Every car you beat forfeits not their pink slip. Their radio frequency. Police scanners become your rearview mirror.

Then the laptop screen flickered.

A new icon appeared on the main menu. No name. Just a circuit board pattern, jagged like a canyon road.

“For Darius to upload you into the Extra Options.”

You were supposed to be a ghost. After escaping Rockport, after taking down Darius’s crew in the canyons… you’d won. The city was yours. The garage was quiet. The custom Z06 sat under a sheet, polished and perfect.

The rain over Palmont City never washed clean. It only smeared the neon and the guilt across the asphalt.

The screen didn't load a menu. It loaded a face. Cross. Her eyes were sharper than you remembered, her hair pulled back. No police band radio crackling behind her. Just silence.

“Time for what?”