This isnt a fanfiction i do with a light heart, i am aware it has mistakes and what it contains going forward, i will come back and do better editing when im able to get this whole story off of my chest , this story is made as a release of remorse and lingering guilt in the name of my best friend Shane who passed away recently due to a heart attack leaving everyone in shock and misery at his loss. i have made this story, combining his two favorite things apart from his two boys as a way to release and just ease my mind, i hope you enjoy this story as much as i do, onto the story ...
....
Jacob lingered at the underground meet long after the first rush of adrenaline had faded.
This wasn't a night for lining up and launching. Not tonight. The concrete skeleton of the half-built development held too many eyes, too many nerves. People were clustered in small circles with clipboards and scraps of paper, talking routes and timing instead of horsepower and pride. Lookouts kept drifting up the ramp and back down again, faces tight, listening for sirens like they were listening for thunder.
The street scene wasn't celebrating anymore.
It was reorganizing.
Jacob leaned against a pillar in the edge-shadow and watched the planning take shape—names slotted, numbers counted, routes chosen for tomorrow rather than tonight. A controlled race. A daylight-ish run the next day when traffic patterns were predictable and heat could be read earlier. You could feel everyone trying to outthink the new world the Corvettes had dragged into existence.
Vince found Jacob the way he always did when he didn't want to admit he was seeking him out: like it was an accident.
He stepped in close, voice low. "You see him?"
Jacob didn't need to ask who. His eyes were already on Sunny.
Sunny stood near the center of the gathering with his easy grin and open hands, moving like he belonged. He laughed at the right moments. He nodded too much. He watched too carefully when he thought nobody noticed.
"Yeah," Jacob said.
Vince's jaw tightened. "He's still here."
Jacob's mouth went flat. "He wants to be."
Vince scoffed softly, but there wasn't much humor in it. "He's trying to get in deep."
Jacob nodded once. "That's what it looks like."
Vince stared at Sunny a beat longer, then glanced at Jacob like he was testing whether Jacob would change his mind. "You still think he's a problem."
Jacob didn't hesitate. "Yeah."
Vince exhaled sharply through his nose, the way he did when he was actually listening but hated admitting it. "Alright."
It wasn't agreement. It was Vince putting the warning in his pocket.
Across the underground floor, Brian stood with Mia near one of the work lights. Mia's posture was gentle but firm—arms folded, head tilted, eyes studying Brian with that quiet instinct she had for seeing people's cracks. Brian looked like he was trying to hold his body together by force of will—jaw tight, shoulders stiff, eyes too alert.
Mia said something soft.
Brian flinched—the tiniest recoil—like worry felt more dangerous than accusation.
Jacob couldn't hear the words, but he could read them: You're stressed. You're carrying something. Are you okay?
Brian's mouth tightened, a cringe that looked almost like pain. He nodded as if agreeing would be safer than explaining.
Vince noticed Jacob watching and muttered, "Cop boy's sweating."
Jacob didn't answer.
He kept his eyes off them because the triangle of it all—Mia's kindness, Brian's guilt, Jacob's own secrets—felt like standing too close to a live wire.
Sunny made his move when the planning circle tightened around the next-day race list.
He stepped in with his friendly confidence, smile bright, voice easy. "Put me in," Sunny said. "I'll pay."
The guy running the list didn't smile back. He tapped the paper with his pen. "Slots are filled."
Sunny's grin held. "C'mon. Somebody drops, I'm here."
The organizer shook his head. "Not tonight."
Sunny's eyes sharpened for half a second—irritation threatening—then he forced the smile to stay glued on. "Why not?"
The organizer's tone stayed flat. "Because we don't know you."
A couple people chuckled quietly. Not cruel, just honest.
Sunny spread his hands. "That's why I'm here."
"Yeah," the organizer said, "and that's why you're not in this one."
Sunny swallowed the rejection like it tasted bad. "Alright," he said smoothly. "When's the next slot?"
