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Caspian Vannier was so damn sure of himself. "Let her go," he'd told the team the day I packed my bags, swirling a glass of champagne while they celebrated my replacement. "She needs to learn her lesson. She'll come crawling back when she realizes she's nothing without me." He spent months waiting for that apology. He was still waiting on the night of the Monaco yacht party, holding court among the billionaire elite. "Call her, Ace!" someone taunted, leaning over the whiskey-soaked table. "Put her on speaker. I want to hear her beg for her job back." Caspian smiled—that lazy, arrogant mask I used to find charming—and dialed my number. He even softened his voice, prepared to play the generous savior. "Lyra—" But a voice cut him off mid-syllable. Male. Low. The kind of voice that sounds like it just rolled out of bed and doesn't give a single damn about anything. "She can't come to the phone right now." A pause. Then, the voice drifted away from the receiver, casual and familiar: "Hey—don't use all the hot water. I need a shower, too." The silence on the yacht was deafening. Caspian's face went white. "Where?" he managed to choke out. A low, dark chuckle came through the speaker. "In my room." Click. The whiskey glass in Caspian's hand didn't just crack; it shattered. Blood ran down his wrist, dripping onto the white carpet, but he didn't even flinch. He didn't need to say a word. Everyone at that table had recognized the voice. Kieran Hawthorne. Lead Driver for Ironclad Motorsports. The only man in Formula 1 Caspian Vannier truly, deeply hated. And apparently, the man who now had his hands on me. Chapter 1 I wasn't always the one making the headlines. Long before that phone call ruined Caspian's night, I was just a ghost in a Monarch team polo. It started when my replacement strutted back into the paddock like she owned it. Caspian threw her a welcome party so over the top you'd think she'd won the World Championship instead of just... showing up. He booked the entire Monarch Racing hospitality suite. Catering. DJ. Confetti cannons. He flew in champagne from some vineyard in Burgundy that his family probably owned. Everyone was invited. The mechanics. The engineers. The press. The sponsors. Even drivers from other teams stopped by. Everyone except me. "Lyra, stay in your hotel room tonight. Reflect on your performance this season." *Reflect on your performance.* Like I was a child being sent to bed without dinner. So there I was. Sitting on the edge of a stiff hotel mattress on the third floor, still in my Monarch team polo, listening to the party happening directly below me. Bang— The confetti cannons went off and the vibration traveled up through the floor and into the soles of my feet. I could hear everything through the thin walls and the window I'd cracked open because the air conditioning was broken. Glasses clinking. Music thumping. And voices. So many voices, all saying the same thing. "Caspian, you genius! You actually got Saskia back from IndyCar!" "With Saskia calling strategy? Mate, the championship is already yours." "To the new golden duo of Monarch Racing!" I closed my eyes and pressed my fingertips against my eyelids until I saw stars. Saskia de Vries. The glamorous American strategist with the magazine-cover face and the Instagram following. She'd spent two years in IndyCar, putting together a flashy highlight reel—a few bold calls, some viral radio clips, a reputation for being "fearless." She'd never won a championship. Not even close. But none of that mattered. Because in this sport, perception beats reality every single time. And the perception was clear: Lyra Mercer was the problem. Lyra Mercer and her "hesitation." Her "conservative calls." Her "lack of killer instinct." If it weren't for me, Caspian Vannier would already be a World Champion. That was the story, anyway. And Caspian believed it. I could still hear his voice from that morning, cold as ice, not even bothering to look up from his phone while he dismantled my career. "Lyra, you don't have the killer instinct. Your calls are too safe. Saskia is a risk-taker, like me. That's what a champion needs." He'd said it the way you'd tell a waitress you didn't like the wine. Casual. Bored. "Step down, Lyra. Go back to the factory or something. Do data analysis. You're good at that." *Go back to the factory.