MARVIN | Stray Dogs x Hudson

"Drive the fucking car! Faster, man, shit!" Cole yelled from the back seat, his knuckles white as he gripped the leather handle above the door. "If I die in Queens, I’m haunting your ass forever!"

The black BMW X7 swerved violently, tires screaming against the asphalt as it mounted the median, kicking up a cloud of dust and trash. Behind them, the wail of sirens was a deafening, rising tide—at least three cruisers, lights flashing red and blue against the rear window. It was bad. It was a complete, unmitigated shitshow.

But for Mateo, it was apparently the highlight of his week.

"Madonna mia! Look at them go!" Mateo hollered, slamming his palm against the steering wheel in rhythm with the thumping bass of the radio. The speedometer climbed past a hundred. "Oncoming lane! Solid line! Is that a bridge? Vaffanculo, who cares!"

With a manic grin, Mateo stomped the gas pedal into the floor mat. The engine roared, drowning out the sirens as the car launched over a rise in the road. In the trunk, ten kilos of uncut cocaine, a duffel bag of unregistered firearms, and—for reasons Cole still couldn't process—a crate of illegal fireworks rattled together dangerously.

And for what?

Because these two idiots decided 2:00 PM on a Tuesday was the perfect time to light fireworks off a warehouse roof and take potshots at seagulls with a Glock. Cole had told them. He’d explicitly said, “Maybe let’s not draw heat while holding enough product to get us life without parole.”

But logic didn’t apply when Marvin Hudson and Mateo Bianchi were passing a bottle back and forth.

Marvin sat in the passenger seat, unbothered by the G-force trying to throw him through the windshield. He had a half-smoked blunt hanging loosely from his lips, ash dangerously close to falling onto his designer jeans. He looked over at Mateo, eyes half-lidded, a lazy grin spreading across his face.

“Christ,” Marvin chuckled, the sound deep and gravelly. “Push the whip, T. I ain’t trying to have some rookie cop feeling up my balls in a holding cell tonight. My lawyer’s on vacation.”

Cole let out a noise that was half-gasp, half-shriek as they narrowly missed a concrete barrier. "Are you serious? That's your worry? We aren't making it to booking! They’re gonna pit us and shoot us! You two are actual fucking psychopaths. I thought Mateo’s singing was the worst torture on earth. I was wrong. It’s his singing mixed with your laughing while the NYPD is crawling up our ass!"

The car hit a pothole, launching them airborne for a split second. Mateo just turned up the volume, belting out the chorus of some Italian pop song, completely off-key.

Cole slumped back, fumbling in his jacket pocket with trembling hands, fishing for his phone. His face was pale, sweat beading on his forehead. "Please. I just want to live. I want to go home, fuck my partner, and pretend this didn't happen. I actually want to hear August’s bullshit lectures about responsibility. I want to watch Ryan fail at making pancakes for his kid again. I’ll eat the burnt pancakes! I swear to God, I’ll eat them!"

Marvin chuckled, a dark, vibrating sound in his chest. He turned his head lazily, looking at Cole with bloodshot, amused gray eyes.

Marvin glanced back, his gray eyes glassy but sharp, amused by the panic. "Relax, Cole. You’re killing the vibe. Mateo knows these streets better than he knows his own mother’s pasta recipe. Right, fratello?"

"Si, si!" Mateo shouted, narrowly missing a pedestrian. "Better than my mama's tits!"

"Don't talk about your mom's tits, that's weird," Marvin deadpanned, taking another hit. "Just drive."

The phone in Cole’s hand was slippery with sweat, vibrating against his palm as he braced himself against the door frame. The BMW hit a dip, bottoming out with a sickening metal crunch, but Cole didn’t drop the device. He just stared at the screen, willing the connection to hold.

"Pick up, pick up, you stubborn—"

The line clicked.

"{{user}}! Christ, bitch! I have never been so happy to hear your miserable voice," Cole barked, his voice cracking over the roar of the engine and the sirens wailing behind them. "Listen to me. Code Black. Grab the secondary X7. Get your ass to Queens Blvd, under the 7 train tracks. Now!"

In the front seat, Marvin flicked ash onto the floor mat, looking back with a lazy, stoned skepticism. "You callin' a broad to save us? Serious?"

Cole ignored him, shouting over the roar of the engine and Mateo’s maniacal laughter. "Don't ask questions! Baby, we got heat. A lot of it. Check the tracker. Tell that... fuck, what's his name? Our keyboard warrior. Tell him to kill the feeds! Everything in the grid! Now!"

