The freeway was a ribbon of light and speed, but it was also a stage, one he was unceremoniously thrown onto before he could so much as blink.
He felt it now—how the air itself seemed crowded with eyes even when the helicopters fell behind. The chase had spilled into the country's bloodstream like an open wound, into radios and televisions state wide and beyond, into the mouths of strangers who would wake up tomorrow and tell the story like it happened to them.
And the worst part was that the BMW—his bound vehicle, his impossible lifeline—still wanted more.
It kept pulling.
It kept asking the horizon to come closer.
His hands stayed steady on the wheel because they had to, because if he let go for even a second everything could come apart in an instant, but inside the helmet his jaw was clenched hard enough to ache.
He watched the next exit sign approach in a blur of reflective green, eyes darting back and forward as misty breaths fogged his helmet.
He didn't choose the exit because it was clever, not because it was what was expected. He chose it because it was messy.
Because the freeway was honest speed, and honest speed was trackable. On the street, the world broke into angles and shadows and split-second decisions—places where a car could disappear the way a rumor disappears when you try to grab it.
Shaking ever so slightly, he signaled out of reflex—an absurd gesture at this velocity—then dove across lanes with surgical violence, slipping into a gap that shouldn't be there for a car of this size.
A sedan's brake lights flare; a horn blared; a driver's mouth opened in a silent shout as he flashed past in a streak of silver.
The off-ramp rose lip a lip built for him specifically.
Concrete walls closed in like crushing fists, whizzing closer quick enough to flinch at.
The BMW's tires sung over the rougher surface. He braked hard, not enough to kill speed but enough to keep the car from becoming a missile. The rear wiggled—controlled, contained—as it tried its best to slip out of control, as physics tried to pry the car from its supernatural grip.
Behind him, far back now, the sirens were thinner. A whisper on the wind he could almost forget.
But they weren't gone, not yet and not here.
They never feel gone until they are.
He dropped into surface streets, and Los Angeles greeted him like an old bruise: darker corners, fewer cameras, neon signs buzzing with tired light, billboards that look like they've been sunbaked for years.
The roads weren't as clean. The lane paint was faded as the BMW hummed by. The city felt less like a polished machine and more like a living thing with scars.
Police radios crackled in the distance—he couldnt hear words, but he could hear the urgency in their tones. Somewhere, officers were guessing his exit, calling units to grid the streets, throwing nets where they thought he'd be.
He didn't give them time to "think."
He gave them wrong, the ability to make mistakes in his absence.
He made a hard right into an industrial spur road that looked dead at this hour. Another turn into a corridor of warehouses. He killed the headlights for two heartbeats—just long enough to vanish between pools of sodium light—then flicked them back on before the darkness could swallow his depth perception whole.
His breathing turned ragged in the helmet. A headache forming in his skull as teeth ground.
" fuck sake ... " His voice came out low and hoarse, his agitation carrying despite his features being completely hidden.
Sweat trickled behind his ear, trapped by padding. His hands ached from the tension of holding the wheel like it's the only real thing in the universe.
The HUD hovered at the edge of his vision like a patient predator.
HEAT: 4
ACTIVE BOUNTY: $75,000
TOTAL (CURRENT): $—UPDATING
TIP: Line-of-sight broken = evasion probability increased
He ignored the prompt with a grunt, and peeled away with the skittering of gravel below the tire, creeping onto the road paranoid that the police could start their pursuit at any moment.
He took an underpass and the city briefly became a throat of concrete. Echo swallowed as the scream of the engine. The BMW's exhaust became a thunderclap that bounced off walls and returned as ghosts.
When he emerged, he saw it: a patrol car ahead at an intersection a hundred metre's away, parked at an angle, roof lights off but engine idling. A roadblock in the making, but incomplete—one officer, one car, waiting for confirmation. One of the cops leant on the door of the car, not expecting any company, simply following orders to block off this specific street.