The organizer pointed at the list. "Three days. There'll be another race. You can slot into that one if you're still around."
Sunny nodded as if it was exactly what he wanted. "Perfect," he said. "I'll be here."
Jacob felt Vince shift beside him—subtle, tense.
Time mattered. Sunny being told to wait didn't push him out of the scene. It gave him a date.
A foothold.
Dom didn't make a speech.
He didn't gather the room like a preacher.
He stepped into the planning space with Letty beside him and Mia close enough to be seen, and the way people turned toward him said everything: Dom didn't need volume. He had gravity.
"Everybody listen," Dom said.
The hum dropped. Not silent—just attentive.
Dom nodded toward the paper lists and the quiet tension in everyone's faces. "Circumstances changed," he said simply. "We don't move the same way we used to."
No mention of trucks. No mention of specifics. Just the truth everyone could feel: the city had sharpened its teeth and the old habits were now liabilities.
Letty crossed her arms. "You wanna race, you do it smart. You wanna prove something, you do it where we control the variables."
Dom continued, calm and steady. "Four days from now, we're hosting our own event."
A ripple moved through the crowd.
"Admission to get in," Dom added. "Admission to watch. Everybody pays."
Someone laughed, half amused. "Admission?"
Dom didn't smile. "Yeah," he said. "Admission."
Letty's eyes were hard. "You want safety and structure, you pay for it."
Dom's gaze swept the room. "We'll set the lineup. We'll set the spot. We'll set the rules. You break them, you're out."
The crowd murmured—some annoyed, most relieved.
Because structure meant fewer surprises. Fewer surprises meant fewer sirens.
Dom finished with the simplest truth of all: "We got a way of life," he said. "We're not giving it up. We're adapting."
Mia stood quietly behind him, watching faces, watching fear hide under swagger.
Jacob watched Dom and felt the weight of it: Dom was building a safe container for the street scene the way Jacob had built a steel container for the BMW.
Different tools. Same impulse.
Survive the new world.
Jacob stayed near Vince as the underground meet continued reshaping itself into calendars and commitments.
Vince stared at Sunny again, then back at Jacob. "Three days," Vince muttered. "He'll be in a race."
Jacob nodded. "Yeah."
"And four days," Vince added, voice tight, "Dom's running the show."
Jacob's mouth went dry. "Yeah."
Vince's eyes narrowed. "You still think Sunny's trouble."
Jacob didn't blink. "I think trouble smiles until it doesn't have to."
Vince held Jacob's gaze a beat longer than usual, like he was weighing whether to trust him.
Then he nodded once—small, grudging, real.
"Alright," Vince said quietly. "I'm watching him."
Jacob watched Sunny laugh with another racer like he'd been here for years and felt the tightness in his chest deepen.
Because now the scene had dates.
And dates were exactly what a hunter needed.
...
Jacob got back to Cooper's Auto with the lingering calm of the sprint still in his lungs.
For a few miles, the city had felt like it used to—just lanes and light and breath. Mia had smiled at him through an open window. The wind had been clean. The world had been quiet enough that his thoughts didn't immediately turn into alarms.
They pulled into the alley behind the shop, parked, and walked in together like two people who wanted to pretend the night was normal.
Mia yawned, rubbing at her eyes. "I needed that," she said softly.
Jacob managed a small smile. "Yeah."
He waited until Mia stepped into the little comfort-room area to grab her jacket—she'd left it there earlier on a previous visit—before he crossed to the untraceable laptop in the office corner.
It was a habit now. A reflex. Like checking the locks on a door after hearing a noise outside.
The screen was already on.
And Jacob's stomach dropped before his brain even caught up.
A new menu tab sat on the Wanted site.
PARTICIPATE.
His throat went dry.
He clicked.
A submission page opened—upload fields, ranking criteria, a live feed of clips pouring in from strangers across the city. A leaderboard that scrolled like a slot machine. Names he didn't recognize. Runs he didn't sanction. Camera angles showing kids doing stupid, reckless things because they believed they were being invited into a myth.
