Tasìa relaxed with her feet propped up in a side booth back at the barroom with her Veronicas neatly set off to the side.

She was sipping her second Resucitadór and smoking a Blonde-Cerise. The game was enjoyable. First rate kickers on both squads but neither goalie after nearly a full hour of intense play relented to allow a single score.

One other client sat at the bar in the furthest corner. The stranger fidgeted in business casual attire except for her jacket. It was an impressive Gnasta Corinthian with a rust-brown moth inlay held in place between fluer de lis shaped varnished leather.

Clearly, the woman was a somebody in this town whose social hierarchy was layered with many hidden players.

Equally as clear, though a person of interest, assuredly, the professional was not a threat to her. Tasìa's initial unease leveled off and she ignored the executive, completely.

Carlos set unobtrusively at a table behind her. She was glad he was there, covering her six. Why she instinctively trusted him, Tasìa wasn't certain.

When the game ended in overtime with a 1-1 tie, he finally spoke up.

"Hey, if you turn it now, you'll see the start of a challenge at the Zona Lobos."

Tasìa rolled her head towards Carlos.

"Who's racing?"

"Bizcocho and Ladrillo."

"Ha!" Tasìa chortled. Pound Cake and Brick. "I raced both on the del Tesse street drag. Lost to both too. Those guys are both psychos. Somebody is gonna die!"

She hurriedly changed the channel, relieved to see the drivers were still only in the test phase run, then she insisted that Carlos Magnus park his chair beside her booth and join her for a smoke.

"You got any money on this one," Tasìa asked with a droop too slowly executed to be mistaken for a wink.

Smooth.

To which Carlos nodded with much deliberation set in his pose as he smiled.

Tas, what are you doing with the flirtation? The last month has been the happiest in your life.

She had to admit to herself that she knew the answer, Tasìa liked the attention.

And, given she was Harvested, just as Annebél had warned on Raúl's bungalow porch in El Hoyo, her impulses took extra care and attentiveness to maintain control.

"It's always like that. When we Harvested open up our boundaries we search for every opportunity. I know. I've been there, I'm still there . . .

She looked away, and noticed something. After verifying it wasn't just a lovely mirage, Tasìa nodded her head pointedly to the top shelf behind the bar.

"So, I wasn't imagining it. It really is right there just gnawing away at my subconscious ever since I came back to the barroom."

Carlos appeared quite confused.

"What?"

Tasìa reached into her belt buckle clip and retrieved a Liberty gold coin. "Care for a friendly wager? This coin for that Son Délice Sauvage?"

Carlos responded with a meek shrug.

"It doesn't belong to me."

Could she talk him into carrying out the larceny? Did the handsome fella have it in him? She was feeling her old naughty-dog self again.

She could get him to do it. A little shake of her head, toss of her hair, a slightly derisive tone to suggest his manhood was at stake, and a firm suggestive gaze set in her eyes, and he would be like clay in her fingers.

She threw her head back with a smirk on her face.

"Switch it into a bottle of the cheaper stuff. Like that Gray Goose there. Add a toss of Perrier and several drops of that juniper extract you have over there in the cold storage compartment to the Goose then run it through your Brita; it'll be a reasonable counterfeit reproduction."

Carlos nodded, tentatively and then suddenly more definitively.

"Alright you savage little thief, you are on, but if I'm taking that kind of risk, I'll pick the racer."

Savage little thief! A shimmer tingled up her spine. She crossed her legs and shook her foot to control the thrill that that wee bit of tongue-thrashing gave her.

Tasìa, behave. This is just flirting for the fun of it. To kill a little time. You've got a man. And you are going to make beautiful babies with him.

"You pick the driver. But, of course," Tasìa said glancing down and nodding.

Carlos appeared as if he was holding back, savoring the moment like a fiend.

"I choose Pound Cake."

Leaning forward, she eyed him, suspiciously.

"What do you know that I don't know?"

Carlos' head leaned up, smugly.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

"Bet's a bet."

"Yeah, it's synced in -," she offered an elbow to elbow grab and he took it, much to her liking, firmly, "you can tell me now. What inside dope you got?"

With a deep chortle, he could no longer hold it in.

"Not only is Brick's car newly rebuilt and he has been out of commission for six weeks but that still isn't the killshot that guarantees victory. Pound Cake's engine was acquired from Milan five months ago. A Ferruccio 4 Series V10. He hasn't lost a race since his boys installed it. Brick has lost two. Getting Pound Cake to agree to this one was a desperation move to get his rep back."

Tasìa winced. The Lamborghini she rented was a One Series, first generation, Ferruccio. That newer engine Pound Cake was using was considered by the industry to be a breakthrough in internal combustion design.

But, wait a minute . . . something did not add up.

"The Pound Cake I knew only drove American."

"That's right. I suspect he always will given his mother is from Industri Park in the GLR where they make them.

"However, Pound Cake had his Charger reframed around the V10. It's not significantly larger than the Dodge V8 so proved feasible."

Her hands squeezed the table.

"Damn," Tasìa whispered thinking of the light-weight and ergonomically superior chassis. "In a Charger, that motherfucker is going to soar."

She brushed her hair back as she looked Carlos in the eye. It was time to let him know that she actually caught on when they made physical contact with an elbow lock.

At the old corner club they had danced together a bit back in the day.

"Hey, Carlos. You use to work the old joint that was here. Yeah, you use to keep your hair kinda long back then, too."

He nodded.

"I was wondering if you would ever recognize me."

Tasìa leaned towards him, looked around the room, corner to corner.

"So, what happened here?"

He drew on the cigarette for a drag and puffed out the smoke.

