Rio wasn't kind to strangers.
It was hot, loud, layered in sweat and steel. The streets buzzed with power—political, criminal, mechanical. Shepherd Fox walked those streets like a ghost in a world that wasn't his, Rift Core humming faintly in his chest beneath the new shirt he'd bartered for.
He needed money. He needed a car. But more than anything, he needed a foothold in this universe. Something stable to keep from slipping back into chaos.
So, he did what any engineer in a city of thieves would do.
He started listening.
He spent the next two days mapping the streets, watching traffic flows, understanding local police response times. He eavesdropped in mechanics' alleys, diners, street-side garages. Learned which gangs controlled which blocks. He found out that someone named Hernan Reyes owned the police—and half the city. And he learned something else: a crew had just hit Reyes' warehouse.
That meant Dom and Brian were already making moves.
"Time to move," Shepherd muttered.
The Casino Job
The casino was perched like a neon vulture on the upper slope of the Lapa district. Not high-end—flashy enough to tempt tourists but crooked enough to bleed them dry.
Perfect.
Shepherd walked in with less than fifty real. But he wasn't gambling. Not really.
The Rift Core pulsed in his chest as he passed the blackjack tables. It wasn't a cheat. Not exactly. But somehow, the core gave him… a sense. A feel for rhythm. Numbers. Probability. Call it quantum intuition or engineered instinct—he could read the table like code.
Three hours later, he walked out with just under fifteen grand in cash.
He didn't look back.
Steel and Flesh
He found the car two neighborhoods over, sitting forgotten behind a mechanic's lot. An older Nissan GT-R R34, covered in dust and rusted at the edges—but the engine block was intact. Twin-turbocharged, 2.6L inline-six. The kind of car most amateurs overlooked, but a beast waiting to wake up.
Shepherd smiled.
He paid in cash. Spent two days in the garage welding, tuning, reprogramming. Replaced the suspension, rewired the injection system, upgraded the ECU. He customized the dash with a hand-built interface patched directly to the Rift Core—letting it optimize shift points in real time.
When he fired it up, the engine purred like a panther with a loaded gun.
The Race
The meet was downtown, near the port. A circle of engines, sweat, and ego. Money changed hands fast, and the air reeked of octane and fried street food.
Shepherd rolled in with the GT-R, wrapped in matte black and streaked with blue light beneath the chassis. Heads turned. Most didn't recognize him. But a few did. Word had spread of a ghost who won big at a casino and built a car from junk.
The kind of story racers loved.
One man stepped forward, lean frame, buzz cut, calm blue eyes. Brian O'Conner.
"I haven't seen you before," he said, eyeing the car.
"You wouldn't have."
"You drive like someone I know."
"Maybe he taught me."
Brian smirked. "Name?"
"Shepherd."
That was all he gave.
No one said anything more. The crowd backed up. Engines revved.
They lined up at the starting line. GT-R versus Skyline.
The signal dropped.
They launched.
Tires screamed. Nitrous hissed. The world blurred past them in waves of heat and neon. Brian pulled ahead first—years of experience, perfect shift timing.
But Shepherd didn't flinch.
The Rift Core pulsed, and his custom dash flashed green. He shifted just as the tach hit the edge—downshifting in a way no one else would have dared.
He slingshotted forward on the final stretch, tearing past Brian just before the finish line.
Gasps. Cheers. Someone lost ten grand.
Brian slowed, then pulled up beside him. Helmet off. Smile crooked.
"You got lucky."
"I don't believe in luck."
Brian narrowed his eyes. "You sure you're not Toretto?"
Shepherd's smile didn't reach his eyes. "Not yet."
The Report
Later that night, in a shadowed warehouse away from the streets, Brian leaned against Dom's Charger.
Dom stepped out from the shadows, arms crossed, face unreadable.
"You said you had something."
Brian nodded. "Guy showed up at the port. Beat me clean. Built his car from scrap. Drives like you—only… different."
"How different?"
"He doesn't race. He calculates. Like he sees the whole track before it happens. And there's something else. I don't know how to explain it, man—when he hit the gas, it was like his car shifted. Like the road bent around him."
Dom said nothing at first. Then:
"What's his name?"
"Shepherd."
The word hit like a memory.
Dom turned slowly, looking at nothing. "Shepherd Fox."
Brian blinked. "You know him?"
Dom nodded once. "My mother's sister. She left L.A. years ago. Had a kid."
"No one ever talked about it."
"Shepherd's not the kind of name you forget." Dom's voice dropped. "I never met him. Just saw a photo once."
"What do we do?"
Dom looked toward the open city, moonlight casting silver streaks across the lot.
"We find him," he said. "He's family."