Chapter fourteen
Riven
“God, it’s so hot.” Roxy gets off my lap, fanning herself as we all collectively walk towards the starting line.
It is hot, but it’s got nothing to do with the weather from hell. It’s her.
Nadia Slade, technically Mrs. Devereaux, had returned, gun in hand, ready to pistol-whip the crown off my head. I watched her on the opposite side of the drag track, parallel to me, but never giving me her attention. It’s like when we first got together all over again.
Dressed in a beige tank top that showed off her impeccable cleavage, dark jeans, signature leather jacket, and leather boots with a heel that had killed a man or two back in the day, she was a sight to fucking see. Problem was, I wanted her for my eyes only, not everybody else’s.
“Alright, alright, alright. Settle down, hoodrats.” JC gets everyone to shut up.
“It’s time for the first round of the qualifiers. We know this already, but for you freshies out there, in order to face Riven, the current King of the Daredevil.” The Phantoms go wild.
“The challengers must win three qualifying races. Lose, and you’re out.” He makes a slicing motion across his neck.
“First up, our challenger reppin’ the Kingsmen: Dion Hattori!” His side of the turf erupts as he struts up to the track and gets in his baby blue Mazda RX7, decked out with chrome rims and a black crown decal on his passenger side.
“And defending the Phantoms, we got Cuervo!”
Cuervo was a good guy, decent behind the wheel. He ran a liquor store on the west side and got his name for the time when he broke up a fight between an LBC runt and one of ours with a broken bottle of Jose Cuervo.
“You got this man, show ’em what you’re made of.” Hatchie palms his shoulder as he walks past, hyping him up.
Soon, Roxy sashays onto the asphalt, going through the motions before lifting a grey bandana and letting it fall. Tonight’s qualifier was a simple drag race. Quarter mile, fastest time wins.
“What’s up, king?” JC daps me up.
“What are the odds?” I cut straight to the chase. We both turn back to the track, just as Dion crosses the finish line a good two or so seconds before Cuervo.
“Not looking good, Riv.” He laughs, saluting Shane at my side and heading back.
“Dion’s gonna be a problem.” Shane rubs his jaw.
“I’m not losing to that bastard.” I huff.
“No… but are you losing to someone else?” He teases.
“Next up, we got the one and only Nadia Slade reppin’ the east side!” JC hollers.
She smirks at her friends, taking a moment to peel off her leather jacket, exposing miles of glistening olive skin.
Time slows down, allowing her to entirely entrance me, not that she needs to do much for that to happen.
She’s got a half sleeve on her right arm that looks like it’s been recently touched up.
A dark cybersigilistic dragon with red and black spider lilies of the same style.
It wraps around her shoulder down to her elbow.
She runs her hand through that pitch-black hair, a devilish gleam in her brown eyes.
A catcall breaks me out of my reverie.
“Goddamn, Riv. If your wife was into women, I’d soooo take her off your hands.” Roxy licks her lip with a grin.
“Well, she’s bi, so you’d probably have a chance,” Shane tells her.
“Shut the fuck up.” I glare at him.
“Yeah, 'cause don’t give her ideas. You know she belongs to Riven.” Skylar bats her eyes at me. I don’t even try to deny it.
Nadia and I… It’s complicated. Extremely fucking complicated. Only made more difficult by the fact that she can’t stand to stay in a room long enough with me to have a conversation like the grown fucking adults we are.
It was like that in the beginning, rightfully so cause we were rivals sneaking around and hiding shit from the people we cared about most. But everything is out in the open now, at least on my side. I don’t know why she’s fighting me so hard, when she knows when it comes to her I always win.
She may be the Queen of the Daredevil, but I will always be the King of her heart.
Or, at least we were.
“And reppin’ the west side, Skylar ‘Bareknuckles’ Bennett!”
“Oh shit.” Skylar murmurs, looking at Shane, then me.
“You got this, Sky.” Hatchie encourages.
“I really don’t.” She admits, pulling out her keys and walking off.
“Why doesn’t she have this?” Roxy asks.
“Skylar’s car is good, and she’s a fierce competitor. But-” Shane trails off.
“Nadia doesn’t play when it comes to cars.” I watch Skylar pull up.
“In fact, she taught me everything I know.” I cross my arms.
And what did I do? I used that knowledge to strip her of her title.
Not that I regret it.
The night air at the strip was thick enough to taste. Rubber, fuel, and heat ignited above the asphalt, as if the track itself were breathing. Staged under the floodlights were two cars.
