Leticia Ortiz hated being called "Anabella". She really just hated the name. She'd known a priss girl her senior year of high school who did nothing all year but try to steal her boyfriend. Letty had to admit, her boyfriend was a real catch but the girl was a real skank and ever since, she'd hated the name.
As for her boyfriend...
Letty ignored the aching in her chest as she stood next to Sean's girlfriend, Neela, and watched men, horny for chicks and cars, show off their rides. This was the third night Sean had brought her here and damn, if she wasn't sick of all the same guys trying to hit on her.
Including Twinkie.
The first night Sean had asked her to come, she refused. She really didn't need to get all caught up in racing again. It's what had gotten her into this mess in the first place. But the second night, she couldn't resist. She needed to be around cars, around racing, it was in her blood. Her boyfriend use to say NOS was in her veins.
Boyfriend?
Ex-boyfriend, through no consequence of her own.
She wished she was still with him, but…
No, Letty. Stop that. You're Anabella Gonzalez now and you've never heard of--
"Dominic Toretto, man! I'm tellin' you, it was him!" She heard Twinkie's voice trail across the parking garage.
For three nights since the night she'd agreed to come, Letty had been coming to this place with Sean. But this was the first night she was actually interested in what was going on. Her ears perked and she turned her dark eyes toward Twinkie and the group of guys he was with, one them being Sean.
"Who's that?" Sean's thick drawl questioned.
"Dude, are you stupid?" Twinkie replied. "That's the dude you raced the other night! The one who smoked your drift car in a fuckin' muscle car, man."
"Oh, him."
Dom?
Here?
Which night?
"Man, that was five days ago, let it go!" Sean replied, obviously butt-hurt that he'd actually lost to someone so soon after claiming the title of Drift King. "He's probably long left Tokyo by now."
Letty hoped so. If he saw her…if he found her…
"Man, but this dude is a legend, Sean. A legend! The dude did time in California, man. Lompoc, I hear. Then he went on to be, like, one of the greatest street racers ever. But I heard he use to jack like, big rigs, man. Got him in big trouble with the feds. He dropped off the radar after that. But I swear to you, dude, it was him!"
"How do you know?" asked one of the less important guys there.
"Found a picture of him in Han's garage. Labeled. I mean, I didn't get a great look at him when he was here, but I swear he looked like the guy in the picture. There was a girl too." He looked over at Letty. "She kinda looked like you, Ana!"
"Chingo entrometido. Callate," replied the woman. A picture of the team? That was bad. She couldn't have any evidence of her old life floating around. It would be dangerous. "Let me see that picture, Twinkie."
Twinkie whipped it out and showed it to her. "See? Here's Dom. Tough looking chico, ain't he?"
"Don't do that."
"What?"
"Try to speak Spanish."
Twinkie grinned and then pointed. "And this chick. She looks like you."
Letty snatched the picture from him and stuffed it in her bra, and then looked at Twinkie with 'just-try-it' eyes. "Stick your hand anywhere it don't need to be, negros, and I'll break your fingers, comprende?"
"Aw, come on! Give it back! What's it to you?"
"Maybe I think Han will want it. Maybe I wanna put it on Han's grave, ever think of that? Pendejo."
She sniffed, indignantly after that and then held out her hand to Sean. "Let me see your keys."
"What?"
"Gimme your keys, gringo. I wanna race."
"Ha! You wanna drift? Gimme a break, Ana. Just 'cause you know cars and work on cars don't mean you can do this. It's not easy. Took me months of trainin' with Han 'fore I could get the hang'a it." Sean smirked at her, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning against the hood of his car. "What makes you think you can do it?"
"Well, gimme your keys, and we'll find out, won't we?" She crooked her fingers at him. "Now give 'em here."
"Fine, but if you trash 'er, your fixin' 'er for free," replied Sean, dropping his keys into her hand before he grinned at the group huddled around his car. "This oughta be good."
Letty climbed behind the wheel of Sean's Mustang, and smirked. "So which of you is brave enough to race me?"
A tall, slim Japanese guy snorted and stepped forward, his hair slicked back over his head and his body covered in ripped jeans and a mesh shirt. "I'll race you, gaijinn."
Letty's eyes blazed and her smirk grew. "Then lets go."
In a matter of minutes, both cars were rumbling on the starting line at the bottom of the parking garage.
Sean stood in front of both cars and smirked. "You know what you're doin', Ana?"
"I seen you do this before, I know the rules. Lets go!" Letty replied, determination and the first remnants of adrenaline pumping in her dark eyes.
Sean raised an eyebrow at her then pointed to the right.
"Ready!"
He grinned wide and pointed to the left.
"Set-o!"
Then he grinned at Letty. "Gambatte." With that, he yelled, "GO!"
The cars, took off, and Letty fell behind, but she didn't count herself out yet. As the first turn came up, she double-clutched and shifted and the car drifted easily around the corner.
