Chapter 249

[ 1,007 words ]

Katia’s POV

I heard about it from my crew before I heard about it anywhere else.

That was how the underground circuit worked. News moved through it the way it moved through any closed community—fast, word of mouth, encrypted channels, and the network of people who had been in the same world long enough to trust each other with things that did not exist officially.

Sam sent me the message at eleven PM on a Thursday.

You need to see this.

He had attached a screenshot. A post on one of the private circuit forums—members only, no real names, the kind of place where the serious people talked and the tourists got filtered out quickly. Someone had posted under the handle Phoenix_GT, and the post had seventeen thousand views in four hours.

I read it twice.

Tessa Sterling had shown up at the Brooklyn underground two nights ago.

She had not come quietly. She had arrived in a GT3 she had brought down from the Sterling Motorsports compound upstate—a race-prepped Porsche 911, professional livery stripped off and replaced with matte black, the kind of preparation that said she had been planning this for a while. She had run three heats. She had won all three. She had done it by margins that nobody in the Brooklyn underground had seen in a long time.

And then she had talked.

That was the part that had seventeen thousand views.

She had stood on the asphalt after her third win with a crowd around her and said—in front of cameras, in front of the circuit regulars, in front of everyone who mattered in the underground world—that no local driver could touch her.

That street racing was a hobby for amateurs. That the only person in this city whose skill she might respect was the masked driver they called Catwoman, and since Catwoman was clearly a myth or a coward or both, she was standing here unchallenged, and she intended to stay that way.

She had named a number.

Five hundred thousand dollars.

Winner takes all. One race. Any circuit. Any car. Catwoman picks the terms.

Five hundred thousand dollars sitting on the table and a professional GT racer with three underground wins and a mouth she clearly did not know how to keep shut.

I put my phone down.

I picked it up again.

I read the post a third time.

A myth or a coward.

I had been racing underground since I was eighteen. I had built the Catwoman name over eight years on circuits in four cities. I had won the biggest underground event in Las Vegas six years ago against the most feared driver on the circuit. I had never lost a race I entered, and I had never been called a coward by anyone who was still standing after they said it.

I put the phone face down on the desk.

I stood up and went to the window and looked at Brooklyn below me—the streets, the lights, the city doing what it did at eleven PM, which was exist at full volume without apology.

Tessa Sterling had walked into my corporate boardroom and tried to buy my company. I had taken forty-two million dollars from her and sent her out in front of her own lawyers. She had kissed a man at a public event, and I had stood in a lobby and dismantled her in four minutes.

She had not learned.

Some people needed the lesson delivered in a language they actually understood.

I picked up my phone and opened the forum.

I logged in under the Catwoman handle. I had not posted on this forum in eight months. My last post had been a race confirmation that had since been archived. When my handle appeared in the thread, the notification counter started moving immediately—people had alert systems set up for this name, which told me everything I needed to know about how the challenge had landed in the community.

I typed one line.

Name the date.

I posted it.

I put the phone down.

Within forty seconds Sam was calling.

“You saw it,” she said.

“I saw it,” I said.

“The Phoenix,” she said. “She is the real thing, Katia. Professional GT, factory backed, she has been racing since she was sixteen. This is not Christopher from the family dinner. This is not some rich kid with a fast car. She knows what she is doing on asphalt p>

“So do I,” I said.

“I know,” she said. “I am just telling you what you are walking into p>

“I know what I am walking into,” I said. “Get the Valkyrie ready. Full prep. I want new tyres, I want the suspension recalibrated for night conditions, and I want the data from the last three Brooklyn circuits she ran reviewed before we discuss strategy p>

Sam was quiet for a moment.

“The Valkyrie,” she said. “You are not playing p>

“I never play,” I said.

“Okay,” she said. “I will get the crew together. What about security? If Tessa finds out who Catwoman is p>

“She does not know who Catwoman is,” I said. “And she is not going to find out. Same protocols as always. No faces, no names, no digital trail from the circuit back to IG Technologies p>

“Sam,” I called, and she stopped. “Get the car ready,” I said.

“Yes, boss,” she said.

I hung up.

I stood at the window for a while longer. The forum notifications were still moving—the underground circuit had woken up, people pulling in from other cities, and the kind of energy that built around a genuine challenge between two people who could actually back it up.

Tessa had picked her battlefield.

She had no idea she had picked mine.

I picked up my coffee.

I went back to work.

The race would come when it came. Until then I had a company to run and a murder charge being dismantled piece by piece and a man sleeping in my bed who was not mine.

One thing at a time.

If you find any errors (non-standard content, ads redirect, broken links, etc Please let us know so we can fix it as soon as possible.