As he watched them stand, his stomach dropped.
He couldn't outrun the sky anymore—he already did—but he couldn't outrun math. As streets wound, if they blocked off every road off of the onramp, then they would eventually no doubt cut him off.
"fuuuck" His frustration cut into his voice.
Enough patrol cars, enough intersections, and the city becomes a grid that closes around him.
He needed a hole desperately, but he was new here, didn't even know the name of the street he was on.
He needed to hide, not on a street.
A place, a hole to disappear into away from the world. And he received his answer.
The system pinged again, softer this time, almost intimate, an answer to a question he hadnt said aloud.
SAFEHOUSE ROUTE SUGGESTION: AVAILABLE NOTE: Breaking visual contact triggers safehouse eligibility.
He didn't understand what that meant. It felt like a trick. Like the system was giving him an out only it could offer.
But he was out of time for philosophy or hesitation.
And so he slipped into a narrow access lane behind a warehouse, the rumble of the engine echoing across the road just before the cop with the makeshift roadblock looked in his direction at the noise, with a strip of pavement barely wide enough for the BMW's shoulders.
The car fit like it was made for it, mirrors clearing by inches. He killed the lights again and let the M3 roll on momentum, creeping forward with the engine dropping to a lower growl.
" come on..." It was a plea to the universe as much as himself as shadows crept over the hood of the car until it swallowed the car whole . The darkness was thick here. Only a few distant streetlights seeped through the gaps between buildings.
And then, at the end of the lane, he saw a roll-up door half-shadowed by an overhang. Beside it: a faded sign, old paint flaking, letters barely legible, faded by the sun and forgotten by the world in the light. And on the sign that sat out the front of the store, sat a name that made his breath shudder.
COOPER'S AUTO
Jacob's throat tightened so hard it hurt as he read the name then reread it.
His name.
His name was on a shop that shouldn't exist.
He almost blew past it out of pure disbelief, refusing to accept that the system was guiding him to this very place.
But the HUD highlighted the door with a faint, cold outline.
SAFEHOUSE DETECTED ACCESS: GRANTED (CHASE ACTIVE)
WARNING: Entry will sever pursuit tracking if completed unseen.
He didn't get to wonder how. He didn't get to question whether this is fate or a system-generated lie as the chirp of a police cars siren chirped a single beat somewhere around the corner.
" Fuck "
He swung the BMW into position and rolled to the door, gravel crunching under the tire. The engine idled with a tight, impatient vibration. He expected the door to be locked as he approached, already throwing his belt off in preparation to rush the door to open it.
Instead, as he crossed the threshold, the roll-up shudders began to rise on its own with a soft mechanical rattle, as if someone inside heard him coming and decided to let him in. Opening into a pitch black void that welcomed his approach, permeating the smell of rust and oil.
With little to no choice as he heard the cop car approaching the crest of the corner, he gulped and urged the car in.
The moment the BMW's nose crossed the threshold, the outside sound seemed to dull, like the building was swallowing it. Brakes groaning as he strolled over stained concrete until it winced to a stop.He killed the engine and the sudden silence hit him like a slap. The ticking of hot metal became deafening. His breath inside the helmet became the only storm left.
" what the fuck is this " As the world went quiet, he was allowed that one thought.
He was startled by a crash that broke the silence.
The roll-up door slammed down behind him with a final metallic clang, and the sound of the city—sirens, rotors, horns, the whole violent choir of Los Angeles—got cut into something distant and muffled, as if the building swallowed noise the way a throat swallows breath.
For a few seconds he just sat in the driver's seat, blinking slowly as he allowed his hitched breath to calm , hands still on the wheel, shoulders rigid, eyes fixed forward through the windshield.
As the car died, the engines rumble fading away, he sagged into his seat.
The BMW ticked as it cooled—tiny, sharp pops in the metal. The smell of hot oil and brake heat hung in the cabin like smoke that hasn't decided whether to leave.