As he boarded the elevator, Sean's eyes widened in surprise before the doors closed and started up to the top.
Street racing was diverse. If a competitor wanted a drag race, then the racers would drag race. If they wanted a regular, closed-streets, all-or-nothing race, that's what they got. And if they wanted to drift? Same deal.
So Letty knew how to drift. Dom had taught her. Dom had taught her a lot of things.
She fell behind again, growling. She couldn't let him distract her. He wasn't here. She'd never see him again most likely. Too dangerous. Too vulnerable. She shifted again and stomped on the accelerator, jerking the wheel and drifting around one last turn, pulling into the lead before she shifted one last time, pulling the car into a drift up the last spiral.
When she reached the top, she brought the car to a hard stop, and turned her head to look at Sean. A big, cocky grin spread over her face. "You were saying?"
A crowd of people rushed to her, pulling her out of the car and hoisting her up, as Twinkie turned on some loud hip-hop music, watching the crowd burst into party-mode yet again.
Sean, however, just stood there and stared incredulously as the girl who'd so easily drifted his car into the good-graces of the drifters here, when it had taken him months to do.
He took a step forward and pulled her down from her throne of arms and looked at her. "How'd you win? You were behind! And you barely beat that guy? How'd you even know how to drift?"
Letty closed her eyes, and found some words from a long time ago lingering within her, words from a muscular street-racing legend on the streets of LA to a street-racing upstart-gone-undercover-cop. She opened her eyes and looked at Sean. "It doesn't matter if you win by an inch or a mile. Winning is winning. As for drifting? There are a lot of things you don't know about me. So close your mouth, or you'll end up catching flies, gringo."
She smirked and pushed past him, over to the party, joining into the festivities and leaving Sean to gape.
A lot of things you don't know…
Well then, Sean thought, I guess it's time I found out.
-*-
Letty worked at a new garage since Han's death. She worked there from late afternoon until closing, since morning to early afternoon was taken up by school. She was also able to work all day long on weekends, and she loved that most of all.
Working with cars calmed her, gave her a chance to think, to understand the possible reasons why the four letter word for what she was living had gone from life to shit in a matter of a few short months.
All of those reasons came back to Dominic Toretto.
If she hadn't lived down the street from him, she wouldn't have met him. If she hadn't have met him, she wouldn't have fallen for him. If she hadn't fallen for him, she wouldn't have stuck by him. If she hadn't stuck by him, she wouldn't have had to hijack trucks. If she hadn't had to hijack trucks, they wouldn't have had to run. If they hadn't run, the cops wouldn't have been after him. If the cops weren't after him, he wouldn't have left.
And if he hadn't left, she wouldn't be in this situation. She wouldn't have driven goods for Braga, or almost been killed, or had to be put in witness protection. She'd be in America, probably finishing up college, getting a good job, marrying a good man, having kids.
She clenched her jaw tight as she put down her wrench and picked up some pliers, her whole body covered by a massive '90 Honda Civic who's engine wasn't running the way the owner, a car collector, wanted it to.
No, she didn't want that life. She didn't want the white picket fence and the perfect man and the 9 to 5 job. She liked the adrenaline of being around cars. She liked knowing she had made the bad boy fall in love with her, that he was faithful—as far as she knew—only to her. She liked getting engine grease under her nails.
She wasn't a girly-girl. She wore torn jeans, cargo pants, and didn't care of her thong—or boxers, depending on her mood—was showing a little. She liked her dirty wife-beaters and t-shirts reading 'Cars Boys' and her platform shoes with tacky flames.
She liked her life. Or she had before everything had gone down. Now, she questioned her choices.
But no matter how much she went back to the beginning, to when she'd first met him, and tried to change it and follow the line of her life since that change, somehow she always ended up meeting him again, somewhere, somehow.
Like a gravitational pull. Like fate. Like he was the other half of her soul and he would always be a part of her life.
Dammit, she cursed, blinking back lonely tears, angrily. She didn't cry. She never cried. Not since…
No, she didn't need to dredge up even more painful memories. She just needed to finish this car.
"Gonzarez!" cried the old owner of the shop, always messing up her alias because of the 'R' and 'L' mess up that many Asians who spoke English made. But she had learned to ignore it as she slid out from under the Honda and looked at him.
He pointed and she saw a sleek black sedan driving into the garage. She'd seen this car before. The man who drove it was a chauffer and the men who climbed out of the back were always dressed in slick suits. Older Japanese men. Usually from about middle-age up until early to late sixties. Sometimes they wore long coats over their suits.
She wasn't stupid. Long coats usually meant some sort of concealment of a weapon or illegal substance.
Letty stood up and wiped her hands, straightening her grease-covered wife-beater and wiping her sweaty brow, stray tendrils of hair from her ponytail clinging to her moist forehead. She watched as the men she always saw stepped out of the car.