* I stared at the ceiling, listening to another round of cheers erupt below me. Someone turned the music up louder. A woman laughed—high and bright and confident. Saskia. I pulled the pillow over my face and screamed into it. Not because I was sad. Because I was furious. Three years. I gave that man three years of my life on that pit wall. I knew his driving so well I could tell he was about to make a mistake just by the way his breathing changed on the radio. I knew exactly how to adjust the car when the weather shifted. I knew that if you told him to "push" he'd overdrive and burn through his tires, but if you said "the car is good, just keep the rhythm" he'd suddenly find speed out of nowhere. I knew how to handle him. Not just the car—*him*. His moods. His panic. His ego. I engineered around that ego like it was a flaw in the car itself. Which, honestly, it was. And this is what I got. A hotel room. A closed door. And the sound of my replacement being celebrated like a goddamn hero. I sat there for a long time. Then I picked up my phone and stared at the Monarch Racing team group chat. Someone had posted a selfie of Saskia with the mechanics, all of them grinning. The caption read: New era. New energy. Let's get that title. I was still in the group chat. Nobody had thought to remove me. Or maybe they just didn't care enough to bother. I put the phone face-down on the nightstand. Then I pulled my suitcase out of the closet and started packing. Chapter 2 I want to be clear about something. Caspian Vannier knew exactly what being a Race Engineer meant to me. It wasn't just a title on a lanyard. It was everything I'd worked for since I was sixteen years old, grease under my fingernails, saving every penny to afford entry fees for karting championships I couldn't even eat properly during. I was the one who took his messy, emotional, all-over-the-place driving feedback and turned it into something fast. He'd scream "the car feels like shit" into the radio, and I'd figure out exactly what was wrong and fix it before the next corner. He never understood how I did it. He just expected it to happen, like magic. I was his translator. His safety net. His brain. And when I told him I wouldn't accept a demotion to "background data analyst"—basically a fancy way of saying sit in a dark room and shut up—he didn't even blink. "Lyra, stop being so dramatic." He actually checked his watch while he said it. Checked his watch, like I was making him late for something more important. "Can't you see the bigger picture? We need to win. This isn't personal." *Not personal.* He was erasing three years of my life and calling it strategy. "Just stay in your room tonight. Think it over. And for god's sake, don't embarrass me at the party." I didn't stay in my room. I packed everything I owned into a single black suitcase. It didn't take long. When you live out of team motorhomes and rented apartments for three years, you learn not to accumulate things. My whole life fit into thirty kilograms. I zipped it shut, grabbed my jacket, and walked down the grand staircase of the team motorhome. The party was still going. Music pulsing. Laughter bouncing off the glass walls of the atrium. The air smelled like champagne and expensive cologne and the faint chemical sweetness of confetti. Caspian was standing in the middle of the lobby, holding a crystal flute, looking like he'd stepped out of a perfume ad. Tailored Monarch polo. Hair styled just so. That jawline that made sponsors throw money at him. When he saw me coming down the stairs with my suitcase, his expression shifted. Not to concern. Not to guilt. To *annoyance*. Pure, undiluted irritation, like I was a pop-up notification he couldn't swipe away. "What are you doing down here?" His brow furrowed. His tone was the one he used with junior mechanics who touched his steering wheel without permission. "I told you to stay upstairs." Before I could open my mouth, a woman stepped out from behind his shoulder. I'd seen photos. Everyone had. But photos didn't capture the full effect. Saskia de Vries was tall—taller than me in her heels—with honey-blonde hair that probably had its own stylist. She moved like she was aware of every camera in the room, even the ones that weren't pointing at her. She didn't look confused when she saw me. She didn't ask who I was. That's the thing about this paddock—it's a village. Everyone knows everyone, and everyone knows everyone's business. Chapter 3 Instead, she looked at me the way you'd look at a stain on a tablecloth. Mildly inconvenient. Easily fixed. "Ah." She drew the word out, tilting her champagne glass toward me. Her accent was polished American, the kind you hear from people who grew up between Connecticut boarding schools and European summers. "This must be the famous Lyra Mercer." She turned to Caspian, and her voice shifted—lighter now, conversational, like she was commenting on the weather instead