His breathing picked up as he thought, stuck in his own head as he reviewed his last memories before .... this.
' It can't be, how the fuck am I here... why am I here' his hands began to shake. Not from cold. Not from weakness. From the sudden absence of danger, from the stress of the whole situation crashing upon his shoulders at this very moment.
Tremors rippled through his fingers, up his wrists, into his forearms—an aftershock of adrenaline that refused to let go.
With a curse under his breath, he fumbled the helmet strap with clumsy, numb hands. The latch resisted, then gave. He pulled the black racing helmet free, and cool air hit his face like a splash of water.
His features in the dim shop light looked wrong for the violence he just survived—sharp cheekbones, pale skin, eyes too bright and too tired at the same time. Twenty years old in the face, haunted in the gaze, who seemed like he belonged in a quiet room thinking dangerous thoughts, not on a freeway outrunning helicopters.
He stared at the dash, at the faint reflection of the hood's blue-silver ghost, and something in his chest tightened so hard he had to lean forward like he'd been punched.
He was here when he should be in a cell—alone in an unfamiliar garage with a legendary car cooling under flickering lights—feeling the sickest kind of relief: the kind that makes you guilty for being glad you escaped, the kind that made him cringe at the prospect at being given a second life.
" why me ...." A laugh broke out of him, thin and ugly, and collapsed into a half-sob before it could finish.
He pressed the heel of his hand to his mouth like he can hold the sound in.
"I didn't ask for this," he whispered to nobody.
The system answerd anyway.
A crisp overlay blooming at the edge of his vision, calm as a ledger.
CHASE STATUS:EVADED
TOTAL CHASE EARNINGS:$132,600FUNDS: DEPOSITED
HEAT: REDUCED (TEMPORARY)
REWARD:SAFEHOUSE UNLOCKED
A second line appeared, softer, almost matter-of-fact, as cold and emotionless as the system was cursed with.
SAFEHOUSE: COOPER'S AUTO (CONCEALED)
FUNCTIONS: GARAGE / MECHANIC BAY / WORKSHOP / SHOP ACCESS
Jacob inhaled, slow and shaky, teeth clicking in agitation.
The name—Cooper's Auto—landed in his gut like a stone, reverberating around his skull. His name shouldn't be on anything in this world. It shouldn't be painted on a sign, stamped into a place, waiting like a trap dressed up as a gift.
Yet the building felt… ready. Like it had been sleeping, and his arrival woke it.
He threw the door of the car open and stepped out, making his way to a light switch illuminated by the system for him to see in the dark.
And with a flick, the overhead lights hummed to life one by one, old fixtures sputtering before they steady. The space revealed itself in patches: stained concrete, tool pegboards, a hydraulic lift that looked used but solid, shelves stacked with boxes and parts that smell of rubber and dust. Through an adjacent hall, there was an office corner with a cracked vinyl chair and a desk scarred by years of elbows, even a room at the end of the hall ready for him to inhabit.
And behind the second bay, there was a shadowed recess where the building's geometry turns wrong—an extra depth that shouldn't exist based on what he saw from outside. A pocket. A fold.
A place where a car that shouldn't exist could be hidden, a place he could keep his secrets from the outside world.
He walked a slow circle around the M3 GTR, fingertips grazing the panel where the PIT hit scraped paint, marveling the beast that had given him his new life, hot touch the touch under his fingertips.
The damage was there—thin scars, a little roughness—but the metal beneath felt too intact. Too strong.
His mind flashed back to the Crown Vic's front end buckling instead of his rear quarter panel, and a chill crept up his spine.
He should be dead. Or in cuffs. Or both.
Instead the car is standing here like it's smug.
Jacob's stomach rolled.
He stepped away from the car and into the shadowed recess behind the bay, drawn by its architecture, like it whispered to him, wanted to hold him snugly and allow him to simply fade.
The air changed back there. Cleaner. Colder. Like the building held its breath in this pocket.
