after a moment. "Options?"
Rangi stared at the ceiling for a long beat. "Not many," he admitted.
They could run. They were good at running. Better than most. But the Crucible wasn't just racers and mechanics.
It had infrastructure and money, and people who knew how to hunt. And the moment they realized Rangi and Alexios had slipped the trap tonight, the search would start.
Alexios rubbed the back of his neck, wincing slightly. "We could disappear," he offered.
Rangi shook his head. "They’re too big, too fucking powerful. We couldn’t disappear for long."
Alexios didn't argue. He knew it too. The circuit didn't let talent walk away. Especially not drivers who had already seen too much.
Silence settled between them for a moment, heavy but comfortable.
They had lived through worse together.
Alexios bumped his shoulder lightly against Rangi's.
"You're thinking hard," he said.
Rangi huffed a quiet breath. "Always."
"Dangerous habit."
"Necessary one."
Another beat passed before Rangi finally spoke again.
"We need leverage to help find out who is behind this circuit."
Alexios frowned slightly. "Leverage? What are you thinking?"
"A name," Rangi said. "Someone the circuit leadership would come out of hiding for."
Alexios considered that. "You mean bait."
"I mean opportunity."
Alexios leaned back, studying him. "You have someone in mind."
Rangi nodded slowly. "A driver."
"Obviously."
"Not just any driver." Rangi finally turned his head and met Alexios's gaze. "A legend."
Alexios blinked once.
Then huffed a short laugh.
"You're serious."
"Yes."
Alexios shook his head in disbelief. "Rangi ... do you have any idea how impossible that sounds?"
"Probably."
"We haven't even seen him in years."
"Doesn't mean he's dead, just that he's gone to ground."
Alexios ran a hand down his face. "You're talking about dragging a ghost back into the circuit."
Rangi's voice stayed calm. "The circuit will remember him."
Alexios let out another soft laugh. "Oh, it remembers. The way that man drives is hard to forget."
He looked toward the shattered window where the desert night stretched black and silent beyond the building.
"Drivers still tell stories about that canyon run," he said. "The one where he came out of nowhere, burned through the field, and disappeared before sunrise."
Rangi nodded once. "Exactly."
Alexios turned back to him. "And you think we can just call him?"
"No," Rangi said. "But I think we can call someone who can."
Alexios's brow furrowed slightly.
"The Pathfinders," Rangi added.
Recognition flickered across Alexios's face. "Ah."
Rangi reached slowly into the inner pocket of his jacket and pulled out the battered remains of a cheap burner phone. The plastic casing was scorched from the earlier firefight.
He pressed the power button and was relieved to see the screen flicker to life.
"You're sure about this?" Alexios asked quietly.
Rangi scrolled through the short list of stored numbers. "Nope," he admitted.
Then he hit the call button. The line rang twice before someone answered.
"Yeah."
The voice on the other end was rough and alert.
Rangi kept his tone calm. "Bateman."
A pause. "Depends who's asking."
"Atua."
Another beat of silence.
Then Bateman sighed softly.
"Well, I'll be damned," he said. "Thought you'd gone quiet on the world."
"Working on it."
"And the Greek?" Bateman asked.
Alexios leaned closer to the phone. "Lykos here," he said simply.
Bateman chuckled. "Figures you two would be together."
Rangi kept the conversation short. "We need help."
"What kind?"
"We're in trouble with the Crucible Circuit, and need to take the head of this particular snake."
Bateman swore under his breath. "We’ve been following those assholes. That explains a lot."
"We need a driver," Rangi continued. "One name, a legend, will get the leadership to surface."
Bateman already knew. "Ahi," he said.
Rangi nodded even though the man couldn't see him. "Yes."
Another pause.
"I'll see what I can do," Bateman replied.
The line went dead.
Rangi removed the battery from the burner and snapped the SIM card in half before tossing the pieces across the room.
Alexios leaned back against the pillar beside him.
"Well," he said after a moment. "That was either very clever or very stupid."
Rangi rested his forearms on his knees. "We'll find out."
Alexios glanced sideways at him, a slow smile tugging at his bruised mouth.
"You realize," he said quietly, "that if this works, we're about to start a war."
Rangi met his gaze. "We're already in one."
Alexios studied him for a long moment.
Then he reached out and pulled Rangi closer, pressing a brief kiss to the corner of his mouth.
Not desperation.
Not fear.
Just the quiet reaffirmation of something they had built together over years of shared danger.
Trust.
Strength.
Love.
"Then we survive until he gets here," Alexios said softly.
Rangi nodded once. "We always do."
****
The garage smelled like oil, steel, and sunbaked dust.
Keanu “Torch” Palani preferred it that way.
Outside, the late afternoon heat pressed down over the compound, turning the air thick and slow.
Inside the long steel building, the temperature was only marginally better, but the massive industrial fans mounted along the ceiling pushed a steady current of air across the workspace.
The noise was a constant low hum, blending with the metallic scrape of tools and the occasional echo of laughter drifting in from the far end of the compound.
Keanu stood beside the almost-finished bus conversion that had occupied his spare hours for the last two years.
Most people would have called it ridiculous.
The bus itself was enormous—an old commercial touring coach he had stripped down to its skeleton when he first bought it.
Now the inside was something else entirely.
The frame had been reinforced, the insulation replaced, the wiring redone from scratch.
What remained looked less like a vehicle and more like a house inside the steel shell.
Three slide-outs were currently extended from the side of the bus like giant mechanical drawers.
When fully deployed, they turned the interior into a surprisingly wide living space.
The rear section held a bedroom large enough to fit the California King bed he had installed without feeling cramped.
The middle section was open plan—kitchen, dining table, and a long couch that pulled out into another king bed if needed.
Two bathrooms.
Because if he ended up living out of it during some ridiculous mission someday, the last thing Keanu wanted was to fight his friends over a shower.
He wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his arm and leaned back from the wiring panel he’d been installing beneath the kitchen counter.