He could cheat.

That thought came easily.

Too easily.

He was a Master stage powerhouse. Void-Ice had become himself, cold and sovereign, obedient to his will.

He could thread it through the Utopia’s tires, reinforce traction, harden the road contact, chill the air resistance and explode the car forward with a burst of impossible control.

It was not a complicated application.

Not for him and one small whisper of power, a hidden blessing from him beneath the machine, and the Utopia would become something more than engineering.

It would become a weapon dressed as a car.

He could win.

Not fairly.

But he could.

His thumb tightened on the wheel.

Maddie’s taillights reached the last corner.

Phei exhaled.

Then laughed, loud enough for the open comm to catch it.

"Haaah! I will take the L," he said, grinning despite the loss burning beautifully in his chest. "She’s good!"

Brian’s voice exploded through the channel from somewhere behind him. "You’re only realizing that now?"

Phei could not answer.

Maddie’s laughter crackled through the comm, bright and wicked, slipping between engine roar and night wind like a blade with perfume on it.

"Good boy, dragon; it was a nice race, honey."

"Do not patronize me while winning."

"Then drive faster."

"You have no mercy."

"You said I did not need it."

Cassiopeia’s calm voice entered after half a beat, serene enough to be offensive. "She is smiling too much."

Maddie laughed harder. "Do not expose me, darling."

"I am simply reporting the conditions inside the vehicle," Cassiopeia said. "For the record. In case someone asks later why we are all still alive."

The final bend arrived.

Maddie vanished into it first, her car disappearing around the curve toward the private VVIP road, taillights sliding out of sight like red sparks swallowed by the airport glow.

Phei followed a breath behind, the Utopia diving into the same corner, tires screaming, headlights whipping across the security wall, the polished airport signage, the black-glass gatehouse and the long row of runway lights beyond.

He carved through the turn hard enough for the rear to shiver, but clean enough that the car obeyed, launching out behind Maddie as the private access gate opened ahead.

They had arrived.

Maddie first.

Phei just behind her.

Brian’s blue Perrari came tearing in after them with the wounded pride of a man who had witnessed both of them commit multiple crimes against responsible driving and still somehow ended third. His car roared through the access lane, brakes glowing, engine snarling, headlights jittering over the polished road as airport staff stood at a safe distance with the grave expressions of people paid enough to pretend this was normal.

The VVIP entrance waited beneath a canopy of warm gold and white light, glass walls reflecting the arriving cars like captured lightning. A private jet sat beyond the tarmac, sleek and dark beneath floodlamps, its stairs already lowered.

Mother, Diana and Brian’s women had just arrived, and the entire mad race had been nothing more than a spectacularly stupid competition over who would reach them first.

Although he had lost, Phei was not as disheartened as he should have been.

Yes, he had lost to Maddie.

Yes, he had been blue-balled by Nastya.

Yes, Brian would probably spend the next twenty minutes calling him a madman while pretending he had not enjoyed every second of near-death stupidity.

But if that was all it took to ruin his mood, then the night would have been poorly spent.

And it had not been.

The night had bestowed upon him numerous blessings.

For instance, he had acquired his first car and one deeply illegal-looking drift inside a dealership that Jade Park probably still had not fully forgiven him for, though the brightness in her eyes had suggested forgiveness might come with a price.

He had bought gifts for three special women and one girl, and made plans for the rest of his women as well, because playing favorites was dangerous, foolish and liable to get him murdered by committee. He had already survived one women’s silent war tonight.

He was not eager to create a formal coalition against his own household peace.

Apart from that, he had shared intimate, ridiculous, warm moments with Maddie and Valentina, both of whom had managed to threaten his dignity in different but equally professional ways.

Maddie had nearly turned a hypercar interior into a negotiation table for sugar-mommy diplomacy, and Valentina had reminded him that insulting a woman’s hard-earned cars was not flirting unless one was prepared to be dragged into punishment by a lioness with excellent grip strength.

Then there was Jade Park.

That girl had become a problem.

A beautiful, graceful, formidable problem.

He had gone into her dealership to buy his first car and somehow walked out with the beginning of a courtship, a date, a secret car ordered years ago by his father, mother and the Empress, and a deep curiosity about a woman he still did not truly know even after meeting her.

Jade’s elegance did not reveal her easily but it covered her like moonlight over a blade. Phei wanted to win her over properly, not rush her, not frighten the dance, not turn her into a moment when everything about her asked to become a Chapter.

Lastly, there was Nastya.

Nastya had rejected him.

Technically.

Sort of.

In the cruelest, strangest, most Romano way possible.

But that rejection was not worth remembering too bitterly when they had also set a date too.

They were two princesses, after all, Jade and Nastya, each moving at her own pace, each dangerous in a different language. Jade asked for patience with grace. Nastya ambushed him with flowers, first kisses and recorded promises like emotional blackmail had been written into her family’s constitution.

And the latter promised something big.

After all, as far as Phei knew Nastya was not planning alone.

She was with Victoria.

Had Phei not been searching for a way to reconcile with his cousin without causing more complications or leaving anyone hurt? Nastya might be that bridge. That reckless, proud, strangely bashful Romano princess might be the person who could help him reach Victoria without reopening old wounds or stepping blindly into the frost between them.

Moreover, she was a girl Phei had once had a crush on.

A crush he had never told anyone about and one he did not like admitting even to himself.

The Utopia rolled beneath the VVIP canopy, engine rumbling down from beast to purr as Maddie’s car stopped ahead of him. Her brake lights painted the polished ground red, and Phei stared at them for a moment before laughing softly to himself.

"Guess tonight is about taking losses," he murmured, "and admitting things I decided months ago to keep buried."

The Utopia settled into idle.

Phei looked toward Maddie’s car as her door began to open as they waited for Mother and others to step out.