A second workbench sat under a directed lamp—newer, sturdier, laid out with clean trays, measuring tools, a compact milling unit that looks disguised in plain gray casing.
It was different to the rest of the building, like the system had blessed this ordinary bench and could feel it.
Instinctively he reached out and touched the edge of the bench. The metal was cool to the touch, real. But as soon as his hands touched the surface, he shuddered as the system burst forward once more.
A menu unfolded in his vision with the clean inevitability of fate.
WORKSHOP ONLINEMANUFACTURING: ENABLED CATEGORY UNLOCKED:NFS-BASED TECHNOLOGY
(FUTURELINE)NOTE: Manufactured goods may be sold.
WARNING: Usage increases attention.
He swallowed. His throat raw. His eyes narrowed as he came to the understanding of what the system wanted him to do in this space.
It wasn't just a hideout.
It was a beginning.
A way to turn the chase into infrastructure. A way to turn panic into product.
A way to plant roots in 2001 with tools from a future this world hasn't earned.
He tried to imagine himself doing it—standing behind a counter, selling miracles to strangers—and the thought makes him feel sick. He shook his head on instinct, a cringe filled laugh ripping from his jaw at the very prospect.
' of course, of course the system wants money, what else could it have ever wanted'
He cringed not because he didn't want money, but because money always came with consequences for him.
' you'd have jizzed your pants at this' He gave a half laugh, at the prospect, the thought, memories long since past, screams permeating his ears for a moment followed by hallowed cries.
The instinct to forget rose, and so he stepped forward, trying to forget as he looked at the manufacturing list that appeared like an offer over the surface of the bench.
FUTURELINE BLUEPRINTS (Tier 0–1):– High-Flow ECU Mapper (Discrete)– Pursuit-Grade Brake Compound–
Adaptive Traction Controller (Prototype)– Reinforced Panel Weave– "BlackBox" Signal Scrambler (Limited Use) ETC ETC
REQUIRES: Funds + Base Materials + Time
Jacob's hands curled into fists at his sides as he read and reread the whole list.
He could build. He could sell. He could become valuable enough that the street protected him—not because they love him, but because they want what he could made.
Or he could use the shop as a tomb and pray the world would forget about him.
Outside, faint through the walls, the city kept moving. Somewhere far away, sirens wailed —distant now, searching streets that will never give Jacob back tonight.
And in that distance, Jacob could almost hear the other sound that matters: the talk. The aftershock of spectacle. The way people repeat a story when they don't have a name for it, so they give it one. If he strained enough he was sure he could hear it.
They wouldn't have Jacob Cooper because he didn't yet exist in their world.
They wouldn't have a face. They wouldn't have a plate. They wouldn't even have a clear body type. Just a black helmet behind a dark visor, a blue-silver blur, and the awful moment the helicopters couldn't keep up.
And because this city couldn't resist turning fear into a nickname, it would land somewhere simple and sharp—something that felt like a label stolen from a manhunt poster.
Wanted.
He closed his eyes and let out a deep breath as he finally calmed himself down and then
he opened his eyes again.
He walked back out into the main bay, making his way and sitting on the cracked vinyl chair in the office corner, and stared at the BMW through the half-light of the corridors between where he and the car sat.
His chest ached with a loneliness so sudden it was almost funny, his life was gone, everything he had ever built for himself. Every relationship and everything he cherished. In his old life, at least he understood the rules of being trapped. Here, he was alone, in a shop nobody knew existed..
The system stayed quiet for a long moment as he simply stared into the mid distance, then offered one more piece of clarity—cold, precise.
SAFEHOUSE PROTOCOL: ACTIVE
CONCEALMENT: HIGH (LOCAL)
NOTE: No external records. No registered utilities.
TIP: Choose your first build carefully.
" gheee fucking really "His breath trembled on the way out.
