My Taboo Harem!

Chapter 977: Pagani Utopia

If it were purely cars—beastial monsters of polished steel, gentle aristocrats of old money, masculine machines that announced Masculinity Just Walked Into The Room before the engine had even breathed, silent predators built around quiet dominance, elegant killers for princes with bloodline arrogance, dragons disguised as automobiles, and every other breed of speed, wealth and mechanical temptation a heart could desire—Jade’s dealership had it all.

And not merely had it in the ordinary commercial sense.

No.

Jade’s second floor was less a showroom and more a private sanctuary where the world’s finest machines had been gathered, refined, sharpened, reborn and taught better manners before being allowed into the presence of wealth.

Each car she showed Phei seemed somehow better than the last, and the deeper they walked through that gleaming mechanical paradise, the more obvious it became that nothing on this floor could be called normal without insulting normality itself:

There were names everyone knew—machines so famous their existence alone could make grown men talk like prophets and idiots—but here those same names arrived transformed, elevated, exaggerated into rarities that turned familiarity into awe.

There were limited editions produced in such insultingly small numbers that ownership itself was a form of class warfare. There were discontinued masterpieces impossible to acquire through ordinary channels. There were also singular creations made once and never again, preserved here as though the world of engineering had coughed up one perfect fever dream and then lost the courage to repeat it:

Then there were even machines born from collaborations between companies that normally behaved like empires too proud to shake hands, let alone build a beast together.

Even the monsters everyone thought they knew had changed species here.

Pugatti Chirons—each one rebuilt and worth more than three times the already criminal price of the originals—stood in sovereign menace beneath the lights. Poenigsegg Jeskos gleamed nearby with bodies that looked less designed than weaponized:

Cars in the five-million-and-above range sat so casually around the floor that Noor and Soraya had both eventually stopped trying to guess prices after they realized repeated financial trauma in one evening was bad for the nerves.

Down on the first floor were expensive cars, yes, the sort that still ruined bank accounts and marriages and family budgets. But up here? Up here were reborn machines.

Every model had its "ordinary" counterpart downstairs, and if someone were to look at the two side by side, they would understand immediately how pathetic the word ordinary really was.

Phei, for all his growing wealth and arrogance wealth, had long ago stopped pretending he understood rich people’s hobbies fully.

Tonight, however, he was willing to forgive them.

Jade led him deeper into the floor with a calm, poised confidence that made even the cars seem to straighten when she approached.

Her enthusiasm for cars was not loud like Maddie’s or playful like Sierra’s. It was refined and controlled but it lived inside her all the same, visible in the subtle brightening of her eyes, the way her fingers would gesture toward a body line or a dashboard curve, the way her voice softened into affection when describing the engineering buried beneath some impossibly polished surface.

Phei had already been half-lost in her beauty now she had the audacity to become more attractive by being competent.

The woman was clearly trying to kill him in civilized ways.

A few paces back, Maddie watched the two of them drift ahead and let a slow, private smile settle over her face. This was the part of the plan she had not bothered explaining to anyone, least of all Phei.

She had not chosen Jade’s dealership because it was the biggest on the island.

She had chosen it because of Jade herself!

Sierra caught the smile and leaned in.

"You are scheming," Sierra murmured.

"I am always scheming," Maddie said serenely. "Tonight I am simply scheming visibly. It is healthier. My therapist would be proud, if I had not had her relocated."

Sierra decided, wisely, not to ask.

Instead of starting with the flashiest more popular monsters, Jade surprised him.

She stopped before a car resting under a wash of warm gold light and turned toward him with a small smile.

"This," she said, "is where I wanted to shop you next."

Phei looked.

And forgot, for a brief second, that breathing was generally recommended for survival.

The Pagani Utopia sat there like a work of art that had developed aggression.

Its body held the familiar DNA of the Utopia, yes, but everything about it had been deepened, sharpened, brought into a more mythic existence. The lines were cleaner yet more predatory, the proportions more deliberate, the carbon weave visible beneath a lustrous pearl-metal finish that shifted between liquid silver and a faint storm-blue sheen whenever the lighting changed across its curves.

The front end looked almost alive, low and purposeful, while the sculpted side channels and rear profile suggested not merely speed, but ceremony—like it expected the road to receive it respectfully.

It was beautiful in the way swords were beautiful: elegant, precise, and fully aware of what they could do to softer things.

Jade moved beside it and rested her hand lightly near the roofline without touching it fully, as if respecting the thing as one living sovereign respected another:

"This isn’t simply a customized Pagani Utopia," she said. "This one was reimagined almost from the bones outward. The original philosophy remains intact—lightweight construction, sculptural design, a purity of mechanical engagement—but every performance element has been elevated. Output is nearly five times the optimization profile of the standard road Utopia. Not merely raw power," she added, glancing at him with a knowing smile, "because raw power without control is how men with money die beautifully and expensively. This one was rebuilt for response, balance, reflex and adaptability."

She walked slowly around it, and Phei followed...

"...The chassis was reinforced with an advanced carbon-titanium weave. The aerodynamics are active, but they are disguised so cleanly that the car never looks desperate. Adaptive venting and predictive thermal regulation. Responsive road-memory tracking. A transformed suspension system that learns your driving temperament within minutes. The braking response was rebuilt. The steering ratio too. Even the sound engineering was refined so the engine note remains... honest."

A tiny smile touched her mouth. "It does not scream to convince you. It roars because it can."

Phei laughed softly under his breath.

’This girl.’

She could make a car sound aristocratic.

Then Jade opened the driver-side door for him.

Or rather, the door did not merely open.

It unfurled.

The motion was so smooth, so fluid and precise, that it almost seemed as though the car was transforming itself into readiness. Panels shifted with silken intelligence, the canopy angle revealing itself in elegant sequence while subtle internal lighting came alive under the trim lines, the instrument cluster blooming into illumination like a machine waking from noble sleep.

Even part of the protective contour along the side seemed to retract and settle as though the car were saying, well then, if it is you, come in.

Phei stared.

Then got in.

The interior ruined him further.

This was not the familiar Pagani interior the world knew. The soul of it remained—the fusion of analogue romance and mechanical intimacy—but here it had been turned almost reverential:

The cabin wrapped around him like a consecrated cockpit, rich in hand-stitched leather the color of deep charcoal wine, brushed metal detailing, exposed engineered elements polished like jewelry, and illuminated instrument dials that gleamed with old-school artistry despite the far more advanced system beneath them.

The dashboard screens were integrated with such restraint that they did not look like ugly tablets glued onto luxury.

They emerged from the design itself, luminous and graceful, each display unfolding with layered information without sacrificing the tactile integrity of the cabin. Toggle switches remained. Real switches. Real metal. Real presence.

The center console looked like the altar of some minor speed god.

And yet despite all the sophistication, the controls were intuitive not crowded and suffocating.

Everything seemed placed where instinct wanted it.

Phei ran his fingers over the steering wheel and the metal controls, awe finally visible on his face without shame.

Jade noticed.

That pleased her more than she expected.

***

A/N: Just the start!