The Shelby Mustang was a classic muscle car. It had a monstrous engine, but it also came with the unavoidable flaw of all large-displacement power plants:
The engine was heavy, making the car prone to understeer. Without exceptional skill to manage it, the steering could simply stop responding in a corner.
And that's exactly what was happening to the Mustang now.
"Damn it!"
A sheen of sweat broke out on Matteo's forehead, his heart feeling like it was about to explode. All he could do was yank the wheel and pray to the Holy Mother.
Finally!
Just as the car was about to plow into the flowerbed, the front tires regained traction. The Shelby stumbled clumsily through the corner, but the violent shudder had caused it to miss the ideal exit point. The beast's roar died down to a whimper, its vitality visibly fading.
And every second of it was part of Kai's plan.
He, on the other hand, had hugged the inside line, creating space. The moment the Mini's nose was pointed out of the corner, he slammed the accelerator to the floor. For the first time all night, the kitten's roar drowned out the Mustang's.
In an incredible burst of energy, the Mini Cooper rocketed forward. Its tail swung out in a precise, controlled arc, clearing the front of the Mustang with room to spare and straightening out perfectly onto the next stretch of road. The car's momentum was unleashed in one seamless motion, and it pulled away, leaving the Shelby in its wake.
"My God, the Mini is pulling an even bigger gap!"
"That was a textbook corner!"
"Whoa, are you sure that's a Mini Cooper?"
The crowd's screams and cheers boiled over. For a moment, they completely forgot about their bets, lost in the pure, unadulterated thrill of speed and skill.
Matteo was unhinged. Completely and utterly gone. Amidst the screaming engine, his last shred of reason burned away. He stomped on the throttle with reckless abandon, flames spitting from the exhaust as he wrestled the wobbling car back onto a straight path. He charged toward the Mini's rear with the desperation of a kamikaze pilot, ready to simply run the little kitten over.
But Kai was not surprised in the slightest.
The same trick rarely works twice.
The next corner was a right-hander. Kai flicked the wheel hard left, sending the Mini into a slide toward the outside of the turn. The car's side scraped against a café's sign, showering sparks into the night. He feathered the throttle, controlling the car's attitude, but he held off on the brakes, maintaining a blistering seventy-five kilometers per hour as he entered the turn.
Wait for it.
Just a little longer!
This time, Kai chose to brake half a second late, waiting until the Mini's entire front end was already into the corner.
Throttle, brake, clutch.
In the confined space of the narrow street, he maintained absolute calm at top speed, controlling the car with millimeter precision. In a fluid sequence of inputs, he rotated the car around the outside line. The tail followed with light agility just as the Mustang closed in, getting closer and closer, looking like it was about to slam into him at any second.
But it never did. The Mini's rear end danced just out of reach, using the wider outside line to its advantage, always keeping a tantalizing distance from the enraged Matteo, like a carrot dangling in front of a mule.
The roaring Mustang could never close that final gap.
Then, with a final correction of the steering wheel, Kai snapped the car straight. He got on the power, and the rear of the car followed instantly. The seamless maneuver was timed to perfection, the once-unruly car now perfectly under his command. He left behind nothing but a navy-blue afterimage that dissolved into the glittering night.
It was pure, fluid motion.
A true feast for the eyes.
But only Kai knew the truth: in that last sequence of corners, the Mini Cooper had been pushed to its absolute limit.
A high-frequency vibration had crept into the engine's roar. The front suspension felt sluggish under the repeated heavy loads, and the car's rear had given a nearly imperceptible twitch during a drift, like a cat's tail suddenly puffing up.
The brake discs were nearing their temperature warning limit, and the tires, screaming over the patchwork of different road surfaces, were dancing on the very edge of their optimal working temperature.
Kai felt it all.
It was like walking a high wire suspended in the sky. The slightest hesitation, the smallest miscalculation, and he would have plunged into the abyss.
But he never hesitated.
He was dancing on a razor's edge, thriving in the space between crisis and perfection. He was completely immersed, not just driving the car, but listening to it, feeling it. The mechanical symphony roared around him as he extracted every last drop of potential from the machine in his hands.
And he just kept pulling away.
Matteo didn't understand what had happened. He had pushed his car to its absolute limit. He was sure he was about to hit the Mini, to finally crush it with brute force. He thought the little car had no way to fight back. But he could never close that final, infinitesimal gap. He was stuck, forced to follow the Mini's taillights, eating its exhaust.
The next thing he knew, the Mini had vanished from his view. Only then did Matteo realize he was in another corner. He instinctively cranked the steering wheel as hard as he could, but it was too late. He'd had the advantage of the inside line this time, but he had completely missed it. And then—
Understeer. For the second time in a row.
This time, Matteo wasn't so lucky. At nearly one hundred kilometers per hour, the rear of the Shelby whipped around and slammed into a row of trash cans on the sidewalk. The world exploded in a crash of metal and plastic. The car was on the verge of spinning out of control completely. Spectators lining the narrow street screamed and scattered. The commotion was so loud it woke sleeping residents, and dogs began to bark frantically.
Amidst the chaos, Matteo looked up, his mind a complete blank. He watched, helpless, as the Mini Cooper's taillights grew smaller and smaller in the distance. He was too stunned to even curse.
Back in Piazza Cavour, there was dead silence. Everyone strained to listen to the live feed coming from the phones at every corner.
Todt straightened his back and took a few steps forward, peering in the direction of the Piazza del Popolo. This was the final challenge of the race.
The roundabout there was notorious for its slick cobblestone surface and wide, sweeping turns. It had rained earlier, making the stones even more treacherous. The continuous high-speed corners of the roundabout were the ultimate test of a driver's courage and a car's grip. The slightest mistake would lead to a spin.
One small error, and the entire lead Kai had built in the tight corners would vanish.
"The Mini is coming!" a voice crackled from a phone.
"How is he doing that? On these cobblestones, the car is completely stable! It's not even shaking!"
"First high-speed left-hander, the Mini takes the classic outside-in-outside line! He brakes early, the car slides just a bit but holds the inside line perfectly! He's back on the power, and the Mini shoots out like a cannonball! He's not losing speed, he's gaining it! He must be doing at least ninety-five! He made it through effortlessly!"
"Who was it that said the Mustang was a sure thing? How's your face feeling right now?"
"That throttle control! That balance! Wow!"
"The Mini is in a half-drift through the turn! A little flick of the rear, then a quick correction! He's using the tightest possible line, not wasting an inch of space or a fraction of a second! The rhythm of the slide is perfect! His line through the corner is even smoother than it was at the Spanish Steps…"
Without warning, the frantic commentary from the phones and walkie-talkies stopped. There was only silence.
No, not complete silence.
Through the audio feed, you could faintly hear the subtle sounds: the fine, whispering friction of the tires on the cobblestones, like chalk gliding across a blackboard; the steady, low hum of the turbo, rhythmic as a heartbeat. The smooth, fluid sound cut gently through the night sky, where the countless stars seemed to cascade down like a waterfall.
It was pure art.
No words were needed, because words would only fail. No matter how brilliant or beautiful, language could never capture the perfection of that moment—the flawless union of power and technique.
Then, the sounds faded, growing more and more distant, until they were gone.
The Piazza del Popolo roundabout, the section that should have been the most difficult, the most challenging, the most treacherous part of the course, had been conquered. Effortlessly. So quickly there wasn't even time to process it.
Absolute silence.