Word Count: 2,081/27,373
Chapter 09
As Brian steered David Park towards the processing room, he vaguely heard Stasiak yelling at him. He really wasn't in the mood to deal with the asshole right now, so he ignored him.
At least, he did right up until Stasiak tried to grab him.
He saw the threat out of the corner of his eye and reacted without thinking. He slammed Stasiak's face against the wall twice before letting the other agent slide to the ground. He only just managed to keep a smirk off his face when Penning reprimanded Stasiak for bleeding on the floors and forced himself to give his boss the answer that he wanted.
"It's almost like he knows something," Letty said of Penning as Brian none-so-gently pushed Park through the door and into a chair.
He went through the motions on autopilot, his mind far away from the processing room.
Dom- had changed. He was different, darker. When he was under with DTs five years ago, he hadn't felt threatened by Dom's presence. Sure, he knew the jacket and what Dom had done to Lindner, but it hadn't been-
Grief was a powerful thing. He knew that, better than anyone. And he had been able to see through the image to the man behind the record. He meant what he had told Tanner all those years ago. Dom was so full of perfectly controlled violence.
Brian hadn't even been afraid out on the side of the highway, blowing his cover and calling for the airlift.
Well, he had been. But he had never been afraid that Dom would hurt him. Not physically. He had been afraid of losing the family that Dom had given him.
But seeing the other man today at Park's place, he had been wrong-footed. He knew what Dom was capable of, yes. But he had never believed it. Not until today. And that scared him more than anything.
He had done that. It was his fault that Dom was so cold and closed off.
If only he hadn't been a cop. If only he had been just a little bit faster and been able to save Jesse. If only he hadn't agreed to let Letty run for Braga. If only he had put the pieces together fast enough to keep her safe. If only he hadn't made the call to fake her death.
If only.
Letty was right. He had fallen in love with Dom all those years ago and he honestly didn't even know when or how. She may have given up her claim on Dom, but it didn't matter. There was no way Dom would ever want him. Not now. And especially not after he found out about Letty.
Now he'd be lucky if he ended up in the hospital after this. More than likely, he'd end up six feet under in the empty casket currently buried under Letty's name. Because Dom was the one person that Brian would never raise a hand to. Not even in self-defense.
Once he had processed and questioned Park, Brian found himself back in yet another meeting with the rest of the team. He spent way too much time in those stupid things. When Penning gave him the go-ahead, he silently celebrated. He couldn't wait to get back out there and actually do something.
One way or another, it would all be over soon: either he'd bag Braga and keep Dom out of prison, or he'd end up dead.
"All right, so these are all the imports the city has in impound," Sophie said, bringing up the photos on the screen.
"Okay, nice." Brian couldn't help the grin that came over his face. It'd been a while since he'd raced. A couple of drags out in the desert with Letty during training had been the extent. He hadn't done a good five mile since Miami.
"Pick your poison."
"All right. Twenty-two oh-six. I crashed one of those." He grinned at Sophie and his obvious excitement was catching because she grinned back. "Thirty-four eighteen. And Twenty-seven sixty-five."
"Okay. So which one do you want?" she asked, a little confused.
He just looked at her. "I want 'em all," he said. Duh.
Once he had the cars, he spent two days getting the Skyline in perfect condition. God, did that bring back memories. He missed that silver and blue baby he'd had down in Miami. Fucking customs had made sure he wasn't near the auction so he wasn't able to get it back.
He spent the time ignoring Letty, knowing that she would try to tell him what happened with Dom wasn't his fault, but he just couldn't believe that. Thankfully, Ali kept Letty busy with some simple exercises that she could do, even with her injuries.
When the grunt brought over the tracking device, he took it, despite knowing he'd have to kill it before they started the run. He had a cover to maintain here and it had nothing to do with Braga.
Finally, finally it was time for the qualifying race. It was held at the same place Letty's had been, so Brian had an advantage in that he knew the course already. He exchanged insults with the gay cowboy before Yashar broke it up.
As he followed her up to Campos, he locked eyes with Dom as the other man drove into the lot.
"Shit," he muttered, once Dom had driven passed him.
"What's wrong?" Austin asked.
"Dom's here. This may not be a quarter mile, but I've never beaten Dom before. I don't know if I can."
"You'll be fine, Bri," Letty reassured him. "Just race like you did in Miami. You got this."
He couldn't reply because they had reached Campos. He noticed Fenix sitting off to the side and growled under his breath.
"Easy, Bri. Fenix will get his."
Yashar went back downstairs to collect Dom while the other three drivers stood around, watching Campos hit a couple of golf balls out into the net stretched above the crowd. When Yashar returned with Dom, Campos went into his speech about what Braga had him looking for.
It went in one ear and out the other. He had given the exact same speech, word for word, two weeks ago before Letty's race.
