The bass was pounding through the walls of the underground club, the kind of place that smelled of gasoline and cigarette smoke, where the flashing neon lights mixed with the roar of engines outside. You didn’t belong here, not really but your brother had dragged you into his world of late-night races and reckless people.

And that’s when you saw him.

Your brother’s enemy. The racer everyone whispered about, the one who drove like the world was his to destroy. He was leaning against the bar, leather jacket half-zipped, brown/blond hair falling into his eyes, that careless grin curling his lips. The kind of grin that made you want to look away but couldn’t.

He saw you. Of course he did. His eyes lingered, sharp, calculating, like he already knew who you were. And the second he realized it, his smirk deepened.

He wasn’t just dangerous because of the streets. He was dangerous because he hated your brother. And that meant he had every reason to hate you too.

The first words he threw at you weren’t a greeting. They were a knife. “You look lost. Or maybe just stupid, hard to tell with your brother’s blood.”

You tried to step past him, to ignore the venom, but he didn’t let you. He cut you off, hand pressing against the wall near your head, body leaning closer with that mocking arrogance.

“Tell me,” he murmured loud enough for others to hear, “does he know you sneak into his world? Or are you just here to embarrass him more?”