Billionaire By Day, Phantom by Night
997 Words
(Adrian’s POV)
The night after the race, New York hums like an open engine — a constant vibration beneath the skin of the city. And somehow, it feels synced to her heartbeat.
Or maybe it’s mine. I can’t tell anymore.
The screens across my penthouse still replay her drift — that reckless, impossible slide that beat me by less than a second. It should’ve angered me. It should’ve been a threat to erase. But instead, I find myself watching it again and again, volume low, eyes unfocused.
Her voice from the comm replay haunts the silence.
> “Maybe you shouldn’t have lost.”
I lean back in the leather chair, staring at the paused frame of her Mustang mid-drift — tires catching fire against rain. There’s something raw about her style. No precision. No fear. Just need. The kind of drive that comes from pain, not ego.
I know that hunger.
I used to race to outrun my ghosts, too.
Now she’s out there — in my world — tearing through streets I’ve already bled on.
By the time dawn breaks, I’m not sleeping. I’m tracking.
“Pull up everything on Luna Vega,” I tell my AI assistant.
Within seconds, the holographic display floods the room — records, images, data. I scan through them like muscle memory.
Age twenty-two.
Freelance mechanic.
Lives in Brooklyn.
Brother in debt to the Syndicate.
No criminal record, just chaos orbiting her.
There’s a photo — candid — her grease-stained hands, a half smile under flickering fluorescent lights. I shouldn’t zoom in. But I do.
And then I see it. That look.
That same wild defiance that nearly got me killed once.
“Interesting,” I murmur again, just like I did the first night. Only now, it feels like the word isn’t enough.
Two nights later, I find myself outside her garage.
I tell myself it’s business — surveillance, risk management. The Syndicate doesn’t tolerate winners they don’t control. If she keeps racing, she’s dead.
But that’s not why I’m here.
The shadows swallow my Corvette as I park across the street, tinted windows hiding everything. The garage light flickers; she’s inside, arguing with someone. I tune in through the encrypted mic I left in her prize envelope — a failsafe I told myself was strategic.
It’s not. It’s addiction in disguise.
> “You think I cheated?”
“You embarrassed the Syndicate,” a man’s voice spits.
“Tell your boss I don’t scare easy.”
Metal crashes. A wrench hits the floor. She’s breathing hard. Then — a punch, a muffled curse, and silence.
My fingers tighten on the wheel. Instinct says go in.
Logic says stay put.
The part of me I killed years ago says you’re already too late.
When the thugs leave, I step out of the car, half in shadow. She’s sitting on the concrete, blood streaking her lip, wrapping her brother’s hand with trembling fingers.
I leave the envelope again. Cash. And a note: Drive better.
The next morning, she finds it.
I watch from the car, hidden behind polarized glass. She picks up the note, squints at it, and lets out this sharp laugh — half disbelief, half fury.
> “You again,” she mutters, shaking her head.
“If you’re watching, hope you like the view.”
She says it like a challenge. Like she knows.
And maybe she does.
That night, I tell myself I’ll stop.
That this — this interest — is nothing. That she’s just another reckless driver about to burn out.
But then she shows up again on a different feed — practicing at the docks, drifting alone under sodium lights, hair whipping through the open window, no helmet this time.
Every turn looks like she’s tempting death to notice her.
Every skid feels like she’s talking to me through movement.
And I do notice.
I notice everything.
The way she taps the steering wheel three times before a drift — a ritual.
The way her jaw sets when she’s about to push past safe limits.
The way her eyes, in those rare close-up frames, almost look like they’re searching for something.
Someone.
Zee shows up sometimes — the loud DJ-turned-announcer who now calls her bestie. She brings chaos, color, noise.
But when Luna laughs, it sounds like she’s somewhere else.
Like she’s still hearing my voice through the radio —
> “Don’t die trying to impress me.”
It shouldn’t matter. But it does.
I find myself rewriting race routes, pulling strings through my own network to make sure she’s not ambushed by Syndicate collectors. I intercept bets, erase her name from their target lists, reroute payments under aliases.
No one knows it’s me. Not even her.
Especially not her.
A week later, I’m still watching — her, the garage, her Mustang’s progress. The scratches are gone. The engine purrs smoother. She rebuilt it herself, using the winnings I left behind.
That realization hits harder than it should.
Because I didn’t give her that money to save her.
I gave it to test her.
And she passed.
---
One night, while the rain drums against glass, I find myself whispering her name out loud. Just once.
> “Luna.”
It tastes unfamiliar — like a secret I wasn’t supposed to say.
The city lights below flicker red and gold, reflecting in the glass like a trail of fire. Somewhere out there, she’s tuning an engine, her hands shaking from exhaustion, her eyes burning with the same fire I used to have.
And I know then — this isn’t fascination.
It’s not about revenge or curiosity or control.
It’s gravity.
And I’m already falling.
He turns off the screen, but the reflection remains — her Mustang frozen in his mind.
Adrian Cross — billionaire by day, phantom by night — has everything under control.
Except this.
Because she drives like she’s trying to forget something.
And he watches like he’s remembering everything.
- Writer