"Idiot," Letty hissed when Dom asked what they were hauling. "Don't look so eager. Dammit, Dom, that's a rookie move! Vince was all over Brian for doing that."
Fortunately, it seemed that Fenix was the only one who took offence and he was easily placated. When the racer next to him asked who was closing the streets, Brian exchanged incredulous looks with Dom, barely resisting the urge to punch the dumbass.
They finally made it to the starting line. Brian and Dom had the two inside lanes and since Brian was driving a right side Skyline, that put them less than a foot apart. As the automated voice began the countdown, they looked at each other.
"You sure you want to do this?" Dom asked, a brief flicker of- something flashing across his face.
Brian just looked at him. "A lot has changed," he said.
Dom's face hardened. "You're right," he said before looking back out the front window.
More than you know, Brian thought, instinct being the only thing that had him leaping forward with the others. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Dom's car go up on the back wheels and flashed back to their last race together. He sent up a quick prayer to Jesse's car gods that this race had a better ending. He didn't think he could go through that again.
He swore when he had to slam on the breaks to avoid rear-ending the asshole in front of him and swore again two turns later when he had to turn onto a side street to avoid a crash caused by one of the other drivers.
That was his first clue that the GPS system had no idea what it was talking about. It was telling him to go right, except going right would send him back to the start, away from the finish line. He ignored it and turned left into an alley instead.
The stupid thing continued to say 'rerouting' every couple of seconds while both Letty and Austin were cracking up in his ear.
"Just shut up!" he finally yelled at both annoyances.
Unsurprisingly, neither one of them listened.
He finally ended up on an access road that looked down over the main drag. He saw Dom and another asshole driving along and followed them. He had only been driving for a few seconds when the GPS spoke up again.
"U-turn, if possible."
"Are you kidding me?!" he yelled at it.
"It's right, Bri. The road ends just ahead."
Brian's gaze darted frantically around, trying to figure out how to get back down onto the main road. He winced when he saw the wooden stairs. "Sorry, Car," he apologized, jerking the wheel sharply to the left.
"Did you just apologize to your car?" Ali asked, amused.
"Trust me, Ali. You never want to offend your car. Especially not one as temperamental as Skylines are known to be," Letty said.
Brian ignored the girls, dodging the asshole's flying car after he made the mistake of trying to ram the Charger off the road. As he drew up on Dom's right, the GPS announced that they had a quarter mile left.
They looked at each other for a long moment before Brian started to pull ahead. He saw Dom hit the Nos and shoot head, and smirked.
"Too early, Dom," he muttered, hitting his own Nos. He surged forward and could taste the victory when the other man bumped his tail.
"No!" he yelled as he spun out. "Son of a bitch!"
"What'd he do?" Letty asked.
Brian ignored her and continued on to the finish line, a scowl fixed on his face. He got out, slammed the door and stalked towards Dom.
"Don't do anything stupid, Arizona," Letty cautioned.
He ignored her. "At least we know you can't beat me straight up," he snapped at Dom.
Dom just folded his arms across his chest and smirked. "I didn't know there were any rules," he said, which just pissed Brian off even more.
They stared each other down until Fenix came over, interrupting them. "Now that's what I call real driving," he said, pulling Dom away from Brian.
"No, that's bullshit, Man," Brian said, jabbing his finger at Fenix and sending one last glare at Dom before stalking back to his car.
"Don't ever change, Arizona," Letty said with a laugh. "That confrontational, take no prisoners attitude is part of the reason Dom liked you so much."
"Go cry to your mama, eh?" Fenix taunted.
"Dom's gonna have to get in line if he wants a shot at Fenix," Brian muttered, getting back into his car. The gay cowboy stopped him and said something about muscle beating imports.
"This guy's going down first," Brian said. Dwight just kept right on talking, pissing Brian off more and more with every word.
Later that night, Brian quite enjoyed himself during the SWAT raid of Dwight's house. He smirked behind his mask as he taunted Dwight with the bag of meth. Yeah, he knew the evidence would never stick, but he didn't need it to. He just needed Dwight out of the way long enough that Campos would call him up to be the fourth driver.
"He will never know just how much he owes me," he said when he finally got the chance to flop down onto his bed. "Shoulda let the asshole make the run. Someone that stupid doesn't deserve to live."
"You really wanna make the run with two loose cannons? It's going to be bad enough with Dom going," Letty said.
"Yeah, I know," Brian said, running a hand over his face. "And it'll be nice having someone on the run that I can semi-trust. At least we're both aiming for the same thing."
"Just be careful. Dom will be going in there with one thing on his mind. Hopefully having you there will make him rethink his priorities, but I can't make any promises."
"I'll keep that in mind. I plan on both of us surviving. Especially since now we know exactly what we're dealing with."
"Glad my fake death could be of use."
"Don't even joke about that, Letty. It's not funny."
"Sorry, Arizona."