of gutting my career in public. "You know, I spent all of last week listening to the archived team radio from your past two seasons. Hours and hours of it. I had to, to understand the car." She paused, swirling her drink. "And I have to say, Caspian... Baku was hard to listen to." She winced dramatically, like she was reliving physical pain. "You sounded so lost out there. So hesitant. I kept thinking—god, who is in his ear telling him to hold back? Who is making him sound this... small?" Her eyes slid back to me. Slow. Deliberate. Raking over my standard-issue team polo, my flat shoes, my messy ponytail. "Honestly, sweetie, it's a miracle you didn't put him in the wall with those tire calls. A genuine miracle." My nails dug into my palm so hard I felt the skin break. Caspian straightened up next to her, squaring his shoulders, and I watched him physically inflate under her validation—like a peacock spreading its feathers. "That's exactly what I've been saying," he said, nodding. "Finally, someone who gets it." He looked at me when he said it. Looked me dead in the eyes with that handsome face I used to trace with my fingers in the dark, and smiled like he was doing me a favor by letting me witness this. Something in my chest snapped clean in half. The last piece of me that still believed he was the boy who used to sit next to me in the garage until 2 AM and say *I couldn't do this without you, Lyra.* That boy was dead. Maybe he never existed. Saskia extended her hand toward me. Not to shake. She waved it, a little flick of her manicured fingers, the universal gesture for *you can go now.* "I'm Saskia de Vries. Monarch's new Chief Race Engineer." She smiled, all teeth, no warmth. "Don't worry about the handover. I'll clean up whatever mess you left behind." The lobby was quiet now. People were watching. I could feel their eyes—mechanics, PR staff, junior engineers—all of them holding their breath, waiting to see if I'd cry. That's what they expected, wasn't it? The emotional woman making a scene. The diversity hire having a meltdown. I looked at Saskia's outstretched hand. Then past it. Past her. I looked at Caspian. Ten years. I had known this man for ten years. Supported his dream for seven. Loved him—really loved him, the stupid, consuming, all-in kind of love—for five. Guided him through every corner of every race for three. I thought we were partners. I thought the finish line was something we'd cross together. I never imagined it would look like this. Him standing in a champagne-soaked lobby, shoulder to shoulder with my replacement, looking at me like I was something he'd already forgotten. My grip tightened on my suitcase handle. My jaw hurt from clenching. But I didn't cry. I wouldn't give them that. Chapter 4 I didn't look at Saskia. I looked past her, straight at Caspian. "I'm Lyra Mercer," I said. My voice came out steadier than I expected. "I'm not a temporary anything. And from this moment on, I am officially leaving Monarch Racing." The lobby went dead silent. Not the polite kind of silence. The kind where you can hear the ice melting in someone's glass. Caspian's head snapped up. That pretty-boy face twisted into something ugly. "Do you know what you're saying?" he hissed, stepping into my space the way he always did when he wanted me to back down. It always worked before. I reached into my jacket pocket. His eyes tracked my hand. I think he expected a resignation letter. Something formal that he could tear up in front of everyone. Instead, I pulled out a notebook. It was thick, black leather, beaten to hell. The cover was stained with oil and brake dust. The pages were bent and tagged with colored tabs from three years of race weekends, three years of late nights, three years of learning every single flaw this man had behind the wheel and figuring out how to fix them in real time. I dropped it on the glass table between us. It landed with a heavy, satisfying thud. "That's not telemetry data," I said. "You have servers for that. This is the 'Caspian Vannier User Manual.'" He stared at it. Confused. "Everything's in there," I said, tapping the cover. "How to talk you down when you panic on the first lap. How to adjust the car when the weather changes so you don't spin. Which words to use and which tone of voice so you don't throw a fit when the tires start to go off." I looked at Saskia. "Good luck with him. You'll need it." "Lyra!" Caspian's voice cracked like a whip. He grabbed the edge of the table, knuckles white. "You can't just walk out. You're under contract!" He stepped forward, getting right in my face. I could smell the champagne on his breath. "And don't think you can run to another team. You're on Gardening Leave. Six months. No one in this paddock is going to touch you. You walked out on a future World Champion, Lyra. You'll be sitting on your couch watching us lift the trophy." I let him finish. I even let the silence hang for a second, just to watch him think he'd won. Then I smiled. "I know exactly how Gardening Leave works, Caspian," I said softly. "But contracts can be bought out." I turned my back on him. "Let's see if anyone thinks I'm worth the price." *Someone else might already want me.