Dom's crew rolled away from Cooper's Auto with the uneasy silence of people leaving a door unanswered.
The alley fell behind them, but Dom didn't let the locked door fall out of his mind. He drove with both hands steady on the wheel and his thoughts moving faster than the streetlights.
Jacob wasn't the type to vanish without reason.
Not after he'd started showing up. Not after he'd helped. Not after he'd looked Mia in the eyes with that quiet sincerity that made even Dom—careful as he was—start to treat him like something more than a useful stranger.
Letty glanced at Dom from the passenger seat, reading him the way she read engines.
"You worried," she said.
Dom kept his eyes on the road. "I don't like unknowns."
Letty snorted softly. "You don't like anybody touching your world without you knowing where they stand."
Dom didn't deny it.
Vince, riding behind them with Leon and Jesse, kept his own tension wrapped tight. He'd been loud earlier, but now his silence felt like guilt trying not to be seen.
Dom turned onto a wider boulevard, then reached for his phone and called Mia.
She picked up on the second ring, voice instantly alert. "Dom?"
"You seen Jacob today?" Dom asked.
A pause. "No," Mia said, worry sharpening her tone. "He said he'd be around."
Dom's jaw tightened. "We went to his shop. Empty."
Mia's breath caught audibly. "What?"
Letty watched Dom's face shift and leaned closer, listening.
Mia's voice came faster. "Did you knock? Did you—"
"It was locked," Dom said. "No lights."
Mia swallowed. "That's… not like him."
Dom's throat tightened around the admission he didn't want to make. "That's why I'm calling."
Mia didn't waste time pretending she wasn't scared. "I'll call him," she said. "He gave me the number for his shop phone."
Dom nodded once even though she couldn't see it. "Do it. Call me back."
He hung up before the worry could turn into a longer conversation that would make it heavier.
Letty's voice came low. "He's hiding."
Dom's eyes stayed forward. "Or he's in trouble."
Letty nodded once, grim. "Same thing in this city."
Across town, Jacob stood inside the shipping container with his hands on the BMW's hood, feeling the car's quiet hum under his palm like a sleeping pulse.
He'd finished the upgrades, but he hadn't finished the feeling they left in him.
The EMP and shockwave systems weren't visible. They didn't glow or hum dramatically. They sat inside the car like secrets, waiting for the moment he'd need them.
That was what scared him.
Not the cops. Not Sunny. Not the task force.
Himself, with a new button to push when panic hit.
His phone buzzed in his pocket—an ordinary vibration in a place that felt anything but ordinary. For a second he didn't move, as if ignoring it could keep the outside world from reaching him.
It buzzed again.
He pulled it out.
Unknown number.
He stared at it, then let it go to voicemail.
A moment later, his system HUD flickered.
ALERT: CONTACT ATTEMPT DETECTEDCALLER: MIA TORETTONOTE: Ignoring increases suspicion in your social network.
Jacob's stomach twisted.
Of course the system would track that too.
He exhaled slowly and called back before his fear could talk him out of it.
"Mia," he said when she answered, keeping his voice steady.
"Oh my God," Mia breathed. "You're okay."
Jacob's throat tightened. "Yeah. I'm okay."
"Dom came by your shop," Mia said quickly. "It was locked. He thought something happened."
Guilt hit Jacob like a shove.
"I—" He stopped himself from saying the truth. I moved the car. I'm hiding. I'm arming myself.
He chose the smallest safe truth. "I was out," he said. "Sorry."
Mia's voice softened, but worry stayed underneath it. "Out where?"
Jacob stared at the BMW in the dim light. "Just… handling something."
Mia hesitated. "Are you coming back?"
Jacob swallowed. "Soon."
The word felt like a promise he didn't know he could keep.
Mia exhaled. "Okay," she said quietly. "Just—please don't disappear on us."
On us.
The phrase hurt in a way Jacob wasn't prepared for.
He closed his eyes briefly. "I won't," he lied, gentle and small.
Mia was silent for a beat, then murmured, "Thank you."
When the call ended, Jacob stood alone again with the phone in his hand and the BMW's quiet presence in front of him.
