ptied as teams packed equipment for the journey to the next race. I lurk by airport security like a stalker with frequent flyer status, waiting for Adison to materialize from the Apex Nova exodus. She appears looking like she's been through a spin cycle-exhausted, wrinkled, but somehow still put together enough to judge my disguise. "Is that seriously what you're wearing? You look like a tourist who got lost on the way to a gift shop." "Missed you too," I say, but then we're hugging and I'm trying not to cry into her designer jacket. "How bad is it?" "Nicholas has been a walking HR violation," she says, pulling back to study my face. "Corporate spy this, insider trading that. Man's projecting harder than IMAX." Her eyes get that gleam-the one that means gossip incoming. "But holy shit, Eva. Yesterday? Chef's kiss of karma." "What happened?" "Charles finally snapped. Like, proper snapped. Not his usual ice prince routine-actual human emotions." She's practically vibrating with the drama of it all. "They were in the engineering room and suddenly it's World War Three. Shouting, accusations, I think someone threw a telemetry printout." "Charles doesn't shout," I say automatically, because in many months I've heard him raise his voice exactly twice, and one of those was mid-orgasm. "That's what made it spectacular. Ice Prince versus Jealous Weasel, and the ice prince chose violence." She grins. "Security had to separate them. The entire team backed Charles-turns out nobody likes Nicholas, they just tolerated him. Whatever he said finally gave everyone permission to admit he's a dick." My phone buzzes before I can process this character development. Charles: Terminal 2, observation deck. Ten minutes. "He wants to meet," I show Adison, who whistles low. "Get it, girl. Or get closure. Either way, get something." I leave her with a shaky smile and the kind of nerves. By the time I reach the observation deck, the weight of what I'm about to do sinks in. The observation deck screams 'place for dramatic conversations'-all windows and planes and metaphorical departures. Charles stands with his back to me, probably contemplating which emotion to strangle first. When he turns, he looks like someone put him through emotional bootcamp. Exhaustion, guilt, and something angrier swimming in those gray eyes. "Nicholas was the one who exposed you." No preamble. No small talk. Just immediate emotional violence. The words rearrange my understanding of everything. "What?" "He overheard you and your father at the wine tasting. In Italian." Charles's hands clench like he's imagining Nicholas's neck between them. "He'd been following you. Looking for dirt. Thought destroying you would somehow make him matter more." I process this information like swallowing glass. Nicholas fucking Brooklyn. That jealous, mediocre waste of carbon fiber destroyed my life because… what? Charles occasionally acknowledged my existence? "He bragged about it," Charles continues, and now the rage is obvious, barely controlled. "Actually thought I'd thank him. Like exposing you was some kind of favor to the team." "What did you do?" Though Adison's gleeful recap gave me hints. "Told him exactly what kind of pathetic, talent-free parasite he is. Made it clear that if he speaks your name again, he'll be racing in Formula Ford. If they'll have him." The protective fury in his voice does complicated things to my chest. "Parker had to pull me off him." The image of Charles-controlled, calculating Charles-going feral on Nicholas makes me feel things I'm not equipped to process. "Why?" I ask, because I need to understand. "You hate me right now. Why defend me?" "I don't hate you." He runs a hand through his hair, messing it in that way that makes me want to fix it and ruin it more. "I'm furious. Disappointed. Hurt. But hate? No." "Could've fooled me." "You lied to me for many months. Let me share things, trust you, while knowing you were… not who you said." His voice cracks slightly. "But that doesn't mean you deserved Nicholas. Nobody deserves to have their life destroyed by someone that petty." The distance between us feels continental. Here's Charles, defending my honor while maintaining emotional walls higher than Monaco property prices. "It doesn't change anything," he adds, quieter now. "Between us. I'm still… processing. May be processing forever. But Nicholas needed to know that destroying you wasn't some victory. It was pathetic." "Charles-" We fall into silence, the kind that doesn't scrape or sting. Just… breathes. "I watched the race," I say finally. "You were-God, Charles, you were brilliant." He exhales sharply, like he's been holding it in since Sunday. "It was the hardest drive of my life." "I could tell." I shift closer. "You pushed that car to its absolute limit." "You built that limit," he says, looking straight at me. "Even with everything-everything-you still gave me the perfect setup." "I couldn't not," I whisper. "No matter how much we've-twisted, broken-I couldn't let you lose because of me." A long pause. "I felt you there," he says quietly. "Like muscle memory. Every adjustment I made, I knew what you'd tell me. I didn't even have to second-guess." My eyes blur. "That's because we were always good at that. The track. The car. That part of us was never broken." He gives a tiny, rueful smile. "Shame it was the only thing we didn't fuck up." I laugh, watery. "Yet." Another pause. The terminal around us hums with motion-flights announced, lives moving forward. But we're suspended in amber. "I'm glad you won," I say finally. "Even if I couldn't stand beside you." "You were there," he says. "In every lap. In every decision. You were there." And for the first time since everything fell apart, I believe him. Not just because the words sound sincere, but because they feel lived-in-carved out of guilt, growth, and that impossible thing between us that refuses to die quietly. I stand here watching planes carry everyone else toward their next race, their next chance, their next everything. While I'm grounded indefinitely. Stripped of my credentials, my team, my purpose. No matter who fights for my honor, I'm still the girl with the wrong last name in the wrong paddock at the wrong time. The poetry of it could choke me. Probably will. And for one brief, breathtaking second, I let myself feel proud. Because he won. And part of that win-no matter how buried or rewritten-will always be mine too.