* His face went dark red. "Lyra!" he shouted after me, his voice cracking. "I won't tolerate this tantrum! If you walk out that door, don't you dare come crying to me when you're watching me win on TV!" He thought that would stop me. He thought I'd freeze. Turn around. Cry. Beg. He thought wrong. I pushed open the heavy glass doors and walked out into the paddock. The sunlight hit me so hard I had to shield my eyes. I didn't look back. Behind me, I heard a glass shatter against the marble floor. In all our years together—ten years of knowing each other, five years of sharing a bed—compromise was always a one-way street. I was the only one who ever gave. On the track. In the relationship. In every single argument we ever had. So where the hell did he get the nerve to talk about tolerating me? Chapter 5 I didn't just leave a team. I walked straight into a minefield. For three days, I wandered Monaco like a ghost. Past the yachts I couldn't afford. Past the restaurants where F1 people were probably eating dinner and talking about what a disaster I was. I called every team on the grid. Red Bull. Mercedes. McLaren. Aston Martin. Even the teams at the back, the ones fighting just to stay alive—Williams, Haas, Sauber. I sent messages to Team Principals I'd known for years, people who used to pull me aside at events and say things like *Lyra, if you ever want to leave Monarch, call me.* I called. Nobody picked up. The responses—when they came at all—were always the same. A polite, carefully worded *"We have no vacancies at this time."* Or worse, just silence. The kind of silence that tells you everything. On the third day, my phone finally rang. It was a PR manager from Williams. A woman named Hannah. We used to grab coffee together at race weekends. She was one of the few people in the paddock who treated me like a person instead of "Caspian's engineer." She called me from a number I didn't recognize. "Lyra," she whispered. Like she was hiding in a bathroom somewhere. "I'm calling from a burner. Please don't save this number." My stomach dropped. "Caspian has poisoned the well," she said. "He told every Team Principal that you leaked confidential data to a competitor. He's threatening to pull his family's sponsorship money from any team that hires you." Silence. "You're blacklisted, Lyra. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." The line went dead. I stood on the sidewalk with my phone in my hand, watching a tourist couple take selfies in front of a yacht. My grip was so tight the phone case was digging into my palm. So that's what he meant by *"don't regret it."* Caspian Vannier didn't just want me gone. He wanted me erased. He wanted to make sure that if I couldn't be *his*, I couldn't be anyone's. And the worst part? The paddock let him do it. Because that's how it works in this sport. It doesn't matter how good you are if the right man decides you're done. Caspian came from old money—a dynasty of racing heritage. His grandfather won Le Mans. His father was a team owner. For him, F1 was a birthright. For me, it was the only way out of a life where nobody expected me to amount to anything. The FIA could slap "We Race As One" on every car and every billboard. But behind the slogans, the paddock was still a boys' club. They were happy to put a woman on the pit wall. It looked great for the cameras, for the sponsors, for the diversity reports. But only if she stayed in her lane. Support. Assistant. Engineer. Never the one making the calls. Never the one in the driver's seat. They felt generous letting me hold the clipboard. But respect? That was a different conversation. I closed my eyes and tilted my face toward the sun. The Mediterranean breeze smelled like salt and diesel and money I didn't have. Fine. If no one in this paddock would take my call, then I'd have to wait for someone to find me. Chapter 6 Day five of being unemployed. I was sitting at a greasy outdoor table at a burger place near the edge of the circuit, staring at a pile of cold fries. The kind of place where the ketchup comes in plastic packets and the chairs wobble. I was halfway through