23. Suzuka, Japan

23

Suzuka, Japan

Will felt like his body was a live wire. As his success grew, so did his nerves. Controlling the car was immensely complicated, requiring constant analysis of data and tiny adjustments, all while processing race stats and instructions from Tae through the headset and reacting accordingly. And now that podium finishes were within his grasp, the stakes were that much higher. A difficult drive now had so much more riding on it.

Thanks to the finishes he’d been pulling, the Lennox team ranking was the highest it had been in years. Today’s race was number six, not quite a third of the season. A win today might finally shift the narrative away from the “troubled bad boy seeking redemption” to an acknowledgment of his talent.

Which was why, as he suited up for the Japanese Grand Prix, the last thing he should have been thinking about was Mira. But ever since he’d caught her in the middle of that freak-out in Barcelona, he’d been unable to stop turning it over in his mind. The drawback of having a driver’s pathological focus was an inability to let things go.

So the guy from her past was on the circuit. Did he know him? He kept flipping through the hundreds of people traveling the circuit, wondering who it could be, but the possibilities were endless. If she’d wanted him to know, she’d have told him, right? It was why he’d never snooped through her socials to figure it out for himself. He hated it when people thought they knew everything about him from the few photos of him online. Mira deserved her privacy. Which meant he should leave it alone and move on.

She wasn’t even his business, anyway. She’d drawn a line in the sand and firmly pushed him back to the other side of it, which rankled, but really, what was he hoping for instead?

Yeah, he was attracted to her … an attraction bordering on obsession, if he was being honest. Yes, she was fun to talk to and hang out with. But what would happen if they slept together? She was his boss’s daughter, so some casual sex, while enjoyable, would be seriously awkward the next day, and every day after that. And if she wanted more than casual? Was he really ready to declare himself someone’s boyfriend? Mira’s boyfriend? That was a little terrifying, especially if it didn’t work out. The team, the race season, his entire career might suffer if things went south.

Not that it mattered what he wanted or didn’t want. Since that day in Barcelona, she’d gone back to keeping her distance from him. He’d caught no more than a glimpse of her in Japan. Which was fine, because he was supposed to be focused on other things. Like driving.

As he climbed into the car, a horde of track workers buzzing around him, he resolved to leave all the unproductive, distracting thoughts of Mira back in the paddock where they belonged. There was too much to accomplish out on the track.

“Okay, Will,” Tae said into his earpiece. “You’ve got a pole position. No need to blow it all at the outset. Drive steady and you’ll have no problem with this field.”

Will begged to differ. Maybe he didn’t need to drive the ride of his life to win today, but that wouldn’t keep him from doing it. He would leave nothing on the starting line, nothing in the tank, nothing on the tires.

“Tae, how many races have we done together?”

“Yeah, yeah. Just nod your head and say yes so the engineers stop crawling up my ass.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll do just what you said, sir.”

Tae laughed uproariously as Will fired the engine and made his way out onto the track.

As he took his place on the pole, the other cars assembling on the grid behind him, he settled into the zone. The whine of the engine felt like part of his bloodstream, keeping him alive breath to breath. Time slowed as the lights went on, one by one, till all five were lit. They filled his vision as he brought the engine up to the proper revs, held it steady, and prepared to launch.

As the lights went out, he dumped the clutch and the engine’s wail hit the stratosphere. The g-force pinned him to the back of his seat as he rocketed into the first turn complex. Sensing other drivers nipping at his heels, he danced the car through the turn then got early on the throttle exiting Turn Two. Running wide to the edge of the track, he shut the door on everyone crawling up his ass. Nobody was getting around him today. Seeing a gradually widening gap behind him, he smiled to himself as he sliced through the esses. Perfect start. The rest of the field would be hard-pressed to catch him now.

An hour later, the last pit stop approached, and he was almost ten seconds ahead of the three drivers closest to him. An easy win was nearly in his grasp.

“Box, box, box,” Tae said in his ear, calling him in for a pit stop.

Thanks to Harry’s ruthless drilling, this pit stop was perfect, and then he was back out on the track, screaming into the straight. Tae fed him a steady stream of stats, letting him know exactly how the rest of the race looked out on the track. Everything was going according to plan.

“I’ve got it, then,” he said into the headset.

“Not so fast. McKnight’s still up there.”

“But we were ahead on strategy.”

“They haven’t boxed yet. Currently he’s in first.”

“But he has to pit.”

“We think they’re trying to do a two stop and make those tires last. He’s pitted twice to everybody else’s three. They’ve outlasted everyone so far.”

