A Pugatti Tourbillon had already been priced at around 4.1 million dollars in its ordinary existence, which was a ridiculous sentence by itself, the kind of sentence that made accountants look toward heaven and wonder where civilization had gone wrong.

The car was a beast in its own right, a successor to the Chiron in spirit and madness, carrying obscene horsepower, impossible torque, arrogant engineering and that brutal luxury only men with too much money and too little fear could properly appreciate.

Phei did not know every technical detail about it, not really.

He knew enough to understand that it was famous, expensive, fast and adored by the sort of people who used the phrase "daily driver" while referring to something that could buy a small village.

Then there was the Perrari F80.

Another monster.

Another legend.

Another name whose normal version was already enough to make people stop breathing for several financially irresponsible seconds.

But under the Park madness, none of these machines remained normal.

A Pugatti was not merely a Pugatti anymore. A Perrari was not merely a Perrari.

Each one had been pushed beyond its known shape, hyped upward by engineering, artistry, rare materials, altered tuning, custom interior philosophy and that quiet, terrible Park arrogance that looked at an already impossible car and asked, yes, but what if it embarrassed itself less?

Every vehicle Jade showed them seemed to have walked through some private rebirth chamber and emerged more expensive, more dangerous and more beautiful than its original creators had probably intended.

Phei no longer knew what to think.

But he knew what to do.

He stood beside the Perrari F80, watching the red-black beast gleam beneath the second-floor lights, then turned toward Valentina.

"So," he asked, voice warm and deliberately soft, "what do you think, love?"

Valentina’s eyes were wide.

For once, the mature, steady confidence she usually carried had thinned under sheer disbelief.

She looked at the Perrari, then at Phei, then back at the car as though expecting reality to correct itself and admit this was merely a museum piece, not something he had just casually placed within reach of her hands.

"Phei," she said, and the slight stutter in her voice made his smile deepen, "are you sure?"

He nodded without hesitation. "Of course I am."

Her brows drew together. "This is not a normal gift."

"You are not a normal woman."

That silenced her for half a breath.

Then he stepped closer, lowering his voice just enough for the words to feel intimate even inside the glowing kingdom of cars around them. "You are my woman, Val. If I do not spoil you, who will?"

Her lips parted slightly, but before she could answer, Phei made the fatal mistake of continuing.

"Also," he said, glancing sideways with a wince of honest cruelty, "I do not want to apologize for this, but the truth is the truth. I cannot have you driving those cars of yours anymore."

Valentina’s expression changed...

...slowly but dangerously.

Her arms folded beneath her chest, and she looked at him with a calm that promised violence wearing perfume. "Those cars of mine?"

Phei immediately sensed the ground beneath him had become less stable.

Naturally, because he was Phei and wisdom was apparently an occasional visitor rather than a resident, he kept walking forward into danger with a smile. "Yes. I respect your hard-earned efforts, truly. I would never insult what you built for yourself."

"But?" she asked.

Phei spread his arms toward the floor around them, toward the Pugatti, the Perrari, the black beasts, silver predators and gold-veined monsters waiting under the lights.

"But look at all this. You can get anything you want from your filthy rich boyfriend. Come on, a little car insult should not be your worry. Your worry should be what else you are getting apart from the Perrari F80."

Valentina stared at him.

Phei’s smile turned shameless. "Those old cars of yours are not bad, exactly. They are just... emotionally tired. Mechanically depressed. Respectable little survivors from a once Chapter of your life. Honestly, if we leave them too long in Sovereign Tower, they may start rotting out of embarrassment."

The silence that followed was murderous.

Maddie covered her mouth.

Sierra looked away, shoulders trembling.

Noor whispered, "He is brave."

Soraya whispered back, "No. Brave people understand danger."

"He understands it," Sierra murmured without turning around. "He just finds it boring."

Valentina stepped closer.

Phei, to his credit, did not retreat.

Mostly because he had too much pride and nowhere safe to go.

She reached out and gripped his hands.

As his former trainer, Valentina’s grasp was not decorative. It carried the kind of strength that reminded Phei she had once been responsible for shaping his body, correcting his form and making pain sound like encouragement.