convincing myself that maybe I should just go back to university. Get a normal degree. Get a normal job. Forget the smell of burning rubber and hot asphalt. Forget that I ever thought a girl with no money and no connections could make it in Formula 1. A shadow fell over my table. I looked up, expecting a waiter. The figure that dropped into the plastic chair across from me was definitely not a waiter. Dark oversized hoodie, hood pulled low. Black baseball cap. Sunglasses tucked into the collar even though it was cloudy. He moved with that loose, easy confidence of someone who was used to being the most dangerous person in any room. "Don't look around," a low voice said from under the hood. "Two photographers across the street. Unless you want tomorrow's headline to be *'Monarch Reject Caught Plotting with Rival,'* keep your eyes on your fries." My heart stopped. I knew that voice. Three years of studying race data. Three years of telling Caspian *"watch out for Hawthorne in the braking zone"* and *"he's going to try the undercut, stay out."* Three years of that voice in my headphones, coming through the other team's radio feed—calm, taunting, always in control. Kieran Hawthorne. Lead Driver for Ironclad Motorsports. Monarch's biggest rival. The man Caspian hated more than losing. "Kieran?" I whispered. He tilted his head up just enough for me to catch a glimpse of grey eyes. Amused. Always amused. "Eat," he said. "Look casual." He didn't order anything. Didn't take off his hood. He just sat there, tapping one finger on the table, watching me with that sharp, lazy focus that made you feel like a deer in headlights. "What are you doing here?" I hissed under my breath. "Aren't you supposed to be at the factory?" "Debrief ran long. I left." "You left a debrief?" "It was boring." He said it like he was talking about the weather. Like skipping a multi-million dollar team meeting to sit in a burger joint with a blacklisted engineer was the most natural thing in the world. "So," he said, leaning forward on his elbows. "Unemployed. Blacklisted. Sitting in the rain eating sad fries." He paused. "Planning to go home and get a cat?" "Kieran—" "Because I watched you and Caspian all season, and honestly?" He tilted his head. "I could throw a handful of rice on a dashboard and a chicken would peck out a better strategy." I flinched. "I'm not here for a lecture," I said through my teeth. "Good." He reached into his hoodie pocket and pulled out a cigarette. He didn't light it. Just rolled it between his fingers—long fingers, scarred knuckles, a faded bruise on his left hand from god knows what. "I'm not here to give one." He looked at me. The amusement was gone now. His eyes were serious. "I'm here to offer you a job. Ironclad Motorsports. We have a spot." The words didn't process. I blinked at him like he'd spoken another language. "A... what?" "A spot. A position. Employment. You know—the thing where you show up and people pay you?" "But I'm on Gardening Leave," I stammered. "Six months. Caspian will sue. The buyout is millions of dollars. Kieran, you can't just—" "Already done." I stopped talking. "Monarch's legal team received the wire transfer about ten minutes ago," he said, checking his watch like he was timing a pit stop. "Five million. Clean. Your Gardening Leave clause is void." He looked up at me. That lazy amusement was back, but underneath it was something harder. Something that dared me to say no. "You're a free agent, Lyra. So stop looking at me like that. What—did you think I couldn't afford you?" I opened my mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. "Why?" was all I could manage. Kieran stood up, pulling his hood tighter. He dropped the unlit cigarette on the table. "Because I'm bored of winning against idiots," he said. "My car's in the alley. It's not a Ferrari. Keep your head down." Chapter 7 We left in a beat-up SUV that smelled like stale coffee and high-octane fuel. Kieran drove with one hand on the wheel and the other resting on the window frame, not saying a word. The radio was off. The silence should have been awkward, but he wore it like a jacket—comfortable, natural. Ironclad Motorsports and Monarch Racing were nothing alike. If Monarch was a symphony orchestra—everything polished, controlled, everyone in matching uniforms with matching smiles—then Ironclad was a punk band playing in someone's garage. Loud. Messy. Alive. The moment I walked through the factory doors, I could feel the difference. Music was thumping from the workshop. A mechanic was singing along badly while taking apart a gearbox. Someone had taped a meme of a rival driver to the coffee machine. When