He'd wanted a normal life.
Now he had people who noticed when he was gone.
And that made hiding feel like betrayal.
The HUD pulsed again, colder.
TASK FORCE DEPLOYMENT: IMMINENTENHANCED PURSUIT VEHICLES CONFIRMEDRECOMMENDATION: Do not return to predictable locations.
Jacob's jaw tightened.
He looked at the container's steel walls, at the BMW's gleaming paint, at the quiet power sleeping inside it.
He felt the moment stretching—one fork in the road where the story could still choose what kind of monster it was going to make him.
And far away, under fluorescent lights, men with badges were building a fleet designed to end his myth.
Jacob placed his hand on the hood again, feeling cold metal under his palm.
"Not yet," he whispered.
Then he killed the work light, leaving the BMW in darkness, and stepped out of the container into the floodlit lot—just another man walking away from a steel box, carrying a secret that could break the city in half.
...
The task force didn't announce itself with a press conference.
It announced itself with silence and speed.
The first night they rolled, Los Angeles felt it before it understood it—like a storm front arriving without thunder. People heard a different engine note on the highways, a deeper, cleaner sound than the old Crown Vics. They saw black shapes moving in coordinated pairs, lights off until the last moment, positioning like predators instead of patrol.
And the first big mistake the city watched them make was the one that made everyone go quiet:
They hit Johnny Tran.
It happened on a stretch of road Tran's crew used like it belonged to them—late-night, familiar, loud enough to feel untouchable. Tran had built his reputation on control and intimidation, on the idea that nobody pushed him around. His guys ran tight, his bikes and cars moving like teeth in a jaw.
The task force didn't care.
Four black Corvette C5s appeared like they'd risen out of the pavement—two ahead, two behind—boxing Tran's lead car in a geometry that didn't leave room for bravado. Their lights snapped on at the same time, not chaotic, not panicked—synchronized.
Tran tried to punch through anyway.
He'd been built by the street. The street taught you to accelerate through fear.
But these Corvettes didn't chase like cops.
They closed distance like a plan.
One clipped Tran's rear quarter with a reinforced nudge that wasn't quite a PIT and wasn't quite a ram—just enough to upset his line. Another slid into the space he wanted to escape into, forcing him to choose between impact and surrender.
Tran chose impact.
The Corvette took it.
The street watched something it wasn't used to seeing:
A "cop car" that didn't flinch.
Tran's car spun, tires screaming, and pinned against a barrier in a shower of sparks. Doors flew open. Agents moved in hard and fast, weapons up, voices sharp, but not screaming—controlled.
Tran hit the pavement in cuffs with his pride bleeding into the asphalt.
And the rumor that followed wasn't about Johnny Tran getting arrested.
It was about how the Corvettes moved—how they didn't hesitate, how they didn't miss, how they ended it with ruthless efficiency that felt more like a military exercise than local enforcement.
The next targets weren't big names.
They were copycats.
Kids in cheap widebody kits who thought they could be the next Wanted. Guys who'd been doing sloppy "J-turn" attempts in parking lots. Crew runs that didn't have the discipline to keep a lookout.
The task force ate them alive.
Not with brutality for brutality's sake—worse than that. With competence.
They shut down entire clusters in minutes. They boxed cars before they hit the on-ramp. They used coordinated lane control to funnel drivers into dead ends. They didn't get drawn into long chases that made them look stupid.
They ended it.
Every time.
By the end of the week, the city had a new ghost story.
Not Wanted.
The black Corvettes.
People argued about who they were—FBI, DHS, some secret unit—because the LAPD didn't move like that. The task force didn't have a nickname yet, but it had a feeling:
A cold hand on the back of your neck when you heard a deep V8 and saw two black silhouettes sliding into your blind spot.
Forums lit up with panic and fascination.
"They're not cops. Cops don't drive like that.""They took Tran like he was nothing.""I swear they let one guy run just to watch where everyone scattered.""They're hunting the ghost. They're going to kill somebody.""Street's dead. It's over.""Nah. It's just changing."