The counter in the corner ticked upward:
UPLOADS TODAY: 47… 48… 49…
Jacob's hands went cold.
"No," he whispered, leaning closer. "No, no—"
A highlighted line of system text appeared at the edge of his vision as if it had been waiting for him to notice.
ENGAGEMENT MODULE: ENABLED
FEATURE: Community Participation
RATIONALE: Increased visibility / increased data / increased leverage
NOTE: Driver notification not required.
Not required.
The phrase punched him in the chest.
He hadn't agreed to this.
He hadn't been asked.
He'd posted warnings because he wanted people off the roads. Because he'd watched a girl end up on a ventilator. Because he'd tried—clumsily, desperately—to reduce collateral.
And the system had responded by turning his myth into a platform.
By inviting the city's worst impulses to compete.
By making it easier for idiots to hurt themselves for points.
Jacob felt heat surge behind his eyes.
"You made it worse," he hissed, voice shaking. "You made it worse."
The HUD didn't blink.
RESULT: Higher participation increases chase earnings potential.
OPTION: Promote / curate / incentivize
Jacob's breath turned ragged.
Rage rose so fast it scared him—because it wasn't just anger at the system. It was anger at himself for ever thinking he had control. For ever thinking he could steer a myth without the myth steering back.
His gaze snapped to the office chair—cheap, metal legs, cracked cushion.
He grabbed it and hurled it across the room.
It hit the far wall with a violent crash, metal scraping, then clattered to the floor, echoing through the bay like a gunshot.
Mia reappeared instantly, startled, eyes wide.
"Jacob!" she said, voice sharp with alarm. "What the hell?"
Jacob stood in the office doorway, chest heaving, hands clenched so tight his fingers hurt. He stared at the toppled chair like he didn't recognize himself.
Mia stepped closer, cautious but firm. "Hey," she said, softer now. "Hey. Look at me."
Jacob forced his eyes up to her face.
He couldn't tell her why.
He couldn't say: There's a system in my head turning the city into a scoreboard.
He couldn't say: I'm feeding a myth I'm trying to contain.
He couldn't say: You're standing next to a man who is one wrong night away from becoming the monster the news keeps describing.
So he did the only thing he could do without detonating his life:
He lied with the truth's shape.
"I'm sorry," he said hoarsely. "I'm just—" he swallowed hard, searching for a word that wouldn't betray him, "—I'm overwhelmed."
Mia's expression softened immediately, anger draining into concern.
She stepped close enough to touch his forearm, gentle but grounding. "Okay," she said. "Okay. Breathe."
Jacob's breathing was still too fast.
Mia kept her hand on him anyway, steady as a heartbeat. "You don't get to scare me like that," she murmured, half scolding, half worried.
Jacob's throat tightened. "I know."
Mia glanced at the chair, then back at him. "Talk to me," she said softly. "I don't need all the details. Just… tell me what's going on inside your head."
Jacob stared at her, helpless.
He wanted to tell her everything.
Instead, he let out a shaking breath and admitted one honest piece.
"I keep trying to make things better," he whispered. "And somehow… it keeps making things worse."
Mia's eyes warmed with something tender and sad. She nodded slowly as if she understood that feeling too well. "Yeah," she said quietly. "That happens."
She squeezed his arm gently. "But you're here," she added. "You're not alone in it."
The words hit Jacob like warmth and shame at the same time.
He nodded, eyes burning.
Mia stepped around him and righted the chair, setting it back down as if putting the room back in order could put him back in order too. Then she turned to him and held his gaze.
"Come sit," she said. "Just for a minute. No cars. No racing. Just… you."
Jacob let her guide him out of the office and into the bay, where the air smelled like oil and metal and work. He sat on a stool, head bowed, trying to stitch himself back together while Mia stayed close enough to be real.