they saw me, the music didn't stop. But the conversations did. A young mechanic—couldn't have been older than twenty-two—looked up from a brake assembly, wiping his hands on a rag. "Boss," he called out. "Is this a new strategy? Stealing the enemy's brain?" "Genius move, boss!" another one yelled from behind a tire rack. "We don't even have to race them if we just take all their people!" Kieran kicked the first mechanic lightly in the shin. "Shut up, brats. This is Lyra. She's with us now." They didn't whisper. They didn't stare. They clapped. It was messy and loud and completely overwhelming, and I had absolutely no idea what to do with it. Kieran didn't give me time to figure it out. "Evaluation time," he said, grabbing my elbow and steering me past the engineering bays, down a corridor, and into the Simulator Room. I walked toward the engineering console. The station where I'd sit to monitor data, manage strategy, do what I'd always done. "Not there," Kieran said. He pointed at the cockpit. The driver's seat. "You want me to... drive?" "I want to see if you understand the car. Get in." I stared at him. Then at the cockpit. Then back at him. He raised an eyebrow. Waiting. I climbed in. The cockpit was tight. My shoulders pressed against the carbon fiber walls. The steering wheel was heavier than I remembered. The last time I'd sat in a racing seat, I was twenty-one, broke, and watching my Formula 3 career die because I couldn't afford the next season. I strapped myself in and selected a safe setup. Conservative. Nothing that would stress the car. *Don't break anything. Don't crash. Be a good girl.* I braked early—way early. I lifted off the gas on the straights. I stayed away from the curbs. When I pulled back into the virtual pit lane and the session ended, the room was silent. I pulled off the headset and looked through the glass partition at the data screens. My lap times were... average. Solidly average. Kieran was standing behind the glass. He wasn't looking at the screens. He was looking at me. His jaw was clenched so tight I could see the muscle jumping in his cheek. His arms were crossed. His eyes were dark. He didn't look disappointed. He looked furious. The door to the sim room slammed open. He walked in—no, he stormed in—crossing the space in three long strides. He reached into the cockpit and ripped the headset out of my hands. It clattered onto the floor. I pressed back into the seat, my breath catching. This was it. He was going to fire me. Tell me I was slow. Tell me Caspian was right. But Kieran didn't step back. He stepped closer. He planted both hands on the edges of the cockpit, one on each side of my head, and leaned in until his face was inches from mine. I could smell cigarette smoke and something sharper—aftershave, maybe, or just the clean sweat of someone who ran hot. The cockpit was small. There was nowhere to go. His arms caged me in. I could feel the heat coming off his body, could see the flecks of darker grey in his eyes up close. My heart was slamming so hard I was sure he could hear it. "Who is driving this car?" he said, his voice low and rough. Not yelling. Worse than yelling. "You? Or Caspian's ghost?" "I was trying to—" "You were trying to be a good girl." He cut me off. His eyes didn't blink. "You braked fifty meters early because you were scared someone would yell at you. You stayed off the curbs because you were scared of breaking something." He leaned in closer. His breath was warm against my face. "Lyra. Look at me." I was already looking at him. I couldn't look anywhere else. "Ironclad is not Monarch. We have money. We have spare parts. I don't need someone in this cockpit who drives like she's apologizing for being here." His voice dropped. Almost a whisper. "I need you to be fast." He held my gaze for a beat too long. Then another. Then he pushed off the cockpit and straightened up, stepping back like nothing had happened. "Get back in. Do it again." He shoved his hands in his pockets and turned toward the door. Over his shoulder, he added: "And this time—drive it like you stole it." Chapter 8 "Again." Kieran's voice through the headset. No warmth. No patience. I gritted my teeth. Sweat was running into my eyes, stinging. My arms were shaking. My neck felt like someone had taken a hammer to it. I'd been in this simulator for three hours straight and every muscle in my body was screaming at me to stop. I slammed the car into gear and went again. *Drive it like you stole it.