The switchbacks ended with violence.

The cliff road spat them out of the high forest and into the long final descent toward the private airport, and for one terrible heartbeat the world opened wide. The trees broke apart. The mist thinned.

Far below, beyond the black sweep of lake and stone, the airport gleamed like a city of disciplined stars, its runways stretching in silver-white lines across the dark, its hangars glowing beneath floodlights, its glass terminals burning gold behind layers of security fences and polished tarmac.

Maddie was ahead.

Not far though...

Phei could see her now in the distance, her taillights low and red, cutting through the final stretch with vicious elegance

The last road to the VVIP entrance ran along a descending line of asphalt, then curled right toward the private access gate where Mother, Diana and Brian’s women had just arrived. That was the whole reason for this race, apparently.

Only normal families drove to the airport...

...Their group turned it into a death-spiral of horsepower, pride, flirtation and private-road abuse because money, once it grew old enough, lost all shame.

Forty seconds.

Maybe less.

Phei’s fingers tightened around the wheel.

The Utopia trembled beneath him, alive in every joint and carbon vein, headlights spearing through the night and dragging the final stretch into existence meter by meter.

The road ahead gleamed in broken silver under the beams, every painted line flashing beneath the hood like a warning ignored for sport. Maddie’s car took the outer lane before the last sweeping descent, steady, fast, infuriatingly clean.

She flowed through speed like she had been born somewhere between a racing line and a bad decision.

In the passenger seat beside Maddie, Cassiopeia sat with one leg crossed over the other, hands folded in her lap, entirely unbothered by the fact that the world was passing the window at a speed lawyers would describe as "actionable."

She had ridden with worse drivers, though she could not, at the moment, recall when.

"You are enjoying this far too much," she observed, watching Maddie’s profile rather than the road, because the road was Maddie’s problem and Cassiopeia had decided long ago that delegation was a virtue.

"I am enjoying this exactly the correct amount," Maddie said, not looking away from the asphalt. "Which is to say obscenely."

"He pressed his little button."

"I felt it. Bless him."

Phei wanted to win.

He really did.

On normal days, perhaps, he would have let his woman take the victory.

On normal days, he could have softened the edge of competition, played the gentleman, smiled as she crossed ahead and pretended mercy had not been involved.

It would have been easy. Sweet, even. Very noble. Very romantic.

’It’s the sort of thing poets would praise before quietly failing their driving test.’

But this was Maddie.

Maddie did not need his mercy.

She had started with them, had left him and Brian behind and had proceeded to carve the night apart with the confidence of a woman who did not merely believe she could win but found the possibility of losing mildly insulting.

Letting her win would not be kindness. It would be an insult to her dressed as affection.

Besides, Phei had just been blue-balled by Nastya Romano.

A man needed compensation somewhere.

He pressed harder.

The Utopia surged, engine rising into a sharper register, the sound turning metallic and savage as he pushed the car down the final stretch. The steering wheel vibrated beneath his palms like the beast was biting back, the body lowering into speed, the road narrowing into a corridor of white headlight violence and red taillight temptation.

The airport grew larger ahead, its runway lights spreading across the night like an invitation from some expensive mechanical heaven.

Phei’s thumb moved.

There was a button Jade had explained earlier.

Not the safety systems.

This was something else, a short-burst performance release built into the Utopia’s custom profile, designed for straight-line aggression, temporary power synchronization, traction optimization and whatever other beautiful engineering nonsense rich people used when the phrase "go faster" needed an invoice.

He’d pressed it and the Utopia exploded forward.

The force slammed through the chassis, shoved him into the seat, and turned the road into a screaming black ribbon under the nose. The headlights stretched, sharpened, and the world beyond them became a tunnel collapsing into him at impossible speed.

The engine’s roar deepened into a brutal continuous cry, and for a second, Phei gained on her fast enough to taste victory.

Then Maddie’s car answered.

As if she had felt him press that button through the road itself.

Her taillights flared.

Her machine dropped a fraction lower, the rear squatting hard, and then it launched like a missile fired from the edge of sanity.

The red lights shot forward, not away completely, but enough for the truth to step into Phei’s chest and stare at him with both hands behind its back.

Who was to say her car did not have the same button?

Actually, knowing Maddie, who was to say she did not have a better one?

Phei laughed through his teeth, but there was strain in it now, real and deliciously bitter-sweet.

He pushed again, hands locked on the wheel, eyes narrowed on the final bend where Maddie was about to vanish around the curve toward the VVIP road. The Utopia screamed beneath him, every gear change landing like a hammer blow, every tire bite clawing at the asphalt as though the car wanted to rip the entire island backward for disrespecting its speed.

But the truth was obvious.

It was not the car.

’It ’s the driver.’

Phei was not on Maddie’s level yet.

Not in the pure language of road, corner, throttle, brake, timing and the insane instinct needed to make all of them obey under darkness and speed.

Phei had powers, reflexes, god-given talent and enough arrogance to keep a small empire warm through winter.

Maddie had racing experience carved into her bones, a feel for roads like they were living things and the kind of madness that did not panic when the world narrowed to one bad turn and a thousand ways to die expensively.