Her fingers tightened around his hands with controlled pressure, not enough to hurt him seriously, but enough to make the message extremely clear.

Phei winced dramatically. "Ah. Mercy. Please do not kill the messenger."

Valentina smiled.

It was not reassuring.

"Did you just insult my hard-earned cars, young man?"

Phei swallowed.

Fake swallowed.

The little traitor...

"I would never insult your hard-earned efforts."

"Phei."

"I may have insulted the vehicles that carried those efforts."

Her grip tightened.

He hissed theatrically. "Those are different categories."

Valentina leaned closer, her eyes narrowing with a lioness’s threat and a woman’s amusement fighting somewhere behind it. "Do you have a death wish?"

Phei widened his eyes in a beautiful imitation of fear. "You cannot kill me, can you?"

"Certainly not," she said sweetly.

He relaxed.

Too soon.

Her smile deepened. "But I am your woman, am I not?"

Phei blinked.

"And if I am your woman," she continued, voice dropping into velvet warning, "then I can do something far worse."

Phei tilted his head, curiosity winning over caution because he had clearly learned nothing from the previous five minutes of almost dying. "Oh really? And what would that be?"

Valentina looked around.

The others had stopped pretending they were not watching. Noor and Soraya stood with wide eyes, completely absorbed. Victoria’s cool expression had cracked into faint amusement. Nastya looked like she wanted to deny enjoying this but had already lost that argument internally, and muttered, mostly to Victoria;

"If she actually maims him, I am not testifying."

Victoria, without looking away from the show, replied serenely, "I would. For the defense or the prosecution, depending on who pays better."

Nastya’s mouth twitched, and the two of them were funnier as a pair.

Maddie and Sierra, however, were the worst offenders. Both of them looked overly satisfied, like wicked little sponsors of domestic danger.

Maddie even winked at Valentina.

"Get him, lioness."

Sierra gave a tiny encouraging nod, her smile bright with betrayal.

Valentina received the message perfectly.

Her gaze returned to Phei.

"Do you want to go for a ride?"

The question sounded innocent.

It was not.

The air around them changed just enough for Phei to understand that Valentina was not simply talking about the Perrari. Or perhaps she was. Perhaps she meant the car, the speed, the danger, the thrill, the punishment, the reward, and whatever else her smile had just wrapped inside that sentence. With Valentina, maturity had always made her warmth deeper, not weaker. She did not tease with Maddie’s reckless chaos or Sierra’s soft mischief.

Hers came like a slow flame, patient, confident and fully aware of what it could burn.

Phei looked at her.

Then at the Perrari.

Then back at her.

His grin began slowly.

And really, when had the Young Dragon ever said no to a ride that promised danger, speed and a lioness waiting to remind him exactly why insulting her cars had been a beautiful mistake?

"Lead the way," he said.

Valentina’s smile turned victorious.

But Phei, never content to lose cleanly, caught her hand before she could finish turning, drew it up, and pressed a slow kiss to the inside of her wrist, right over the pulse, holding her gaze the entire time.

He felt the small hitch run through her, watched the victorious smile falter into something warmer and far less composed, and smiled against her skin like a man collecting interest on his own near-death experience.

"For the record," he murmured, "you are very beautiful when you are planning my downfall."

Valentina’s composure suffered a brief, visible casualty. The lioness who had been one breath from making him regret his ancestry went soft at the wrist, at the eyes, at the corner of her mouth she could not quite govern.

"That is cheating," she said, not pulling her hand back.

"You taught me to use every advantage."

"I taught you to fight."

"Same skill," Phei said. "Different battlefield."

She exhaled a laugh she had clearly been trying to withhold, and the warmth in it gave her away completely.

Phei glanced once toward Maddie and Sierra, both of whom looked far too proud of themselves, then back to Valentina as she finally released one of his hands and kept the other firmly in hers, dragging him toward the Perrari F80 with the calm authority of a woman claiming both compensation and consequence.

Behind them, Noor murmured, "Is this still car shopping?"

Soraya answered without blinking, "I think this is how rich people flirt."

Maddie laughed. "No, darling. This is how Phei survives."

Sierra smiled as the Perrari’s doors began to rise.

"Barely."