* I stopped thinking. I stopped checking numbers. I stopped being careful. I just drove. I threw the car into corners like I was trying to hurt it. I clipped every apex so close the curbs rattled my teeth. I braked later and later, pushing the limit until the tires were howling and the back end was twitching underneath me like a living thing. It felt like being sixteen again. Like being back in a kart, covered in mud, racing in the rain with nothing to lose. When I crossed the finish line, the screen flashed purple. New Lap Record. I sat there, chest heaving, hands trembling on the wheel. Waiting. Waiting for the voice in my head—Caspian's voice—to tell me I was reckless. That I'd pushed too hard. That I'd broken something. The hydraulic door hissed open behind me. Kieran didn't say a word. He walked over to the cockpit, leaned in, and unbuckled my harness. His hands were rough and efficient—no fumbling, no hesitation. He grabbed the shoulder straps and pulled them apart, then gripped my arm and hauled me out of the rig. My legs had nothing left. The second my feet hit the floor, my knees buckled. His hands caught my waist. Both of them. Firm. Steadying. I was pressed against his chest for exactly two seconds before he shifted his grip to my arm and pulled me upright. But those two seconds were enough to feel how warm he was. How solid. How tight his fingers were on my hips. "Come with me," he said. Low. Rough. He didn't let go. He towed me through the workshop, his hand locked around my upper arm. The mechanics went quiet as we passed. I saw their faces—mouths open, eyes wide. Not pity. Something else. I glanced at the big screen on the workshop wall. My lap time was displayed in massive numbers. Purple. Fastest ever recorded in this sim. I didn't have time to process it. Kieran pulled me down a corridor, through a heavy door, and into the server room. It was dark and cool, the air filled with the low hum of electronics. Rows of blinking server racks lined the walls. He shut the door. The lock clicked. Just us. And the hum. "I know I was aggressive in Sector 2," I started, my voice coming out shaky. "I can dial it back—" "Shut up." He stepped forward. I stepped back. My shoulders hit the wall. He put a hand on the wall beside my head. Then the other. Caging me in. His face was close—close enough that I could see the faint scar above his left eyebrow, the dark ring around his grey irises. He wasn't angry anymore. The look on his face was something I couldn't name. Something raw. "Do you know what you just did?" His voice was barely above a whisper. I shook my head. "Broke the car?" "0.012 seconds." "What?" "You beat my pole lap. By twelve thousandths of a second." I blinked. "That's it?" His jaw tightened. His eyes went sharp. "That's it?" he repeated. "Lyra. Championships are won by less than that. People spend their entire careers chasing that kind of gap." He leaned in closer. His nose almost touching mine. I could smell smoke and cologne and sweat, and my brain short-circuited. "I knew it," he murmured. "I knew there was a monster hiding under that engineer's polo." My breath hitched. I pressed harder against the wall, like I could phase through it. He held there for a beat. His eyes dropped—just for a second—to my mouth. Then he pushed off the wall and turned away, swiping a tablet off one of the server racks. When he spoke again, his voice was all business. Like the last thirty seconds hadn't happened. "Your braking is still hesitant here." He showed me a graph on the screen, tracing a line with his finger. "You're not trusting the car. But here—the exit of Turn 4—that was pure instinct. That was the real you." I stared at his profile while he talked. The sharp jaw. The focused eyes. The way he could flip a switch and go from that to cold data in half a second. We were in that room for an hour. When we finally walked out, the Ironclad crew was waiting. "Lyra! That lap time was insane!" "We saw the traces—your steering inputs are surgical!" "Drinks tonight! We're celebrating the new rookie!" I froze. I didn't know what to do with it. The noise, the smiles—I kept waiting for the catch. For someone to laugh and say *just kidding, you're still just Caspian's ex.* Kieran saw me freeze. He didn't say anything comforting. That wasn't his style. He reached out and clamped his hand on the back of my neck. A rough, heavy grip. His thumb pressed into the soft skin just below my ear, and a jolt shot down my spine so fast I almost flinched. "Back off," he barked at the crew. No real bite. "She's done. Feed her. Let her sleep. Tomorrow we put her in the real car." His thumb dragged slowly across the spot behind my ear before he let go. "Good job, Mercer," he said. Quiet. Just for me.

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Started 8h ago

What competitors are running.