At the same time, in places with badges and fluorescent lights, the new section on the Wanted site hit like an alarm.
LAPD cyber guys found it first—because they'd been watching for any new posts, any pattern they could grab. The moment the PARTICIPATE tab appeared, it got flagged and routed upward with urgency.
By evening, FBI personnel were in the room too, faces lit by monitors, eyes sharp with appetite.
On one screen: the leaderboard, clips updating in real time.
On another: metadata analysis, mirror sites spawning, hashes catalogued.
On a third: a map with dots spreading across Los Angeles as uploads came in from different neighborhoods like sparks landing in dry grass.
Bilkins stared at it with a look that was half anger, half exhaustion. "Now he's running a damn contest?"
A federal agent didn't answer like it was ridiculous.
She answered like it was useful.
"This is acceleration," she said calmly. "This is recruitment behavior."
A tech pointed at the upload pipeline. "We can correlate," he said. "We can track IP blocks, known proxies, forum shares—build a network graph of participants."
Bilkins' jaw clenched. "That's not what I want. I want the driver."
The FBI agent's eyes didn't leave the screen. "You'll get the driver," she said, voice low. "But first you get the ecosystem."
Another agent nodded, almost pleased. "He just gave us a funnel," he said. "A participation portal. People volunteering data."
Bilkins felt cold dread crawl up his spine.
Because he could already see what would happen: kids chasing points. copycats trying to impress. more crashes. more collateral.
And the Bureau's interest wasn't just in stopping it.
It was in using it.
The lead agent's mouth tightened into something that looked like anticipation. "Let it run," she said. "Monitor. Harvest. Identify patterns."
Bilkins snapped, "People are going to get hurt."
The agent looked at him as if he were being emotional. "Then you'd better be ready," she replied. "Because this just turned from a chase into a movement."
And Brian—standing at the back of the room, hearing it all—felt his stomach drop with a quiet horror.
Because he understood the worst part instantly:
Wanted hadn't just made himself harder to catch.
Something about the myth had now begun pulling other people into the blast radius.
And the people in power weren't frightened by that.
They were hungry.
...
At the underground meet, the air stayed tense even after the planning settled into schedules.
People were still buzzing—quietly now—about the new thing spreading through the scene like an itch you couldn't scratch: the Wanted site wasn't just posting anymore.
It was inviting.
A guy from the community—older than the kids, not quite an organizer but close enough to matter—approached Dom near the work light where Dom had been talking with Letty and a few heads.
"Yo, Dom," the guy said, trying to sound casual. "You seen that new forum? That upload thing? People posting runs… competing."
Dom didn't even blink.
"No," he said.
The guy laughed awkwardly. "C'mon. Everybody's talking about it. Thought maybe you were—"
Dom's gaze cut to him, steady and heavy. Not angry. Worse than angry: final.
"I'm not joining anything," Dom said.
The guy's smile faltered. "It's just clips, man. Like bragging rights."
Dom stepped closer by half a pace—not threatening, just making the air heavier.
"Listen," Dom said, voice calm. "Anything that asks you to upload your run is asking you to put a target on your back."
The circle around them quieted. Even people pretending not to listen leaned in.
Dom continued, eyes sweeping the nearby faces. "You don't know who's watching. You don't know what they're collecting. And you don't know what kind of attention you're inviting."
Letty crossed her arms and nodded once, backing him with silence.
Dom's tone stayed even. "You want to race," he said, "you race. You want to prove something, you prove it in front of people you trust. Not on some website that can be used against you."
The guy swallowed. "You think it's cops?"
Dom didn't answer directly. He didn't have to.
"It's a trap," Dom said simply. "Maybe not on purpose. But it'll become one."
A few heads nodded. Others looked conflicted—the hunger for recognition battling the fear of handcuffs.
Dom finished, voice low but carrying. "Stay off it."
The warning settled over the underground space like a blanket of cold air.