In the real scene, the laughter died fast.
People still met, but they met smaller. Quieter. More paranoid. The street stopped feeling like a playground and started feeling like a war zone where someone else owned the air.
And under that pressure, everybody started making the same mistake:
They blamed the myth for the hunters.
They blamed Wanted for the task force.
Jacob felt the change the moment he stepped back into Dom's orbit.
He'd returned to Toretto's shop with the kind of careful calm he'd been practicing—no dramatic entrances, no evasive excuses, just Jacob Cooper showing up like he belonged. But the air inside the garage was tighter than it had been a week ago.
Dom's crew wasn't just tired.
They were hunted-tired.
Leon spoke less. Jesse's nervous energy stayed close to the surface. Letty's jokes had sharper edges. Vince prowled like a dog that couldn't decide whether to bite or protect.
Mia was behind the counter, sorting parts, but her eyes lifted the second Jacob walked in—relief softening her face in a way that made Jacob's chest ache.
"You came," she said, as if she'd been bracing for him to vanish.
"Yeah," Jacob replied quietly. "I'm here."
She stepped out from behind the counter and hugged him before he could prepare for it—brief, warm, real. Jacob froze for half a heartbeat, then returned it, careful not to hold too long.
He felt people watching.
Letty watching like she always did.
Dom watching with that quiet weight.
Vince watching with a complicated expression Jacob still couldn't fully read.
And then Brian showed up.
He came in with his shoulders tight and his eyes haunted, like someone had poured guilt into him and told him to carry it like a badge. Brian's gaze flicked to Jacob immediately—too fast, too loaded—then away, like he didn't trust what his face might reveal.
Mia noticed him. "Brian," she said, cautious.
Brian nodded, forcing a small smile. "Hey."
His eyes flicked to the TV in the corner where a news anchor was talking about "a new specialized enforcement unit" while footage showed black Corvettes sliding into formation. Brian looked like he wanted to turn the TV off with his bare hands.
Jacob didn't say anything.
He didn't need to. The guilt in Brian was loud enough.
Mia looked between them, sensing the tension. She didn't ask why. She'd learned not to pull on threads that might snap.
Vince, surprisingly, didn't go for Brian's throat this time.
Not openly.
He leaned against a fender and watched Brian like he was still suspicious, still ready to pounce—but there was something new in it too:
Acceptance.
Not of Brian as family.
Not of Brian as friend.
Acceptance of Brian as a constant presence—an irritating, complicated piece of their world that wasn't going away.
And Vince's attention didn't stay on Brian for long.
It drifted back to Jacob.
Jacob felt it.
The rivalry was still there—Vince's jealousy didn't vanish overnight—but it had shifted. It wasn't just territorial rage anymore.
It had become a grudging, uncomfortable understanding:
Jacob had saved Mia.
Jacob had helped Vince without humiliating him.
And Jacob had been showing up.
That mattered in Dom's world.
Vince walked past Jacob at one point and muttered, low enough that only Jacob heard, "You still think Sunny's a problem?"
Jacob nodded once. "Yeah."
Vince didn't argue. He just exhaled hard and said, "Good," like confirmation made him feel less crazy.
Then, a beat later, Vince added, rough and awkward, "You… you're alright."
It wasn't a compliment.
It was Vince admitting, in his language, that Jacob had earned a place.
Jacob didn't smile big.
He just nodded. "You too."
Across the shop, Mia kept drifting back toward Jacob—asking his opinion on a part, handing him a rag, making a small joke that only really landed with him. It wasn't dramatic.
It was gradual.
Like she was leaning toward the person who made her feel steadier in a world that kept getting sharper.
Brian saw it.
Jacob didn't need to look to know Brian saw it. He felt it in the way Brian's jaw tightened slightly, in the way Brian went quiet when Mia laughed at something Jacob said.
Brian didn't lash out.
He didn't have the energy anymore.
He just looked tired—like he was losing on too many fronts at once, and the worst part was he couldn't even explain why without burning his cover and betraying people he'd started to care about.
Mia glanced at Brian once, concern flickering. "You okay?" she asked him.