Brody McKnight had been around forever—Formula One for a while, Indy Car, Le Mans, reserve driver for a few teams—he’d been all over. It was kind of surprising he’d landed a Formula One drive again this season, at his age. He’d never been in serious contention for the world championship, and had only found himself on the podium a handful of times, and the odds were against him seeing one again. If he’d skipped his final pit stop, he must have had a remarkably good day and seen a podium finish in his grasp. That meant running the end of the race on worn-out tires, one of which could blow at any second. It was a hell of a long shot, but it’s not like Brody was going to get on the damned podium any other way.

Fine, Brody wanted to drive cautious, save his tires, and spare a pit stop? Let’s see how he managed that with Will Hawley crawling up his ass. He laid on the throttle, letting the whine of the engine and the scream of fresh tires stoke his adrenaline. Around another turn and into the chicane and then Brody’s car was there ahead of him.

“I’m overtaking,” Will informed Tae.

“Bury him, Will.” But that wasn’t Tae responding; that was Paul . Why had Paul taken over from his race engineer?

It didn’t matter, because he wasted no time following his orders. He shrank down, until he was one with the car, until he didn’t have hands and feet and a heartbeat, but four wheels and a powerful engine. The world fell away until there was only Brody’s car ahead of him, to be overtaken and dominated.

But every time he saw an opening and dove for the gap, Brody shifted his line, cutting off his avenue. At first it was just subtle, Brody lining himself up to take the best apex in the turn. Annoying, but predictable. But then he was moving across the track on the straights, something that would lose him time, but keep Will from passing.

“Goddammit!” he shouted into his mic. “The fucker is blocking me!”

“Yes, he is,” Paul said. “Try to stay right in this curve.”

Will stayed outside, and just as a path opened up in front of him, Brody slid over to block him.

“Fucking bastard!” While he was stuck back here, forced to drive at Brody’s pace, his rivals were rapidly gaining time on him, obliterating the time gap he’d fought so hard to create at the outset of the race. “I have the speed but I can’t get around him. He won’t let me.”

“He’s asking for a penalty,” Paul snapped, his voice icy with rage. “And I’ll make sure he gets one if he doesn’t back down.” Their conversation was being broadcast straight to Race Radio for everyone to hear, so Will knew what Paul was doing. He was laying down the not-so-subtle threat of a formal complaint if Brody kept up his bullshit. But a complaint was only that, and it didn’t help Will now, when Brody kept weaving into Will’s path with every move he made.

“He’s in violation.”

“Tae’s talking to Race Control right now,” Paul said, his voice lethal. “He’s handling it on our end. Just look for an opening on yours and decimate that bastard.”

There was more going on than this single incident in this one race. Paul sounded like he was out for blood. This was personal. Well, that suited Will just fine, because now it was personal for both of them. He’d destroy that asshole—for Paul and himself.

When Brody swung to the outside to line up to take the apex of the next turn, Will hung back, giving him space to do it. And when Brody was all the way to the outside of the turn, Will cut right and stayed on the throttle, taking the turn hard and to the inside. It was tight, but he clung to the roadway as he ripped past Brody with only inches to spare, into the next turn.

Being on the inside of the first turn shunted him straight into the next turn, this time to the outside, and he headed straight toward the ideal point, where he could carry the most momentum. All he had to do was hit the apex and accelerate out of it. Except when he turned his wheels to the left, ready to lay on the accelerator, Brody was there. He’d chucked a dive bomb up Will’s inside that he had no chance of pulling off.

“What the fuck is he doing?”

Brody had no chance of overtaking him on this turn. He was there just to fuck with him. When Will felt a shudder rip through his car, he knew Brody had succeeded in doing just that.

“Contact!” he shouted into the radio. “He’s clipped my tire.” The back of the car shimmied horrifically. The onboard computer relayed the bad news. Tire pressure was dropping rapidly, and his speed with it.

“You’re almost to the pits,” Paul shouted. “Come in!”

“Goddammit. That’s a fourth pit.”

“Brody’s front wing is wrecked. He’s coming in, too. The boys are ready for you. Come in.”

Another goddamned pit stop. It would take a phenomenal bit of driving to make up for it. And fucking Brody McKnight. Yes, he was pitting, too, but only his third to Will’s fourth. They’d come out of this pit stop neck and neck. Except Brody had come in fast, on solid—if old—tires. Will had limped in on a flat. In overall race time, which is all that mattered, Will was behind and slipping farther back with every second.

He waited, pulse racing, heart pounding, as the pit crew changed out his tires. It took less than three seconds but it felt like three hours. Paul had left his customary position in front of the monitors and was standing in the pit lane, right behind the crew. His face was a mask of fury. He spoke, his voice crackling into Will’s headset. “I want you to get out there and rip him to pieces, Will. No mercy.”