Jacob heard it from the edge of the crowd and felt the sting of it—because Dom was right, and Jacob knew exactly how right Dom was in ways Dom couldn't imagine.
Mia found Jacob's eyes across the space for a brief second.
A silent look that said: Did you hear that?
Jacob nodded once, small.
He didn't trust himself to do more than that.
Later, when the underground meet dissolved into careful departures—cars leaving in staggered silence, lookouts checking the ramp, the city above still holding its breath—Mia ended up in Jacob's passenger seat again.
Not because it had been planned.
Because Dom had been pulled into last-minute conversations, Letty had been needed for logistics, and Mia looked tired in a way that made Jacob's protective instinct override his caution.
"I can take you," Jacob had said quietly.
Mia had nodded.
The drive back was softer than the sprint had been—no racing, no lane games. Just two people in a quiet car with streetlights passing like slow pulses. Mia stared out the window for a while, silent, the worry of the last week living in the set of her shoulders.
Jacob didn't push.
He'd learned Mia talked when she was ready.
When they arrived at Dom's house, the place was quiet—most of the crew already inside or gone, the porch light spilling warm yellow onto the driveway. Jacob walked Mia to the door like it was the most normal thing in the world.
Mia paused before going in.
"Hey," she said.
Jacob looked at her. "Yeah?"
Mia hesitated, then did something Jacob hadn't expected.
She invited him inside—but not into the loud space where everyone gathered.
Into the small quiet corner of the house where the noise softened, where you could hear the refrigerator hum and the distant TV in another room.
"Can you… sit for a minute?" Mia asked.
Jacob nodded, throat tight. "Yeah."
They sat at the kitchen table, the same place where food turned into family and family turned into decisions. Mia wrapped her hands around a glass of water like she needed the cold to keep her grounded.
Jacob watched her carefully, saying nothing.
Mia's eyes stayed on the glass for a long time. Then she spoke, voice quiet.
"I didn't tell you this," she said, "but… I have another brother."
Jacob blinked, surprised. "Yeah? I thought it was just you and Dom."
Mia shook her head slowly. "No. There's… another one."
She swallowed, and for a second Jacob saw the vulnerability under her steadiness.
"His name is Jacob," Mia said softly.
The name hit Jacob like a physical thing.
He kept his face calm by force. "Jacob," he echoed.
Mia nodded, lips pressed together. "He's… not around," she said, carefully. "Not like Dom is. Not like this."
Jacob's chest tightened. He didn't ask why—because why could mean pain she wasn't ready to lay down.
Mia continued anyway, voice trembling at the edges. "I've never been good at… not communicating with him," she admitted, a sad little laugh escaping her. "Even when he doesn't answer. Even when I don't know where he is."
Jacob's throat went dry.
Mia looked up at him, eyes soft and honest. "It's stupid," she said. "But I keep wanting to tell him things. Like… I keep hoping if I say the right words enough times, he'll hear them."
Jacob felt the room tilt.
He didn't know what to do with being in this moment—his name in her mouth, her other brother's name, the way she spoke like she was missing someone and didn't know what to do with the missing.
He chose gentleness.
"It's not stupid," Jacob said quietly.
Mia's eyes shone slightly. "Yeah?" she asked, voice small.
Jacob nodded. "No," he said. "It just means you care. And caring doesn't shut off just because someone's gone."
Mia's breath hitched. She looked down again, blinking hard.
"I've never been able to stop," she whispered. "Even when it hurts."
Jacob's fingers curled against the tabletop, fighting the urge to reach across and hold her hand—because he didn't want to take more than she offered.
He kept his voice soft. "Maybe you don't have to stop," he said. "Maybe you just… keep the line open."
Mia laughed quietly through the emotion, and it sounded like relief mixed with grief. "Yeah," she murmured. "Keep the line open."
The words settled between them like something sacred.
Jacob felt the cruel irony of it—because his whole life right now was built on closed lines, on locked doors, on secrets held tight to keep people safe.
