The summer sun blazed over Riverside Auto Spa, one of the busiest car wash centers in Phoenix.

The next morning, before the sun rose over the harbor, Elias drove Sarah in his beat-up Ford pickup truck out to the edge of the Everglades. The air was thick with humidity and the sound of cicadas. They pulled up to an abandoned, corrugated metal warehouse overgrown with kudzu vines.

"Uncle Eli, what are we doing out here?" Sarah asked, swatting a mosquito from her neck.

Elias didn't answer. He unlocked a heavy padlock with a rusty key and heaved the metal doors open. The inside of the warehouse smelled of dust, dry rot, and old motor oil. In the center of the vast space, sitting on a heavy-duty trailer, was a massive object covered by a heavy gray tarp.

Elias grabbed the edge of the tarp and pulled.

Sarah gasped.

Sitting before them was a forty-foot offshore racing boat. It wasn't modern carbon-fiber. It was built from lightweight aircraft-grade aluminum and fiberglass, painted a deep, matte black that seemed to absorb the dim light of the warehouse. The hull was shaped like a spear, designed to cut through ocean chop rather than bounce over it. Mounted on the back were twin supercharged big-block V8 engines that looked like they belonged in a military aircraft.

"Meet The Phantom," Elias said, his voice reverent, running a hand along the dusty hull. "She was the fastest thing on the water in 1995. Built her myself."

"This is what you used to... smuggle?" Sarah asked, her eyes wide. She had always heard rumors about her uncle's wild youth, but he had sworn it all off when her aunt died.

"That was a long time ago," Elias said, looking away. "But she still has the heart of a predator. We are going to enter her in the Midnight Run. The prize money will pay off Thorne's debt."

Sarah stared at him in horror. "Are you out of your mind? That race is a death wish! People die in the Run every year! You're almost seventy years old, Uncle Eli! You’ll have a heart attack before you hit the first buoy!"

"It’s the only way, Sarah," Elias said, turning to her, his eyes burning with fierce determination. "Thorne thinks we're invisible. He thinks he can just step on us and we'll turn to dust. I'm going to show him exactly what happens when you corner a starving dog."

Sarah looked at the boat, then at her uncle's battered, aching hands. She knew he couldn't do this alone. If he was going to risk his life to save her legacy, she wasn't going to let him do it in a dusty, broken-down relic.

She walked over to the boat, wiping a layer of grime off the hull. "The fuel lines are probably rotted to hell. The impellers need replacing, and we have to rebuild both transmissions."