Brian's smile was thin. "Yeah. Just… work stuff."
Dom watched all of them with that same calm, heavy attention he always carried. He didn't comment on Mia leaning toward Jacob. He didn't comment on Vince's changing posture. He didn't comment on Brian's guilt.
He only said, quietly, "Heat's rising."
And everyone understood what he meant now.
Because the black Corvettes had changed the city's rules.
Copycats were getting crushed.
Big names like Tran were getting taken.
And somewhere in the center of it all, a ghost named Wanted kept pulling the whole street scene into the spotlight—whether he wanted that attention or not.
Jacob stood near Mia, listening to the shop breathe, and felt the weight of his own secrets press deeper.
He had built Dom's first NFS-style upgrades.
He had armed his own myth with defenses the world couldn't understand.
And now, enforcement had built an answer in matte-black steel.
He looked at Mia—steady, tired, kind—and felt a sick, protective ache.
Because the more she leaned toward him, the more the city's tightening grip felt personal.
And Jacob knew, with cold clarity, that when the task force finally caught up to Wanted's myth…
…it wouldn't just be a chase.
It would be a collision that could swallow everyone he'd started to call "us."
...
Dom felt the pressure of the black Corvettes like a hand tightening around his city.
It wasn't just the arrests—though Tran getting folded up and cuffed like a nobody had sent a message louder than sirens. It was the competence. The cold, coordinated way the task force moved. The way they didn't chase to entertain anymore—they chased to end.
Dom saw it in the shop too. In the way customers talked quieter. In the way people glanced at the TV in the corner like it might bite. In the way even Letty's laughter came sharper, more careful.
One evening after the bays closed and the sky went dark, Dom caught Jacob near the back of the shop while Mia was busy inside. Letty was with Dom—arms crossed, eyes narrowed, that predatory calm that meant she was taking everything in.
Dom didn't make it a big conversation.
He didn't call Jacob out in front of anyone.
He just stepped close enough that it felt private and spoke low.
"You seen those Corvettes," Dom said.
Jacob didn't pretend ignorance. "Yeah."
Letty's gaze held Jacob's. "They're not playing."
Jacob's throat tightened. "I know."
Dom's voice stayed calm. "So I'm asking you straight."
Jacob's stomach dropped, because Dom's "straight" wasn't the same as anyone else's. Dom's straight meant this matters.
"What can you do," Dom asked, "to give us an edge? Not to race. To live."
Letty added quietly, "To keep family safe."
Jacob felt the weight of those words settle onto his ribs like a chain. He'd been trying to convince himself his upgrades were just mechanical favors, just tuning, just support.
But Dom was naming the truth:
This was an arms race now.
The street scene wasn't fighting cops the old way anymore.
It was trying to survive a hunt.
Jacob swallowed and chose his answer like he always chose his lies—truth-shaped, safe at the edges.
"I can make your cars harder to stop," Jacob said.
Dom's eyes stayed steady. "How."
Jacob kept his voice low. "Better braking under heat. Traction control that doesn't make you lose power at the worst moment. Reinforcement where it matters. And… countermeasures."
Letty's eyebrows lifted. "Countermeasures."
Jacob nodded once. "Nothing obvious," he said quickly. "Not weapons. Just… ways to break contact. Ways to keep you from getting boxed."
Dom stared at him, jaw working. "You can do that."
Jacob forced himself to meet Dom's eyes. "Yeah."
Letty's voice was sharp. "Where are you getting this stuff, Jacob."
Jacob didn't answer the real question.
He gave the answer Dom's world accepted when it needed to keep moving: a controlled half-truth.
"I source," he said again.
Dom didn't like it, but Dom also didn't waste time on questions when danger was immediate. He nodded once—decision made.
"Then do it," Dom said.
Letty held Jacob's gaze a beat longer. "If this brings heat—"
"I'll be careful," Jacob said.
Dom's voice dropped, lower than before. "That's not what I asked."
Jacob's throat tightened.
Dom stepped closer, and for the first time the weight in his tone felt almost personal.