And here was Mia, telling him the most human thing in the world:
That she couldn't stop reaching for the people she loved, even when reaching hurt.
Jacob swallowed hard, voice rougher than he wanted. "He's lucky," he said.
Mia looked up, confused. "Lucky?"
Jacob nodded once. "To have someone who keeps trying," he said. "Most people… don't."
Mia studied him for a beat, as if she sensed there was more behind his words than he was saying. But she didn't press.
She just nodded slowly, eyes soft.
"Thanks," she whispered.
Jacob breathed out shakily. "Yeah."
For a few minutes they sat in the kitchen's quiet—no myths, no cops, no internet platforms—just two people speaking around grief and care like it was a fragile glass they didn't want to break.
Mia finally stood, wiping her eyes quickly like she was embarrassed by the softness.
"I should get some sleep," she said.
Jacob stood too. "Yeah."
At the doorway, Mia hesitated, then surprised him again with a brief hug—warm, tight, honest.
"Goodnight, Jacob," she said.
Jacob's chest tightened at his own name in her voice. "Goodnight," he managed.
He walked back to his Supra under the porch light feeling both steadier and more haunted.
Because Mia didn't know his secrets.
She only knew she cared.
And somehow that was heavier than suspicion.
...
Jacob sat alone in the office corner of Cooper's Auto with the laptop glow bleaching the room into something unreal.
The PARTICIPATE page kept updating no matter how long he stared at it. New uploads. New usernames. New idiots chasing a myth like it was a game they could win if they risked enough.
He tried—once—to shut it down.
Not politely. Not carefully.
He demanded it, jaw tight, fingers shaking on the trackpad.
The system answered with the same calm cruelty it used for everything.
ENGAGEMENT MODULE: LOCKED
DISABLE: NOT PERMITTED
RATIONALE: Leverage requires participation
ALTERNATIVE: Influence behavior via content
So that was the cage.
He couldn't close the door.
He could only decide what the door led to.
Jacob leaned back and stared at the office chair he'd thrown earlier—now upright again like the room itself was pretending nothing had happened. Anger rose in him, hot and helpless, then condensed into something colder.
If he couldn't shut the platform down, he would poison the urge to use it.
He would post something so intense—so unforgiving—that anyone with a shred of survival instinct would look at the leaderboard and think:
No. I'm not built for that.
Then reality snagged him again.
The BMW was too recognizable now. Too stamped with the myth. If he posted another BMW run, it would feed the legend and invite more worship.
He needed a different shape.
A different nightmare.
And he needed it to feel less like "Wanted showing off" and more like "the world is dangerous—don't play with it."
He opened the system's vehicle summon menu, the Level 2 node glowing at the edge of his vision like a door he hadn't wanted.
Names scrolled—future names, impossible names—until one stopped him.
HOONICORN V2 — blank / no livery.
A clean predator. No branding. No signature paint. Just menace without identity.
Perfect.
He clicked Summon.
No truck arrived. No trailer.
Just a low, heavy thump from the garage bay—like something massive had appeared and the building had to adjust its bones around it.
Jacob stood and walked out into the main bay.
The car sat there under the shop lights like it had been waiting: wide stance, brutal aero, matte darkness swallowing reflections. It didn't look like a street car. It looked like a threat given wheels.
Jacob applied the Level 2 upgrade without ceremony. The change didn't sparkle or shout—it tightened the machine's readiness, sharpened response, settled stability like a predator lowering its center of gravity.
He pulled on the helmet. Not for anonymity alone.
For separation.
He started the engine.
It woke with a thunderous, feral sound that made the shop's walls feel thin.
Then he drove out into the night.
The run he filmed wasn't a race.
It was a deterrent.
He chose emptier routes—not because he trusted himself, but because he refused to make civilians pay for his message. Even so, the speed made emptiness feel like an illusion. The city became a ribbon. Streetlights became strobing pulses. The Hoonicorn moved through corners like physics had been bribed.
