My Taboo Harem!

Chapter 976: The Princess of Polished Steel

Like the other Legacy Families, the Parks had never been content to merely participate in the industry they had chosen. They owned it and swallowed it whole, dressed it in silk and influence.

For centuries the automotive world had been permitted to believe it still possessed freedom. Companies rose on daring designs, new engines, audacious bodies, wild luxury interiors, electric revolutions, racing bloodlines, handcrafted cabins, military utility, old-money elegance, street arrogance, and the endless human hunger to move faster than common sense advised.

Ferrari had brought theatrical blood-red velocity.

Lamborghini had turned aggression into sculpture. Porsche had refined performance into cold discipline. Bugatti had made excess into engineering religion. Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Audi had warred for German precision. Bentley had offered old-world luxury. Maserati had made beauty unreliable in the most Italian fashion imaginable. McLaren and Lotus chased lightness. Pagani and Koenigsegg chased beautiful madness.

Lucid, Rimac, and NIO chased electricity, while Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Mazda, Hyundai, Kia, Lexus, Genesis, Cadillac, Lincoln, Chevrolet, Ford, Dodge, Jeep, Volvo, Polestar, Peugeot, Renault, Citroën, Alfa Romeo, Fiat, Jaguar, Aston Martin, Mini, BYD, Geely, Hongqi, Great Wall, Chery, Tata, Mahindra, and a hundred other names rose and reshaped the industry in their own bland, brilliant, arrogant, or occasionally cursed ways.

And then the Parks bought them all!

Not always loudly and not always completely:

Sometimes they purchased controlling shares, sometimes majority stakes, sometimes voting rights, sometimes design rights, material pipelines, battery patents, engine divisions, distribution networks, luxury subsidiaries, research laboratories, racing teams, or the quiet little firms that produced one rare component every giant brand secretly required.

But the result was always the same:

The moment a company rose high enough to matter, the Parks appeared with contracts, lawyers, smiles, gifts, threats wrapped as future cooperation, and the calm certainty of people who had never once believed that refusal was a permanent word.

Only a handful of giants had survived the Park appetite in anything resembling their original form. Rolls-Royce remained Rolls-Royce. Aston Martin remained Aston Martin. Jaguar Land Rover Limited still existed outside complete Park ownership.

Yet even there the Park family held some voting shares, exerted design influence, and kept strategic fingers resting lightly around the throat of every boardroom.

’How Rolls-Royce Limited and Jaguar Land Rover Limited had managed to evade full consumption is less a question for Jade and more a question for Chaos.’ Phei thought as he followed in.

Every company fully swallowed by the Parks received identical treatment: Rebrand, reposition and rebirth beneath the letter P.

Every car that rolled out under Park control was required to begin with that single initial, as though the entire automotive world had been forced to kneel before one arrogant letter.

The naming convention was so arrogantly grandiose it should have triggered a government inquiry. Governments, however, had long since learned that inquiries into Legacy wealth tended to conclude with apologies and new infrastructure projects.

Jade’s dealership rose three storeys tall, though calling the ground floor a showroom felt like describing an emperor’s palace as a house with confidence issues. The moment they stepped inside, the scale opened before them like a polished battlefield of speed and luxury.

The first floor stretched wide enough to resemble an indoor coliseum, its mirror-bright floor reflecting hundreds and hundreds of cars arranged on slow-turning platforms beneath warm golden-white light. Sleek electric hypercars stood beside elongated ceremonial limousines.

Armored executive sedans, low coupes crouched like predators. Pearl-white convertibles glittered beneath skylight reflections. Deep emerald grand tourers rotated slowly, leather interiors visible through smoked glass. Matte-black beasts with aggressive angles dominated one section. Silver machines so smooth they looked liquid rested nearby. Rose-gold sports cars, clearly designed for women who enjoyed being watched, caught the light with deliberate allure.

Several strange concept cars whose curves looked less manufactured than grown by some beautiful mechanical sea creature with expensive taste completed the collection.

Phei, Noor, Soraya, and Valentina looked at the scene with wide eyes.

Jade walked ahead of them as though this were perfectly normal.

Noor leaned toward Soraya without taking her eyes off the floor and murmured, "I have decided I was poor my entire life and simply never noticed."

"We established this in the car," Soraya whispered back pointing at Phei and Maddie.

"It keeps re-establishing itself," Noor said faintly, watching a rose-gold convertible rotate past like a jewel on a turntable. "I am being radicalized in real time."

The first floor alone looked capable of bankrupting several minor royal families, yet Jade led them past the spinning platforms, past the attendants and toward the staircase.

Her heels clicked against the polished steps in a soft, measured rhythm, each sound striking something inside Phei like a reminder bell rung by fate itself. He watched the elegant line of her back, the silken fall of her black hair, the graceful lift of her shoulders, and felt a dangerous conviction settle deeper with every step.

