Redline & Regret

Ricky Callahan's first week on his own at Kowalski's Garage begins with a dropped torque wrench, a van that shouldn't have moved, and a hole in the drywall that nobody wants to explain to Old Pete. What follows is a season of long nights under fluorescent lights, where the work is honest but the money is not, and the regulars who drift through the bay door each morning bring their own kind of trouble with them. Lena Vasquez, the parts supplier who keeps the shelves stocked and the ledgers honest, has started asking questions Pete doesn't want answered. Ginger O'Malley runs the front desk like a pit crew and the rumor mill like a small-town newspaper. Duke Harlan wants the lot, and he's patient enough to wait Pete out. Sully and his crew talk about a redline run across three state lines, the kind of money that fixes everything, or ends it. Ricky can wrench an engine back from the dead, but he can't tell whether the family taking him in is protecting him or using him. With Gary, Kira, Mr. Wrench, T-Bone, and Buck all pulling the shop in different directions, every repaired transmission is a choice, every favor is a debt, and the next rev of the engine might be the one that breaks everything. Ricky has to decide whether the life waiting under the hood is the one he came for, or the one that will leave him redlined and full of regret.