Jacob didn't do sloppy bravado.
He did precision so frightening it stopped being aspirational.
Angles that would kill an amateur. Transitions that required a calm most people couldn't summon under pressure. Recoveries so instant they looked supernatural even though they were just control applied without mercy.
No music. No jokes. No "look at me."
Just wind, engine, and the sick clarity of motion at the edge of catastrophe.
When he finished, he returned to Cooper's Auto and parked the Hoonicorn in the bay like it was nothing. He walked straight to the laptop, hands steady, stomach tight.
He uploaded the clip to the participation portal.
But he didn't post it as Wanted.
He created a new username—something that sounded like a stranger who'd seen too much.
NO-CHASE.
A name that didn't scream myth. A name that sounded like a warning.
He typed a single line above the upload:
This isn't a game. Don't try to "compete."
Then he hit publish.
The leaderboard refreshed, and the city reacted.
At first, people assumed it was another show-off—another fanboy with too much confidence.
Then they watched.
And the tone shifted.
Not "how do I do that?"
More like "what the hell was that?"
"WHO IS NO-CHASE??"
"That's not a normal run. That's… lethal."
"If you try that line you're dead."
"This makes everyone else look like kids."
"I'm deleting my upload, bro."
"The steering inputs are too calm. That's terrifying."
"This is why you don't chase the myth."
"Okay I'm out. I'm not posting after that."
Some people got louder—fear always made certain personalities reckless.
But most didn't.
Most went quiet.
And in that quiet, Jacob felt the smallest sliver of relief he'd had in days—not triumph, not pride—just the sense that maybe he'd shoved the scene away from the edge by making the edge look like death instead of glory.
He sat back in his chair and stared at the live feed as uploads slowed, comments turning from hype to caution.
He hadn't closed the door.
But he'd filled the doorway with a shadow tall enough to make people hesitate before stepping through.
...
The LAPD didn't ignore the NO-CHASE upload.
They couldn't.
Because it wasn't posted under the Wanted handle. It wasn't the faceless myth spitting warnings into the void. It was a new username—new metadata—new friction against the web. And friction was where cops found handles.
In a cramped cyber room that smelled like warm electronics and stale coffee, technicians replayed the clip frame by frame—Hoonicorn V2 carving through the night with a calm so sharp it looked cruel. Not showy. Not sloppy. Controlled.
"Pull the connected file," Bilkins ordered. "Whatever the portal kept."
A tech tapped keys, pulled the portal's registration artifacts—what it stored for "participants," the part the public didn't see.
The result populated on screen.
ACCOUNT: NO-CHASE
CONNECTED IDENTITY: JACOB COOPER
CONTACT / ADDRESS: on file
The room went quiet.
Bilkins stared at it, jaw tight. "That's… a person."
"Or a burner identity," Tanner muttered.
"Either way," Bilkins said, voice hardening, "it's a lead."
And a lead—finally—was something the department could touch.
They sent the packet upward immediately.
Brian saw the name a few minutes later and felt his stomach drop.
He was in the bullpen when someone called him over with the kind of energy that meant "we found something."
"Hey, O'Connor—look," a tech said, pointing at a monitor. "We traced a non-Wanted upload."
Brian leaned in, still holding a cup of water he'd barely tasted.
On screen: the account pull. The registration artifact. The name printed in plain, boring text.
JACOB COOPER.
Brian choked on his drink and coughed hard, spitting into the trash can as his body reacted before his brain could decide what to do.
"What the hell—" Tanner snapped, half annoyed, half alarmed. "You alright?"
Brian wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, staring at the screen like it had grown teeth.
Jacob Cooper.
The guy from Dom's shop. The quiet mechanic with the too-calm eyes. The one Mia trusted enough to call when she was scared. The one who knew Brian was a cop before Brian admitted it. The one who'd warned him about Vince and then quietly vanished into his own life again.