He thought of the first time he ever drove fast enough to feel invincible—and how quickly invincibility turned into a habit, and how habits turned into consequences, and how too many consequences turned into that courtroom.
Then his eyes widened, hands surging upwards and into his jacket, reaching and searching through pockets until his fingers wrapped around on what he sought. He ripped it out, a wallet deep brown in color, opening with shaking hands where he only calmed his breath as he laid eyes on a crumbled photo within. Two people stood together, a middle aged man with a slouch, a hole in his neck where cancer had once been removed, and his old self, younger, not even half the mans age, they stood together like best friends, one slowly being forgotten and failed by the system that failed him over and over, and the other a foster child who knew little more than cars and how to keep his best friend from withering away.
' thank you .... ' he plead to the system, gently sliding the crumbled photo back into the wallet before closing it like some sacred artifact.
Slowly he looked at the workbench again, at the future crammed into a menu.
Then at looked at the BMW.
A legend parked on stained concrete, cooling like a beast that just tasted blood.
He slowly sat himself back down, putting his face in his hands.
..
Brian O'Connor didn't sleep, Not really, not after the memory of that car refused to leave his minds eye.
He lay on his back in a cheap apartment that smelled faintly of detergent and old carpet, staring at the ceiling while the chase replayed behind his eyes in perfect, merciless loops—blue and silver flashing under streetlights, a black helmet where a face should've been, the way the suspect car took a PIT like it was a shove in a crowded bar instead of a maneuver meant to end the night.
And the worst part—what kept Brian's mind from settling—wasn't the speed, which still stung even now as he recalled how that thing didn't so much as drive away, more like sprint away even as he was pushing his car to the maximum.
It was the discipline that made his knuckles clench.
That driver didn't drive like an amateur drunk on adrenaline. He didn't drive like a kid trying to become a story. He drove like someone with experience a plenty.
Someone who understood spacing and weight transfer and how to keep a machine balanced at the edge of catastrophe, someone rivalling if not better than he himself was at driving.
Someone who, for a few seconds, made Brian feel like he was the one in an inferior car, which he knew without a shadow of a doubt wasn't just feeling.
By morning, when he got up and made his way to work, the station smelled like burnt coffee and stale stress. A TV in the corner ran the same loop of helicopter footage—grainy, shaky, zoomed too far—but still unmistakable. The anchor's voice had already drained into numb repetition, but every time the blue-silver coupe streaked through frame, the room's energy tightened.
Officers watched it like gamblers watching a bad beat, grumbling amongst themselves as if they smelled shit in the air.
Brian stood at a metal table with a folder spread open and the kind of headache that felt like a nail behind the eyes. He'd already done the obvious things. Twice.
No plate. No readable VIN in the footage. No clear driver face—helmet, visor, black like a swallowed secret. No match on paint scheme in any local DMV records, because nothing in the database looked like that car.
Even the make and model were suspect.
People kept saying "BMW," but there were moments in the video where it looked like something else entirely—too low, too aggressive, too… he couldn't quite place it .... but something was just instinctively off about the situation.
He'd run every angle anyway.
He'd called dispatch, asked for exact pursuit times and routes, then checked every unit log for any moment someone got close enough to touch the car. One cruiser reported "side contact" and "suspect vehicle remained stable." Another wrote, bluntly, "vehicle unusually durable."
Unusually durable was a polite way to say it didn't behave like a car should behave.
He'd requested any traffic cam footage that might've caught the freeway exit, but there weren't eyes on every corner—just scattered cameras near major interchanges, and even those were low-res, often pointed at the wrong lane, sometimes dead. The few frames he got were smeared with compression artifacts and motion blur until the BMW looked like a streak of light with a mouthful of shadow.
He'd checked tow yards for a wrecked blue BMW with police paint transfer. Nothing.
He'd checked hospitals for crash injuries that might've matched a driver pulling himself out of a miracle. Nothing.
