Page 13 of Cold Ignition

Keanu shot him another glare. "Eventually, people started noticing."

"And that," Ethan said quietly, "is usually when things go bad."

"Exactly." Keanu pushed away from the wall and walked toward the center table. "I got pulled into a crowd that was deeper than just racing. It was a crime, and it was organized. Violent. The kind of people who use speed for things that aren't exactly legal."

"Smuggling drugs," Victor guessed.

"Among other things." Keanu rested his hands on the table. "They didn't just want drivers. They wanted assets. People who could move things fast and disappear."

Silence settled over the room.

"And when I realized what I'd stepped into," Keanu continued quietly, "I had to call family to help me to get out."

His eyes lifted to Kael. The older man didn't hesitate.

"I'd do it again, little bruddah," Kael said simply. "Anytime."

Keanu nodded once. "I know."

Drew leaned forward. "Okay, so what actually happened?"

Keanu exhaled slowly. "Danger," he said. "Blackmail. Violence. In that spectacular order. Then I got the hell out, and I never looked back." He met Bateman's gaze again. "Which is why I'm curious who exactly asked for me."

Bateman finally leaned forward. "Atua," he said.

The word landed like a hammer. Keanu went still.

Bateman continued. "And Lykos."

The room faded.

Keanu wasn't standing inside Black Tide headquarters anymore. He was somewhere else entirely. Heat. Dust. Engines screaming through canyon walls. A pair of headlights sliding into his rearview like ghosts.

A voice over the radio laughed like the race itself was a religion. And a man who drove like the road belonged to him, and the past he thought he'd buried two and a half years ago had just come roaring back across the desert.

With two names he hadn't expected to hear ever again.

****

Six years earlier.

The desert canyon pulsed with life.

Engines rolled through the narrow walls in deep, thunderous waves, the sound trapped and amplified until it felt like the rock itself was vibrating beneath the weight of it. Headlights cut through the dust hanging thick in the air, turning it into something almost tangible—gold and silver streaks shifting with every movement. The smell of fuel and overheated rubber lingered, heavy and familiar, clinging to skin and lungs alike.

Keanu stood beside his car, one hand resting lightly against the warm metal of the Hellcat’s hood. The black paint swallowed the light, broken only by the stylized flames that curled along the lower panels, as though the machine had already been claimed by fire. His racing suit was sealed, helmet already on, mirrored visor down. No face. No identity.

Just Ahi.

Around him, the canyon was chaos—crowds perched along ridgelines and truck beds, music vibrating through the ground, voices rising and falling in waves of anticipation. But Keanu’s focus wasn’t on them. It never was.

He watched the drivers.

Watched the way they moved. The way they handled their machines before the race had even begun. That was where the truth lived.

“Big night,” a driver nearby said, shifting a crate of drinks as he passed. “Bigger money than usual.”

Keanu reached out, taking one without looking away from the line of cars ahead. “Same road,” he replied calmly. “Same physics.”