"Fifteen minutes," Theo said.
Boyd laughed out loud. "Fifteen minutes? We have spent three days and a fortune, and the boy wants fifteen minutes?"
"Then you have nothing to fear," Walter said mildly. "If he fails, you lose a quarter of an hour. If he succeeds, you save the auction. What kind of expert is afraid of fifteen minutes?"
The challenge hung in the air. Boyd was trapped, and he knew it. Backing down meant admitting a possibility he could not stomach. So he did what proud men do when they are cornered: he raised the stakes.
"Fine," he said, his voice cold. "Let the boy play mechanic. But understand this, Mr. Wells: if I step aside for a housekeeper's son, and he so much as scratches that engine, my team walks. You lose our certification, our insurance, and any chance of starting this car before your show." He turned to Theo with a thin, cruel smile. "And when he fails, this little video everyone is filming gets a very different ending: the boy who lied to a billionaire."
It was a threat aimed at all of them: Wells's reputation, Dela's job, Theo's name. Boyd was betting that fear would make the boy back down.
Theo did not back down. He looked at his mother standing pale in the doorway, her hands knotted in her apron. He saw the worry in her eyes, and underneath it, something he had not expected: trust. She gave him the smallest nod, the same nod Samuel used to give him across a quiet shop.
Then Theo looked at the engine. "I won't scratch it," he said quietly. "I'm the only person in this room who knows how not to."
He set the notebook on the workbench, open to his father's page, and rolled up his sleeves.
"Someone start a timer," Walter said. He lowered himself onto a stool beside the engine bay, close enough to watch every move, and folded his hands on his cane. "I'll witness it myself. If anything goes wrong, I will stop him."
A young technician named Nathan Reed, who had said nothing for three days, quietly pulled out his phone and started a 15-minute countdown. He had been uneasy about Boyd's methods for a while. Now, he angled his screen so the crowd could see the numbers fall.