Brian's mind tried to snap it into a clean explanation.
Maybe Jacob was just a talented driver who posted something stupid.
Maybe Jacob was chasing clout.
Maybe someone used his name.
Maybe the portal was compromised.
But Brian couldn't shake the feeling that mattered more than logic:
Jacob was connected to the gravity of this myth, even if Brian couldn't prove how.
And Brian didn't know—couldn't know—that Jacob had done it on purpose.
Because Jacob had known the moment he hit upload what he was doing.
He'd sat in his office with the participation portal scrolling like an open wound and understood the trap as clearly as any chase geometry:
If the system was going to pull other racers into its scoreboard, enforcement would start using the platform as a net.
They'd map it. Trace it. Squeeze everyone who touched it until the ghost showed itself.
So Jacob had made a choice that tasted like blood in his mouth:
He couldn't shut it down.
He couldn't stop the system from inviting participation.
But he could choose where the pressure went.
He'd posted the Hoonicorn run under a different username—NO-CHASE—but he'd let the connected identity point back to "Jacob Cooper" anyway. He hadn't done it because he was careless.
He'd done it because he wanted enforcement looking at him—at a name with an address, a shop, a face—rather than tightening the noose on Dom's people and every kid dumb enough to upload a clip.
A deliberate lightning rod.
A false relief valve.
It was a gamble that felt like a betrayal, because it meant inviting hunters into his own life… while keeping the "Wanted" identity faceless and mobile.
It meant sacrificing Jacob Cooper to protect the ghost.
And he'd made that trade knowingly.
So when Dom and Letty showed up at Cooper's Auto later and found the Hoonicorn sitting in the bay like a black threat under shop lights, Jacob already felt the weight of what he'd triggered.
He didn't panic when he heard the Charger's rumble in the alley.
He didn't flinch when the knock came.
He opened the roll-up wider and let them see the car, because hiding it now would only make them push harder.
Letty's eyes locked onto the Hoonicorn instantly. "What the hell is that?"
Dom didn't speak first. He walked a slow half-circle around it, reading the stance, the wide body, the intent. The car didn't look like something you "practiced tuning" on.
It looked like something that belonged in a different decade.
Dom finally looked at Jacob. "Whose is it."
Jacob kept his voice steady. "Mine," he said. Then he softened it. "A project I've been working on."
Letty's mouth twitched. "A project."
Jacob nodded. "I'm not taking it out to show off. It's just… work."
Dom studied Jacob's face the way he studied engines—looking for leaks. "You been disappearing."
"I've been handling things," Jacob replied.
Letty's eyes narrowed. "Handling what."
Jacob didn't have a truth he could give them. Not the real one. Not the system. Not the wilderness storage. Not the fact that the whole city was now a chessboard and he'd just offered himself as a piece.
So he gave them something human instead.
"I'm trying to keep trouble away from you," Jacob said quietly.
Dom's gaze sharpened. "Trouble finds you anyway."
Jacob's throat tightened. "Yeah."
Letty leaned slightly closer, voice lower. "If you're bringing heat, you tell us."
Jacob met her eyes. "I will."
Dom's voice dropped, more personal. "Mia's worried."
That one landed.
Jacob nodded once, smaller. "I know."
Dom held his gaze a beat longer. "Come by," Dom said. Not a command—an invitation that carried weight. "Don't make her chase you."
Jacob swallowed. "Okay."
They left with the same quiet heaviness they'd arrived with.
Jacob watched them go and felt the pressure sitting on his shoulders like a hand.
He'd chosen to put a target on his back.
Not because he wanted attention.
Because he wanted attention somewhere else—away from the ghost that enforcement was hungry for, away from Dom's family, away from Mia.
And across town, Brian stared at a screen with Jacob Cooper's name on it and felt suspicion form—slow and quiet—not that Jacob was Wanted…
…but that Jacob knew too much about the myth to be innocent.