He'd canvassed the container yard, found fresh tire marks and the faint scrape of paint on a container corner, but the workers he spoke to just shrugged and lied the way men lie when they don't want cops lingering in their world.
Everyone had heard the story. Nobody knew anything.
Or nobody wanted to.
Brian rewound the tape again in the evidence room, fingers tapping the VCR's cheap plastic buttons harder than necessary. The monitor flickered. The footage jumped.
There it was: the moment the car drifted, corrected, and snapped around into a full 180—too clean, too confident—before surging away back through the formation.
Brian paused on the frame where the spotlight caught the hood.
Blue and silver. Jagged lines.
A car that looked like a brand.
A car that looked like a warning.
He leaned closer until the screen's static buzzed in his ears.
Wanted.
The nickname had already spread through the station like a virus. It started as gallows humor—"What do we call the ghost?"—and ended up on whiteboards and in radio chatter like it had always been his name.
Because "ghost" was too soft.
Because "Wanted" sounded like a poster, sounded like an insult, sounded like a dare.
Brian sat back, jaw tight.
He wasn't supposed to take it personally.
But it felt personal anyway.
Because Brian wasn't just a cop. He was a car guy who'd learned to put that part of himself in a box. He'd learned to be professional, to be procedure, to be the man behind the badge instead of the man behind the wheel.
And then a black-helmeted nobody showed up in a blue-silver myth and made the sky lose him.
And now Brian couldn't stop hearing that engine note in his head like it had carved itself into him.
A knock sounded at the evidence room door.
Brian looked up.
Sergeant Tanner—thick neck, tired eyes, impatience worn like a second uniform—didn't wait for an invitation.
"Lieutenant wants you," Tanner said. His voice had the rough edge of a man who'd already had this conversation three times this morning. "Now."
Brian stood, the chair legs scraping the floor. "About Wanted?"
Tanner's mouth twitched like he hated the name. "About the fact the whole country saw an LAPD chase turn into a magic trick."
The hallway to the lieutenant's office felt narrower than it used to. People's eyes followed Brian—some curious, some resentful. Everybody wanted to blame somebody when a suspect vanished on live television.
When Brian walked in, Lieutenant Bilkins was standing by the window with his hands on his hips, staring down at the parking lot like he could bully answers out of concrete.
His tie was loosened. His shirt sleeves rolled. His face had the kind of red tint that meant stress, not sun.
He didn't turn around at first. He just said, "Close the door."
Brian closed it.
Bilkins finally faced him, and Brian saw something in his eyes that wasn't just anger—it was pressure. The kind that comes from higher up, from phones ringing, from city officials asking why the police let a ghost make them look stupid.
"You come up with anything?" Bilkins asked.
Brian kept his voice calm because that was what you did in front of a superior. "No plate. No identification. No match on paint. No stolen report that fits. No tow yard hits. No hospital hits."
Bilkins' jaw clenched. "So we got nothing."
"We've got behavior," Brian said, unable to help himself. "He drove like he's trained. Like he knows how to manage a car at the limit. He didn't panic."
Bilkins stared at him a beat. "You impressed, O'Connor?"
Brian felt heat climb his neck. "I'm saying he's not some kid joyriding."
Bilkins exhaled hard through his nose, then motioned toward the TV in the corner of his office. The footage was paused on the same blurred shot Brian had been studying. A blue-silver streak. A black helmet.
"Do you know what the brass wants?"
Bilkins said. "They want a name. They want a face. They want a perp walk to feed back into the same news cycle that just embarrassed this department."
Brian didn't answer. He didn't have anything that would satisfy that.
Bilkins continued, voice lower. "We pulled the timeline. We pulled witness calls. We pulled every lead we can scrape off the pavement."
He picked up a folder from his desk and tossed it onto the table. It slid to a stop in front of Brian.
Brian opened it.
Photos. A map with circles. Notes. A grainy still of a crowd near an industrial stretch—cars angled, people gathered.
A street race.
Bilkins tapped the still with a blunt finger.