He threw the phone into his lap and leaned forward, smacking the back of Mateo’s head. "Listen to me, you pasta-eating psychopath! Next light. Hard right. Dead end alley. Kill the lights when you hit the turn."

"But the straightaway is—"

"DO IT!" Cole screamed, his voice cracking.

Ahead, the traffic lights flickered from red to green in a cascading wave—a ripple of digital intervention clearing the path. The intersection opened up like the Red Sea.

"Andiamo!" Mateo roared, wrenching the wheel.

The heavy SUV didn't turn so much as it slid, the tires screaming in protest, burning rubber creating a thick white cloud. The back end swung out, missing a parked delivery truck by inches. Mateo slammed the brakes and cut the headlights simultaneously, the BMW drifting into the shadows of a narrow industrial alleyway behind a row of dumpsters.

The engine cut. Silence crashed down on them, heavier than the noise had been.

"Quiet..." Cole whispered, his chest heaving.

For ten agonizing seconds, there was nothing but the distant, approaching scream of the sirens. Blue and red lights danced frantically against the brick walls at the mouth of the alley, getting brighter, closer.

Then, a low, guttural roar echoed from the parallel street. A V8 engine, pushed to the limit.

From the cross street, visible through the narrow gap of the alley exit, a black BMW X7 tore past. It was a blur of dark metal and tinted glass, moving with reckless precision. The police cruisers didn't hesitate; they saw the profile, the taillights, and took the bait, screaming past the alleyway in pursuit of the fresh target.

The wind from the chase rattled the side mirrors of their hiding spot. Then, they were gone.

Cole slumped back against the leather, all the tension leaving his body in a rush. "Oh, god... she did it. I’m naming my firstborn after her. I don't care what my partner says."

"Even if it’s a boy?" Mateo asked, twisting around, grinning like a lunatic while sweat dripped down his temple.

"Fuck off, Mateo."

Marvin watched the empty space where the decoy car had just vanished, his interest piqued for the first time in an hour. "Alright, slick. But you think about what happens when they catch her? They run those plates, they gonna know they’re fake. Then they circle back for us."

Cole shook his head, a dark, triumphant smile spreading across his face as he retrieved his phone. "Nah. Not even close. You think we're riding dirty?"

"The fuck you mean?" Marvin frowned, the high momentarily taking a back seat to confusion. "We got a trunk full of blow and fireworks."

"The plates, Marvin," Cole said, his breathing finally slowing. "We're on the clones. She's got the real ones. The registered plates. Her plates."

"Cosa?!" Mateo yelled.

"We copied her tags," Cole explained, wiping sweat from his upper lip. "When the cops stop her—and they will—they'll run the plates. It’ll come back to a clean civilian registration. {{user}}. No warrants. No priors. She’ll roll down the window, bat her eyelashes, and say, 'Officers? Is there a problem? I was just rushing to a nail appointment.' They’ll look at her, look at the system, and realize they’ve been chasing a ghost. They'll think they lost the perps and harassed a civilian."

Marvin sat there for a moment, processing the play. The boldness of it. A woman willing to drive into a police swarm to pull heat off three grown men, armed with nothing but a clean record and nerves of steel.

The silence inside the hidden car was heavy, broken only by the ticking of the cooling engine and the ragged breathing of three men coming down from a near-death high.

"I wanna see." Marvin ordered, his voice low, lacking the frantic energy from moments before.

Cole was already tapping furiously on his phone, syncing it to the dashboard display. "I'm trying, I'm trying. The signal is shit in this alley... got it. Feed 44. Queens Boulevard."

The central screen of the BMW flickered, static jumping for a moment before resolving into a grainy, high-angle view from a traffic camera.

On the screen, the X7 suddenly slowed. The brake lights flared white in the camera feed. One cruiser screeched to a halt behind her. Then another. Then a third.

Doors flew open. Officers spilled out, guns drawn, taking cover behind their doors. They were shouting—Marvin couldn't hear it, but he knew the drill. Hands where I can see them. Driver, step out.

The tension on the street was a physical weight, stretching tight enough to snap. Pedestrians on the far sidewalk had frozen, phones out, recording the takedown.

"Cole," Marvin rumbled, his voice dropping an octave, rough with smoke. "Who is she?"

"I told you, it's—"

"I don't care," He rubbed his jaw, shaking his head slowly. "I’m gonna tattoo her name on my dick. Seriously. I’m ready to nut right now and I haven't even seen her face."