Ride or Die - Brian O'Conner

1.8

He was still thinking that when he met his handlers at a secret location to show them what he had. "My superiors are flying in from DC the day after tomorrow and I want something to show." Brian stared at his boss Bilkins as he spoke "now, we have a top echelon fence with a lube hose in his mouth, automatic weapons, a jacket full of priors on every one of these Asian punks, a garage full of DVD players, and generally psychotic behavior. Now tell me why we shouldn't move on Johnny Tran right now and see where we are when the dust settles?" 

Brian sighed "because all we have is behavior. Just let me get some hard evidence because what we have now is just circumstantial--" 

Bilkins sighed "what we have now is probable cause and truckers arming themselves for some good old-fashioned vigilante mayhem." 

Tanner looked at Brian "tell us about Hector, Brian." 

"No, Hector's still working on the engines for the cars but the tires don't match."

Tanner looked at him "and Toretto." 

"I told you," Brian spoke tensing up at the mention of the siblings but trying not to let it show. "I think he's too controlled for this. I mean what? Going suicidal on semi-trucks? No way." 

Tanner sighed "have you read Toretto's file lately?" 

Brian nodded "yeah. I memorized that file." 

"Yeah, well read it again. No, better still, take a look at these." Brian looked down at the counter confused before noticing the pictures of a man whose face was half demolished. "Remember I told you about the guy Dominic Toretto nearly beat to death. Toretto did this with a three-quarter-inch torque wrench." 

Brian stared at the picture before nodding then spoke seriously "I need a few more days." Agent Bilkins nodded and Brian left trying to figure out how to possibly save Dominic Toretto and if he couldn't how to save the others. 

He pulled into the Toretto garage parking lot still reeling from that meeting but smiled when he saw Knox getting out of his car. Knox smiled at Brian when he saw him and asked "how are you?" 

"I'm good." Brian spoke and took a deep breath. "But I was wondering if you would be willing to go out with me?" 

Knox looked at Brian for a moment before nodding "yes." They smiled at each other before going into the garage where Dom immediately pulled Brian to work on one of the cars with him. 

Dom looked at Brian "so what are you going to do on this date?" 

"You heard that huh?" Brian asked as Dom nodded so Brian sighed. "I'm just planning on taking him out to dinner." 

Dom nodded "if you hurt my brother I'll break your neck." 

"Never gonna happen," Brian spoke with more confidence then he had any right to have especially because he was straight-out lying. 

Dom studied Brian before nodding "I wanna show you something." Brian looked at him confused but followed him to his car and headed back to the house where Dom opened the garage to reveal a Dodge Charger in amazing condition. 

"Wow," Brian spoke and he wasn't even lying about being impressed. 

Dom nodded "me and my dad built her. Nine hundred horses of Detroit muscle. It's a beast. Know what she ran in Palmdale?" 

Brian shook his head and looked at Dom "no, what did she run." 

"Nine seconds flat." They both walked around the car. "My dad was driving. So much torque, that the chassis twisted coming off the line. Barely kept her on the track." 

Brian chuckled "so, what's your best time?" 

"I've never driven her." 

Brian looked at Dom stunned that he had this monster of a car and never drove it. "Why not?" 

Dom looked away before looking back at Brian "it scares the shit out of me." Brian for the first time was looking at a vulnerable Dominic Toretto and couldn't help but realize that he was human too. "That's my dad." Brian looked where Dom was pointing as Dom walked further around the car. "He was coming up in the pro stock car circuit. Last race of the season. Ah, a guy named Kenny Linder came up from inside... in the final turn. He clipped his bumper and put him into the wall at 120." 

Brian listened knowing that this was hard to talk about for Dom. "Knox and I watched our dad burn to death, I remembered hearing him scream but the people that were there said that he had died before the tanks blew." He turned to look at Brian who had tears in his eyes. "They said that it was me screaming." 

Dom continued as Brian shifted on his feet "I saw Linder about a week later." All of a sudden, Brian had a really bad feeling that he knew exactly where this story was going. "I had a wrench... and I hit him. And I didn't intend to keep hitting him, but by the time I was done, I couldn't lift my arm." Brian sat down listening to the story firsthand from Dom. "He's a janitor at a high school. Has to take a bus to work every day. And they banned me from the tracks for life." Brian nodded as he continued to listen "I live my life a quarter mile at a time. Nothing else matters. Not the mortgage, not the store, not my team and all their bullshit, for those ten seconds or less. I'm free." 

Brian understood exactly what Dom was talking about and after hearing his story, he didn't think of Dom as a monster just someone who had lost his dad in a horrific accident and then saw the person who killed him less than a week later. It put a whole new perspective on what happened.