"Your suspect blew through a race meet during the chase. Witnesses called it in after the fact. Said it was like a jet. Said the cops weren't even close. Said they didn't see the driver's face, just a black helmet."
Brian's eyes lingered on the crowd in the photo. He recognized the vibe immediately even without clear faces: the way cars were parked, the casual ownership of the street, the hush-before-the-launch energy.
Street racing wasn't just a hobby in L.A. It was a network.
A web of mechanics, drivers, lookouts, buyers.
"Who was there?" Brian asked, though he already knew what Bilkins was going to say.
Bilkins' expression hardened. "Dominic Toretto."
The name landed heavy in the room.
Brian had heard it in training. Heard it in whispered briefings. A local legend with grease under his nails and the kind of influence cops pretended not to respect.
Bilkins leaned forward slightly. "You know what I think? I think this 'Wanted' ghost didn't just pick that street by accident. I think he ran to something. To people. To cover."
Brian kept his face neutral, but his mind was already spinning through possibilities. If Wanted had shot through a race, he might've been looking for crowd cover, yes—but he also might've been drawn to the one place in the city where speed was currency.
And if Toretto's circle had even touched that car—if they'd seen it up close, heard it, tracked it—
They might be the only ones who could point to where the ghost disappeared.
Bilkins' voice sharpened. "The department's gonna lean into what we can lean into. We can't catch a ghost with uniforms and Crown Vics. So we do it the old way."
Brian looked up, brow knit as confusion marred his face. "Undercover."
Bilkins didn't blink. "Undercover."
Brian's throat felt tight. "You want me to go after Toretto now?"
"I want you in his world," Bilkins said. "Yesterday. I want you in his shop, in his circle, in his trust. I want you where rumors show up before they hit the street."
Brian's fingers tightened on the folder without him noticing. He thought of the footage again—blue and silver sliding out of a PIT, the car refusing to break, the way it accelerated until even helicopters fell behind.
He thought of how that looked to a racer.
Not like a suspect.
Like a miracle, spat in the face of everything he knew and understood.
And miracles, miracles don't stay secret in that world.
Bilkins watched him carefully.
"This isn't just about cars, O'Connor. This is about making an example. And right now the only road that leads to 'Wanted' runs through Dominic Toretto and whoever the hell is in his circle."
Brian wanted to argue. Wanted to say they were building a case on a hunch, on proximity, on the lazy assumption that every fast thing in L.A. belonged to Dom.
But he also knew how it worked. The department didn't do well with mysteries. It didn't like ghosts. It needed something it could put in handcuffs.
And if "Wanted" really was a ghost—if he really existed outside normal records—then the only people who might touch that ghost were the ones who lived where laws got thin and engines got loud.
Brian nodded once, slow.
Bilkins' tone softened just a fraction—not kindness, but a reminder of the stakes. Understanding coming before the job.
"You're good behind the wheel. You're smart. You can get close. But don't forget what you are."
' and what am I ' Brian cringed.
'A cop' Brian thought.' A cop who loves cars'
A cop who was about to lie to people who lived by something he secretly understood.
Brian grunted, hanging his head before he closed the folder. "When do I start?"
Bilkins didn't hesitate. "Today. You're going in early. Get to his shop. Get a feel. Make contact. Don't push too hard—Toretto smells badges."
Brian stood there for a moment longer, feeling the shift in his life like a gear change he didn't initiate.
He'd joined the department thinking he'd be chasing criminals.
Now he was chasing little more than a hunch and a ghost on the wind.
Now he was being sent into the orbit of Dominic Toretto because somewhere in that orbit—under neon, under grease, under loyalty—there might POTENTIALLY be a black-helmeted driver the city had started calling Wanted.
And Brian couldn't tell which thought unsettled him more:
That he might find the driver… or that part of him hoped the ghost stayed free, just a little longer, so Brian could keep chasing the impossible like a child chasing the stars.