One always caught her eye in particular. He was young. Probably around her age. His ink-black hair was always spiked or slicked back, and his eyes were slanted and dark. His skin was pale and he wore a suit as black as his hair, and pinstriped. He also wore a long coat like his compatriots but despite his age, they seemed to flock around him like wolves flocking the alpha in a pack.
She doubted he was really any sort of leader to them but she had no doubt his father or some relative was.
The man walked right past her, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye before he stopped in front of the owner. They exchanged a few words in rapid-fire Japanese but Letty heard a word she knew. A word she often caught in their conversations when they came into the garage.
Yakuza.
The man started back toward his car and then stopped in front of her. "You need to fix that car, understand? El caro fixo, comprende?"
Letty wanted to punch him. But that word, yakuza, it scared her. She also wanted to laugh at how stupid he sounded, saying fake Spanish words in his Japanese accent.
"I speak English," she murmured. "And obviously, so do you."
The man smirked. "Ah, ii desu. Suki daiyo, gaijinn."
Letty narrowed her eyes at him but went to the car and popped the hood. "What seems to be the problem?"
"It sputters when we start and stop it. It's also making some strange clanking noise. Fix it and fix it by tomorrow. It's important we have this car back by then," replied the man and holding up a wad of cash. "I already paid the owner. This if for you if you can get the job done in the time allotted. We have a deal?"
Letty looked at the money. Was it dirty? It wasn't like she hadn't dealt with dirty money before. But Yakuza? They were a big deal. Did she want to get tangled up in this by taking his money?
She could use the money. College wasn't cheap and Mr. Boswell did expect her to pay rent, as well.
And she'd been in worse situations before. She figured it was at least safer than what her predicament would be if she was in America.
She nodded. "Your car will be done by tomorrow."
"Good. I'll be back then and if what you say is true, you'll get your money."
He snapped his fingers and as they left the garage, she noticed another sleek black sedan pulling up to take him and his "posse" away.
She placed her hands on her hips and looked at the man's car. How did she get herself into these messes?
-*-
Dominic Toretto had always believed that family came first. So when he'd heard that Han was dead, he'd immediately found discreet transportation to Tokyo.
He'd attended Han's service, where he found a huge group of young men all paying respects. They all had Japanese cars. Nice cars. Drift cars. He'd come to visit Han in Tokyo before. It was a short visit. But Han and he had fixed up an American muscle car—a 1970 Plymouth Roadrunner—and Han had promised to keep it well hidden so Dom could find it and use it if the need came.
Throughout the service there were whispers of a new Drift King in town and when Dom had found out some southern white-boy named Sean Boswell was that person, he realized he needed to bring his Roadrunner out of hiding.
He raced this "DK" on his own turf and the race had been close, but as usual, Dom had come out ahead. Of course, it wasn't enough to strip the DK of his title. After all, Dom wasn't staying in Tokyo permanently. Enough to pay tributes to Han and do a little racing and then he would be on his way back to the states, back to Mia and Brian.
Then he saw her.
Walking down the street casually, one day, she probably didn't even know he'd seen her. He himself didn't realize he was seeing her. He thought she was a ghost, a hallucination, a product of too many exhaust fumes.
But no…
No one else had those eyes. The eyes that stared through the "bullshit" as he'd once put it. Eyes of an angel and a devil all rolled into one.
She was waiting at a bus stop, dressed in a pair of loose jeans and a t-shirt that read something about cars and boys and her hair was down around her face, but it was definitely her.
Letty.
He called out to her but the large bus came pulling up, honking at a small car in its way and he knew his voice would get lost in the struggle of sounds.
When the bus pulled away, she was gone.
It seemed instantaneous, in fact, and he wondered if he'd ever seen her at all.
Yet, something inside of him told him he couldn't just ignore what he'd seen and what he'd felt.
The first payphone he found after that, he used. He didn't use a cell phone much anymore. To easy to trace.
He called Mia.
"Hello?"
"It's me."
"Dom? Are you okay? How was your friend's service?"
"It was nice, Mia. He had a lot of good friends out here. He was well liked."
"Good. I'm so sorry, Dom. All of this happening so soon after Letty—"
"That's why I called, Mia. Look, I…there's something here I gotta look into. It has to do with Letty, and possibly Han too. So, I'm gonna be stayin' for a few more days."
"Dom…please don't go on anymore wild goose chases. I said it before…nothing you do will bring her ba—"
"Okane o kudasai," said the phone and Dom frowned.
"I'm running out of time here, Mia. I'll call you when I get a chance."
"Dom, don't—"
The line went dead.
-*-
These translations are rough. If anyone knows the exact translation, please let me know:
Chingo entrometido = Fucking nosy
Callate = Shut up
Gringo = white boy
Pendejo = An insult close to dumbass or asshole
Gaijinn = Newcomer
Gambatte = Good luck
ii desu = Good
Suki daiyo = I like you
Yakuza = The Japanese mafia.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.