On the left, a 2008 Dodge Viper. Long hood, low stance, matte-black paint practically swallowing the light. It didn’t look aggressive. It looked predatory , like something that had no interest in being polite about the laws of physics.
On the right: a rose-gold BMW M4. Clean lines, sharp LEDs, restrained aggression.
Skylar’s whip looked engineered. Nadia’s Viper looked inevitable.
I knew both had been modded, but that didn’t make them equal.
Shane and Skylar did what most did: precision bolt-ons, an ECU tune to tighten boost curves, upgraded twin turbos, an intercooler, an exhaust, and launch-control refinement.
On paper, it was perfect: balanced air-fuel ratios, safe ignition timing, predictable torque delivery.
The kind of power that came wrapped in engineering disclaimers.
But my wife lived by a different philosophy. Less refinement. More violence.
There was no forced induction smoothing its character.
Instead, there was a large displacement V10 that had already been bored and stroked, breathing through a high-flow intake and a throttle body so large it looked almost comical until you realized it was feeding something that didn’t care about efficiency.
The internal components were forged and lightened, compression raised, cam profile aggressive enough that idle itself sounded like a threat.
The fuel mapping wasn’t tuned for comfort either; it was tuned for response.
Every millisecond of throttle input became immediate combustion.
Where Skylar’s mods were a polished delivery, Nadia’s mods removed hesitation. The difference wasn’t just horsepower. It was how that power arrived. Skylar was a technique driver, focused on her execution and clean track work.
Nadia’s ice melted when she got on the track. She got straight up fucking ruthless. The flag girl this time was Abby, who held a red bandana. It was the engines that held tension.
“Is she gonna be okay?” Hatchie whispered, sounding a little terrified.
“Nadia wouldn’t hurt her. She’ll keep it clean.” Shane responded with conviction.
He wasn’t wrong. Skylar and Nadia were as thick as thieves. This race was more for fun than it was for pride or status.
The M4 idled, steady, almost restrained, as if it were waiting for permission. Its turbochargers spooled quietly, building pressure in a controlled arc. Launch control would manage wheel slip, meter torque, and protect driveline integrity.
The Viper did none of that. It shook at idle like it was trying to break free from its own mounts. Then:
GO.
Skylar launched first, and for a split second it looked like the story was already written.
Traction management caught wheelspin instantly.
The car surged forward cleanly, all four tires biting, torque distributed with almost insane mathematical precision.
It was fast in the way most modern cars are fast. Controlled acceleration, minimal drama, maximum efficiency.
But Nadia didn’t launch. She detonated forward.
The car’s rear tires broke traction immediately, not because it lacked grip, but because it produced more instantaneous torque than the contact patch could accept.
And Nadia didn’t fight it. She rode it. The car squatted, the nose lifted slightly, and the entire chassis seemed to rotate around the rear axle as raw displacement converted fuel into forward violence.
That’s when the difference became obvious. The BMW’s power curve built. The Viper’s arrived all at once.
Naturally aspirated torque, especially from a heavily built V10, doesn’t wait for boost threshold or turbo spool.
It doesn’t ramp in. It punches. At low RPM, the engine is already near peak cylinder fill, meaning the first half-second of acceleration is disproportionately aggressive compared to a boosted setup still climbing into its efficiency window.
The M4’s ECU was still managing power delivery, protecting traction, modulating torque, and smoothing spikes. The Viper’s setup was doing the
opposite. It was amplifying every spike.
Halfway down the strip, Skylar was perfectly composed, still accelerating hard, still technically efficient.
But she was fighting a ceiling the car had built for itself, boost targets, thermal limits, traction algorithms all negotiating with physics in real time.
The Viper had no negotiations. It had inertia, displacement, and gearing that turned brutal midrange torque into immediate forward velocity. Each shift dropped it back into a powerband that didn’t rebuild boost; it was already there. Every gear hit like another shove from behind.
By the thousand-foot mark, the gap wasn’t dramatic, but it was decisive. The M4 looked like a machine optimizing acceleration. The Viper looked like something outrunning consequence. At the finish line, the clocks told the truth the way they always do.
The BMW was fast.
The Viper was faster.
Not because it was more advanced, but because its modifications weren’t designed to make power manageable. She designed it to make it unfiltered. And in a quarter-mile, where time is too short for elegance to matter, unfiltered power often wins.
Both women parked and hopped out of their respective rides, quick to embrace each other in a tight hug. Skylar, being as extra as she was, was jumping up and down.
“That was fucking awesome. I missed seeing you on the track. You’re a legend.”
“Thanks for indulging me.”