Back at the mountain base, the war rig was in for a tune-up. The air inside the armoury smelled of oil, frost, and victory.
Devon walked into the common room, casually tossing four black credit chips onto the table. Each glinted with encrypted high-value codes.
"Split from the Cold Core job," he said. "One million each."
Logan blinked. "You're serious?"
Lacy raised an eyebrow but said nothing, sliding her chip into her wrist pad. The silent "credit received" tone dinged.
Rayen didn't even flinch. "What's the catch?"
"No catch," Devon said, sitting on the edge of the table. "We move as a unit, we get paid as a unit. I don't care if you're muscle, wheels, or eyes in the sky your share's your share."
He let that hang in the air a moment before continuing.
"But if we're gonna be more than just a merc crew, we need to tighten the screws. We don't react. We anticipate. Every mission, every run we dominate the terrain before we even get in the car."
Logan crossed his arms. "You talking drills?"
"Drills. Sim runs. Code red and blackzone scenarios. The next op isn't gonna be some icy backwater. We'll be facing drones, smart walls, predictive AI. We can't just be fast. We have to evolve."
Lacy, ever the soldier, nodded. "Then let's evolve."
Rayen smiled faintly. "I'll set up the new training modules. Should we run Eteon countermeasures, too?"
"Load all of them," Devon said. "I want every one of us ready for war."
Later That Night
In the server core of the base, Devon ran maintenance on his personal terminal. The system was growing more nodes, more queries, more encrypted missions on offer. But something caught his eye in the black-net chatter.
A new news drop. Interpol bulletin. Braga Arturo Braga captured by Mexican authorities. No big shock. He'd been low-tier cartel trash with a fetish for speed and smuggling. What interested Devon wasn't Braga's capture.
It was who took him down.
A crew.
Not DEA. Not Interpol. A ghost crew that barreled through Braga's network like thunder.
He leaned forward, running facial recog on the footage. A bald man lifting a flipped car with sheer muscle. A woman with precision reflexes driving like gravity didn't matter. Two others—one ex-military, one techhead.
The system pulled a name.
Dominic Toretto.
Devon's eyes narrowed. He remembered the name.
Street legend. King of East L.A. A man who once drove a Charger off a cliff and walked away.
The system gave more names.
Letty Ortiz. Brian O'Conner. Roman Pearce. Tej Parker.
This wasn't a crew. It was a phenomenon.
"These people aren't ghosts," Devon murmured. "They're earthquakes."
He leaned back in his chair, eyes calculating. Braga was a pawn. But the ones who'd taken him down? They were making waves.
Devon opened a secure file and added a new tab.
TARGET GROUP: DOMINIC TORETTO & CREWStatus: Unaligned OperatorsThreat Level: Medium to RisingEngagement: Observe Only
The system chimed.
Observation Task Added: Learn the limits of the Toretto Crew. Compare tactical evolution with current crew model.Bonus: Unknown. Risk: Variable.Priority: Optional. Curiosity Flag Triggered.
Devon closed the terminal, his thoughts racing.
He didn't know if Toretto was a threat, an ally, or something more complicated. But instinct told him this crew didn't just survive in the fire they thrived in it.
And sooner or later, paths would cross.