’I would be the worst fool alive if I let this woman go to another man.’

No, he could not say she would accept him right away.

Jade Park was not some simple girl waiting to be dazzled by a smile and a few pretty words. She was a princess, a business owner, a graceful weapon wrapped in elegance, and probably more dangerous than half the cars below if handled carelessly.

But which apex Dragon did not enjoy a chase?

’What is beauty without pursuit? What is desire without the price it demanded?’

Behind him, Maddie smiled faintly.

Her plan was moving according to design.

The little witch looked far too satisfied with herself, which meant trouble had officially acquired a schedule—and was already sharpening its knives.

When they reached the second floor, Phei nearly forgot to breathe.

If the first floor had been luxury, the second was temptation sharpened into chrome, carbon fiber, and leather. The cars here did not merely sit on platforms; they waited.

Each beast had been customized to a degree that made ordinary factory models look unfinished. Every vehicle possessed its own mood, its own color scheme, its own interior personality, its own modified bodywork, wheels, trims, light signatures, and hidden details. A midnight-blue Phaeton with silver veins across its hood rested beside a pearl-gold Paragon whose interior looked like an executive lounge built for royalty with trust issues. A black-and-crimson Panthera crouched low with red stitching visible through its glass roof. A white Phoenix had doors that curved upward like wings.

A deep jade-green Prestige sat on a rotating platform, elegant enough to look carved for Jade herself.

Jade turned back to Phei, and her smile softened when she saw his reaction.

"These are among the best the world can offer," she said. "Every car on this floor has already been customized to a certain degree. If you want more changes, that can be arranged. Even the same car models are different from one another here due to customization: Different interiors, different handling packages, different armor options, different engine tuning, different aesthetic language. No two are exactly the same."

Maddie moved past them, looking around with casual rich-girl confidence that made Noor and Soraya glance at her in disbelief. "Is this it, Jade, or are there more upstairs?"

Jade smiled. "There are more."

Phei turned to her slowly.

She looked pleased by that.

"But let us save the best for later," Jade continued. "What do you say, Phei?"

Phei smiled, still half-dreaming inside the kingdom of polished steel around him. "There cannot be a better plan than that."

Then he turned to Noor, Soraya, and Valentina. "Pick whatever you want."

Noor stared at him. "Just like that?"

"Just like that."

Soraya opened her mouth, closed it, then looked at the nearest car as though it had suddenly become morally complicated. Phei caught the hesitation and stepped close enough to set a hand lightly at the small of her back, where his jacket still hung around her.

"It is not a test," he said quietly, just for her. "And do not dare ask if deserve it. Pick the one that makes you feel something." Soraya looked up at him, and whatever wall was there quietly lost another brick. She did not answer and only leaned, briefly, into the warmth of his hand.

That was answer enough.

Valentina, however, smiled slowly, already understanding that Phei was not joking, and was already three cars deep into a serious flirtation with a silver grand tourer.

Then Phei glanced toward Cassiopeia who had maintained a quiet presence the entire night and softened his voice. "Dear, anything you want?"

Cassiopeia nodded and came quietly to his side, her presence warm against him. For all her sharp edges everywhere else in her life, here she simply tucked herself near him without performance, and the small contented way she let her shoulder rest against his arm said more than any car ever could.

He pressed a kiss to the crown of her head, unhurried, and felt rather than saw her go soft against him.

"Pick something fast," he murmured. "You drive like you have somewhere better to be."

"I always do," Cassiopeia said, but she was smiling.

Jade had already lifted her phone to call more staff. The ones assisting other customers would not be enough, not with Phei walking in like a beautiful natural disaster wearing money.

Phei looked toward Maddie and Sierra. "If anything catches your eyes, take it too. I have a feeling Hell’s Paradise will not be just a simple week vacation after all."

Sierra’s brows lifted. "That sounds like preparation."

"It is."

Maddie grinned. "For war or romance?"

"With this group?" Phei asked. "Both usually share transportation."

Valentina laughed softly from somewhere near the grand tourer. Noor still looked stunned. Soraya muttered something under her breath about rich people being a public health crisis. She was correct.

Society simply lacked the courage to admit it.

"That is twice tonight you have called us a public health crisis," Maddie noted, drifting closer to the two newcomers with the bright menace of a recruiter. "You are going to fit in beautifully."

"That was not a compliment," Soraya said.

"It never is," Sierra agreed cheerfully. "And yet here we all are."

Phei then walked to Jade, lowering his voice slightly as he stopped near her. "Princess," he said, the title soft but deliberate, "may I have the honor of letting you show me around?"

Jade’s eyes held his for a breath longer than courtesy required.

Then she smiled graceful and warm.

Dangerous in the quietest way.

"It would be my pleasure," she said. "All mine."

And just like that, Phei knew the real car shopping had begun.