"We went to the mats. Sit back. Let's enjoy the race and then I'll tell you all about it."

The sky-cams gave an impressive survey of the track below. The cars were drawing down to a 130 km (80 mph) cruise speed as they approached the starting line.

Tasia stopped worrying when she saw the rebuilt Ashton Martin DB 12. Brick's taste was exquisite. Platinum body with powder blue trim that worked the pretty body tones like what blush did on a woman's face to emphasize the cheek bones.

To the eye, the tail lift and hood rolled like a wave above the crest of a foamy ocean below. It was an extraordinary illusion.

She pulled up the browser on her PalmEx PA, and checked Brick's stats to allay her suspicions. He had suffered two losses on del Tesse where Pound Cake was the ultimate winner. That included the race where his Ashton Martin DB 12 got tossed around the asphalt street before it crashed and burned.

Brick also sustained minor injuries to his legs that kept his legs in wraps for nearly a month.

He could have bought the latest Ashton Martin Saxony for what he paid to rebuild the nearly forty year old DB 12, but why didn't he?

She knew the answer, nothing hugged the ground better than the last generation of that series of vehicles.

She reviewed both contestant's drag race performances, and as she did so Tasìa began to smile.

Luring Pound Cake here to the Zona Lobos was a smart move on Brick's part.

She chuckled.

Carlos eyed her skeptically.

"What's gotten into you?"

She set her lips teasingly grim as if she was about to part with some bad news for him.

"I'm afraid, Brick is going to win this one."

He laughed, uproariously. Patted her on the back. Kept his hand there with a gentle caress.

"You know, Tasìa. I almost forgot how funny you are."

She didn't mind the familiarity. It wasn't the first time for them. They even did shots back in the day in the same near intimate proximity.

With the high octane drinks being the only thing keeping her from crossing that line where the condition made Tasìa soil herself.

Now Tasìa recalled Carlos' real name. Francesco Sala. Of the Buenos Aries Salas.

But he was commonly called, 'Chicco.'

She was about to lay out for him her reasoning for her confidence as the one minute clock counted down so last minute takers could place their bets but a better notion crossed her mind.

"Chicco, darling, you now make me want to take you for everything you got. How about a side wager?"

He was still laughing dismissively. She continued.

"How about we make that side wager a dead pool?"

That perked him up. Sala's back straightened up.

"Santa Muerta, you are absolutely serious, aren't you?"

Quite demurely, Tasìa shrugged.

"Yes. We need to be quick about it though. If Pound Cake dies, I win the side bet. If he makes it across the finish line alive, you win."

Sala gripped his chair.

"You are really convinced he is going to crash and die! Based on what?"

Tasìa calmly eyed him.

"Are you in?"

He took a solid second.

"What's the wager?"

She had never been more sure of anything. She needed to put something worthwhile on the line to show fate itself that the probability curve was her principality.

"Your best gun, versus my best gun. I've got a 50-Split."

He nodded while biting his thumb.

"Century old Remington 7mm, worth 8K USD."

"Chicco, amigo. I would love to have one of those again. That was my grandpappy's gun in his jaguar hunter days. Deal?"

They elbow gripped again to seal it. Sala went back to the bar, and returned with two wine glasses and a bottle of port.

Tasìa noticed the executive in the Gnasta Corinthian jacket being lead down a hallway by another woman.

She could also see the design on the back of the jacket. A beautiful though suggestively sinister etching of a deathhead moth.

Sala sat a wine glass in front of her. When he finished the pour she met his eyes.

"Interesting client?" She said, curiously.

"I can't talk about that. But, yeah. Muy interesante." He sat down beside her, and continued, "now, why are you so sure of Pound Cake's demise?"

"I studied the video. That Charger equiped with a V10 lacks maneuverability. It has a 1.3 second lag on a mere 15 degree turn radius when running on one hundred meters of track. That is nearly a magnitude above optimum.

"Sure, on del Tesse where the asphalt gets groovy only thrice that overbuilt bitch is going to win every race, but on Zona Lobos where every lap has eight different segments where random obstacles are placed, your boy is going to get smacked."

Sala nodded with his thumbs clipped inside his belt. "Forgive my laughing at you. That sounds solid. Now I'm worried." He shook his head. "Thirty seconds in. There is nothing I can do about it now."

Sympathetically, Tasìa put an arm around his neck and they sipped together with eyes locked on to the screen sitting on the wall in front of them.

Just under two minutes, the Dodge Charger careened off the outer ramp, and hit a razored barrel barrier trap.

The barrel tore into the driver's side of the carapace. A pink mist rolled out from the ripped metal as the razored surface sliced into the car's cabin. The barrel banged against the cabin a second time before it bounced high in the air.

The Charger kept crashing forward until its back wheels went over a bump and the overdriven engine forced the car to flip.

As it sat still with a liquid mayhem of browns, golds, and reds pouring out, the undercarriage bulged up rapidly into a bell curve shape.

An explosion encompassed the entire vehicle.

Tasìa and Sala both stood up with their mouths agape. Sala gasped hard as he let out expletives in Italian. Even though she expected it to happen, Tasìa was truly shocked as her eyes took in the explosion.

Shocked not at the explosion, but at what she just realized as she witnessed it happening. There was a very important detail she had been overlooking.

The voice of Mani Montrose intruded in her mind.

"There are four hundred pounds of explosive materials packed in your HybrClydis. Did you not notice the extra drag?"

Tasìa reclaimed her breath in an attempt to breathe normally so she could process the implications of it all.

She had retrieved the dynamite herself that night in El Hoyo when she ventured out to the back office.

Four sticks does not equal four hundred pounds!

Green-Eyed Elise planted the explosions. It had to have been her!

But why?