Page 76 of Cold Ignition

Rangi’s grip tightened on the wheel.

“We’re right on time,” Keanu said.

Ahead, the handler stepped up to Keanu’s car. Rangi watched the interaction, tracking every movement, every shift in posture. Then he cast a look around the space, tracking everything and everyone, and then Rangi’s gaze flicked back to Keanu’s car.

To the man inside it. To the one who had just—without hesitation—stepped back into this for them.

His jaw tightened. They would not lose him, not this time. Never again.

“Kael,” Keanu said through comms.

Silence.

Then—“I’ve got visual confirmation.”

Everything in Rangi stilled. He shifted his foot slightly on the pedal, ready to move the second the call came. Beside him, Alexios didn’t move. He was already locked in. Waiting.

Rangi’s gaze fixed on the line ahead. “Say it.”

The weight of what they were about to do settled on him, and there was nothing but anticipation of the violence and the justice they would serve flowing through his system.

Then Kael said it. “Now.”

Rangi didn’t hesitate. Didn’t think. Didn’t wait.

He drove straight into hell.

****

“Now,” Kael said.

The word didn’t need volume. It carried anyway.

In Keanu’s ear, it landed like a switch thrown. He didn’t move immediately. Didn’t reach for the ignition.

He held the man’s gaze across the hood for one fraction longer—long enough to make it look like consideration, like calculation, like he might be deciding whether to step deeper into whatever was being offered.

Then everything broke.

“Contact—north ridge, three,” Victor’s voice snapped over comms. “Snipers setting.”

“Copy that,” Kael replied, already moving. “Take them.”

A suppressed crack split the night—sharp, contained. One of the shadows above the track folded. Then another. The third tried to move to safety but didn’t make it two steps.

Chaos didn’t erupt all at once. It fractured. Small breaks that widened fast.

The handler in front of Keanu flinched—just enough—and that was all Keanu needed.

He dropped his hand to the ignition, and his engine roared back to life.

“Move,” he said.

The two men by the handler reached for weapons. Too slow.

Keanu dumped the clutch and snapped the wheel, the car lunging forward and sideways in the same motion, the rear kicking out hard enough to take one of them off his feet. The other staggered back, weapon coming up—and a shot cracked from the darkness.

The man went down.