"I'm asking if you can keep them safe," Dom said. "If you can keep Mia safe."
Letty didn't soften, but her eyes sharpened with the same point: Don't offer what you can't protect.
Jacob felt the ache of it in his chest—because he wanted to say yes the way you said yes to a promise that mattered, and he also knew his life was built on secrets that could swallow them all.
He nodded anyway.
"I'll keep you safe," Jacob said quietly. "I'll do everything I can."
Dom studied him in silence, like he was measuring the truth of the promise against the man who made it.
Then Dom nodded once and stepped back, the matter settled the way Dom settled things—by choosing a direction and committing.
Letty's mouth twitched, almost approval. Almost warning. "Don't make me regret trusting you," she said.
Jacob managed a faint smile. "I won't."
But inside, he felt the trap tighten again:
Every time he gave them more, he tied himself deeper into their survival.
The street scene reacted the way it always did when challenged.
It adapted.
Arrests didn't kill it—they sharpened it.
Runs got quieter, smaller, more disciplined. People stopped doing flashy copycat stunts and started doing something worse: they got smart. Lookouts with scanners. Decoy cars. Meet points rotating like passwords. Engines tuned for torque and quick escapes instead of show.
New builds started appearing in back lots—cars with reinforced bumpers and fresh suspension setups, drivers bragging about "anti-box" handling, "heat-proof brakes," "ghost tunes." Half of it was nonsense. Half of it was the scene trying to evolve under pressure.
And the task force answered every evolution with more brutality.
More arrests. More roadblocks. More precision.
Less patience.
The city felt like it was grinding teeth at night.
Then someone got hurt in a way the rumors couldn't laugh off.
She wasn't a headline name. Not a legend. Not someone the news would call "notorious."
She was just part of the orbit—loosely connected to Hector's crew, a girl who drove because driving made her feel like she owned her own life for a few minutes. She'd been at a couple meets. She'd laughed with the right people. She'd kept her car clean and her runs mostly quiet.
That night she ran anyway—wrong place, wrong time, caught in the net that didn't care about nuance.
The Corvette task force lit up behind her on an industrial stretch, and the chase was short because the Corvettes didn't do long chases.
They closed. They boxed. They forced an angle.
And when she tried to slip out—panicked, less trained than the ghost they were really hunting—metal met metal.
Hard.
Her car spun, clipped a barrier, and folded into it with a sound that made every witness flinch. Glass burst. The vehicle came to rest at an angle that looked like surrender.
She didn't get up.
The scene went quiet as if someone had turned the volume down on the whole city.
Ambulance lights painted the concrete in harsh red. Officers formed a perimeter. Radios barked. Someone shouted that she was breathing.
Hospitalized, the word spread later—broken ribs, concussion, a leg shattered badly enough the doctors used words like "recovery" and "months" and "maybe."
It wasn't a myth anymore.
It was a body.
And that haunted Brian.
He saw it in flashes even when he blinked—her car folding, her scream swallowed by sirens, the moment officers moved in and the world didn't rewind like a system repair.
He sat in his car afterward with his hands trembling on the wheel, not because he was scared of danger, but because he recognized the shape of what they were doing.
They were hunting a ghost and hitting real people.
They were escalating, and escalation always demanded blood somewhere.
Sunny called it necessary.
The Bureau called it adjustment.
Bilkins called it pressure.
Brian called it what it was, silently, because saying it out loud felt like betrayal:
Collateral.
The next day at the station, when people talked about the incident like it was a "successful interdiction," Brian felt something crack inside him. Not dramatic. Just a small, deadly fracture in the belief that this task force was protecting anyone.
He saw the girl's face in his mind—someone he didn't even know well enough to name.
And he thought of Mia.
And he thought of Dom's family.
And he thought of Jacob—quiet mechanic, too-calm eyes, promises he shouldn't have made.
Brian swallowed hard and stared at the TV replaying the black Corvettes' synchronized movement like it was a triumph.
He didn't feel proud.
He felt sick.
Because the hunt for Wanted was no longer a chase.
It was a machine.
And machines didn't care what they crushed as long as they kept moving.