chapter 26 Aug 7, 2025 Papa's suite is luxury prison with a minibar. Five-star incarceration. I've been rotting here for days, watching the Hungaroring through stolen binoculars like a Formula 1 stalker with expensive taste. "You can't hide forever, stellina," Lorenzo says over breakfast that costs more than most people's rent. "The press will move on to the next scandal soon enough. Someone will get drunk, someone will punch someone, Circle of tabloid life." "Not hiding," I lie through a mouthful of pastry that tastes like butter and self-pity. "Strategic repositioning." He gives me the look-the one that says 'I've been dealing with your bullshit since conception.' "Is that what we're calling it?" His phone rings for the forty-seventh time this morning. Another sponsor wanting reassurance that the De Marco name isn't permanently radioactive. I tune out his damage control Italian and focus on the track below, where real life continues without me. Parker's running Charles through practice starts. My replacement-some guy who probably has his actual name on his birth certificate-adjusts the rear wing with competent mediocrity. The car looks wrong. Sounds wrong. Everything's wrong. "I'm not leaving," I announce when Papa hangs up from promising someone we're not corporate terrorists. "I'm going to every race. Even if I have to wear a fucking paper bag on my head." "Daniella-" "Formula 1 is in my DNA. Literally. You put it there." I turn from the window, decision crystallizing. "They can take my job, my name, my dignity. But they can't take my right to watch cars go fast in circles." He sighs like I've asked to join the circus. Which, technically, I already did. "You'll need to be careful. Discrete." "Discrete is my middle name." "Your middle name is Francesca." "Details." * * * The hotel gift shop is where fashion goes to die. I emerge with a cap that screams 'tourist trying not to look like tourist' and sunglasses that could hide a small country. The transformation in the mirror is depressing-from respected mechanic to Anonymous Fan #47,293. "Perfect," I tell my reflection. "Unrecognizable. Forgettable. Dead inside." The cap reads 'HUNGARY' in aggressive font. The sunglasses are aggressively generic. I'm aggressively nobody. Saturday practice happens without me. I watch from the balcony, memorizing Charles's lines through corners I helped him perfect. The commentators mention the "Farnese Scandal" three times. Each one hits like a personal attack. "She was talented, sure, but the deception raises questions about data security," one says, and I throw a cushion at the TV. "That's my suspension setup you're praising, you pompous dick," I inform the screen. "My calculations making that car sing through sector two." Sunday arrives hot and vindictive, Hungarian summer at its most aggressive. I slip out early, general admission ticket burning in my pocket like shame made tangible. "Be careful," Papa says, watching me transform into Nobody Special. "The media-" "Will be in the paddock sniffing around important people. Not sitting in general admission with the plebs." I adjust my aggressive tourist costume. "I'll be invisible." The grandstands assault every sense. Packed humanity, overpriced beer, enthusiasm that borders on religious fervor. I wedge myself between a German couple and a family from Japan, all of us united in our obsession with speed. Nobody looks twice at the woman in the Hungary cap. I'm background noise. Atmospheric decoration. It's perfect and devastating in equal measure. Lights out, and my trained eye locks onto Charles's car. P3 on the grid-not ideal, but workable. He launches perfectly, the clutch bite I spent hours perfecting translating into forward momentum. "That's my boy," I mutter, then remember I'm supposed to be nobody. The German woman gives me a look. I mime generic fan enthusiasm. Lap fifteen, and it's Charles versus Elio at the front. Because of course it is. The universe's favorite joke, playing out at 300 kilometers per hour. They trade positions through corners I could navigate blindfolded, using every millimeter of track like they're painting with asphalt. "He's pushing too hard through turn eleven," I observe automatically. "Gonna cook the rears if he's not-" The Japanese kid stares at me. Right. Normal fans don't do real-time tire degradation analysis. Charles defends into turn one like his life depends on it. Elio tries the outside, inside, invents new lines that shouldn't exist. They're brilliant together-a perfectly matched disaster, fighting for victory and probably metaphorical significance. "COME ON!" I scream with the crowd as Charles holds position through the chicane. For a moment, I forget I'm nobody. Forget I'm not in the garage, living every apex with him. The final laps blur into pure anxiety. Elio's relentless, Charles is stubborn, and I'm pretty sure I'm having a cardiac event. When Charles crosses the line first, I'm crying before I realize it's happening. Pride. Loss. Joy. Grief. All of it mixing into tears that fog my generic sunglasses. He did it. Won with setup work I contributed to, in a car I helped perfect, while I sit anonymous in a sea of strangers. The poetry of it could choke a horse. Elio crosses second, because symbolism is apparently mandatory now. Always close, never quite first-in racing, in whatever we had, in the hierarchy of my disaster life. The crowd surges toward the podium ceremony. I should stay, watch Charles spray champagne I'll never taste, celebrate with a team I'll never rejoin. Should torture myself with the full experience. Instead, I slip away against the human current. Past vendors selling merchandise I can't wear, through gates I entered as a nobody, into a parking lot where nobody knows my name. My phone buzzes. Papa: "He won." "Yeah," I text back. "He won." What I don't add: I lost. Lost my place, my purpose, my right to celebrate his victories. But at least I was here. At least I saw it. At least for ninety minutes, I could pretend Eva Farnese wasn't dead. The podium ceremony echoes across the circuit-anthem, champagne, celebration I helped build but can't share. I sit in my rental car, Hungary cap crushed in my lap, and let myself feel it all. Charles won. I'm proud. I'm destroyed. I'm nobody. But I'll be in Belgium next week, wearing a different terrible disguise, watching from different cheap seats. Because Formula 1 is my blood, my curse, my everything. Even if I have to experience it from exile. Even if it hurts. Especially if it hurts.