“Don’t worry, Paul,” he said through gritted teeth. “It’s done.” Will let loose with everything he and the car had, ready to visit retribution on Brody and anyone else who stood between them.

With ten laps to go, four drivers had taken time out of him during that pit stop. But Will had fresh tires, the softest, fastest tires. Within three laps, he’d fought back the time from three of them. But so had Brody, now on fresh tires, too. Relentlessly, he pushed the car, watching the engine rev to the red line.

Up ahead, Brody passed the last car of the front-runners, reclaiming the lead of the race. Will was a quarter of a lap behind him, the time he’d lost with that punctured tire. Finally, almost in slow motion, he passed the last car between him and Brody, clawing himself back to second place. Around one more turn, he could finally see the back of Brody’s car again.

Brody whipped into the next turn and Will momentarily lost sight of him. As he screamed into the double apex, trailing Brody, Will gave himself over to the car, trusting that it could handle what he was asking of it. He’d never gone into this turn at such speed before. The car shuddered. He could feel the rear end coming loose, the car threatening to spin off the track at any moment. Hands gripping the wheel, a quick twitch of opposite lock, playing throttle and brake pedal, slip angle, and turn radius against each other, he guided the car through the turn by sheer force of will and a soul-deep trust in the physics. When he powered out of the turn, Brody was right there, a mere three car lengths ahead.

Will buried the throttle. The engine screamed in response. Two car lengths. One. Paul was screaming in his ear. He was on Brody’s gearbox as he exited the last turn, whipping the wheel to the right, lining himself up to pass Brody.

The checkered flag flickered in his peripheral vision, and Brody made it under, half a car length ahead of him.

When the pit crew helped him up out of the car minutes later, he ripped his balaclava off, ready to let loose with his fury, but he was stunned into silence when he heard Paul unleashing a torrent of rage like he’d never heard from him before. Everyone was there, the pit crew, the mechanics, Tae, Harry, and the team strategist. They stood in a wary, silent semicircle with Paul as its explosive center.

“I will have his goddamned license!” Paul shouted, pacing the confines of the Lennox paddock. “He hit Will on purpose! You saw it, Tae!”

“I did.” Tae nodded in solemn agreement.

“I want him to get a penalty. He starts from the back of the goddamned grid at the next five races!”

Will had the uneasy feeling that he was caught in the middle of something much bigger than a bullshit piece of strategy in a single race. Paul’s anger was old, but still red-hot. This wasn’t about the race, or the way Will had been fucked with—this was about Brody.

Harry cautiously laid a hand on Paul’s shoulder, probably the only person who could have done so in the moment. “We’re talking to Race Control, Paul. We’ll handle it.”

“What was that about?” Will ventured. “What’s his problem with me?”

Harry seemed to leach some of Paul’s fury away. He closed his eyes, and dragged in a deep steadying breath. When he spoke again, he was marginally calmer, closer to the tightly controlled man Will had come to know.

“That wasn’t about you, Will. It was about me,” Paul said. “And I will make sure the bastard pays for it, one way or another. He’s going to be penalized. I don’t care how high I have to go to see it done.”

Will knew how hard it would be to get the accusations to stick. It would be up to Race Control to issue a ruling, and everybody would see what they wanted to see. It was anyone’s guess how the damned thing would be decided.

“And if not, we’ll get him in the next one.” Harry looked to Will for confirmation.

“Hell, yes, I will. I will ruin that asshole,” Will said.

Paul met his gaze, his rage still sparking in his eyes. “Yes, you will, because before this season is over, you’re going to be the goddamned world champion, whether Brody McKnight likes it or not.”

Paul turned on his heel and stormed away, taking Harry and most of the pit crew with him. As the crowd thinned, Will spotted Mira hanging back near the monitors, the first time he’d seen her since that day in Barcelona. Something in his chest gave a twist—some weird thrill of excitement. Abruptly, the rage he’d been nearly choking on moments ago ebbed, and all the noise in his head went quiet.

Then he registered the look on her face. Her eyebrows were knit together and she was biting her lip as she watched her father storm away toward FIA headquarters. He handed his lid and gloves to Beata. “Can you take these?”

“Sure thing. Good job out there.”

“Thanks, B.”

The few people left in the pit were clustered in twos and threes, staring after Paul’s receding figure and whispering about what had just happened. Will was the one who’d just run the race, but nobody’s attention was on him.

He crossed to Mira. “What’s wrong?”

She looked up at him, eyes full of misery. “I’m really sorry, Will.”

“What for? Because that washed-up asshole decided to fuck with me? Whatever. I’m fine.”

“He could have killed you.”

He scoffed. “Brody will have to work a lot harder to do that.”

“But—”

“Look, whatever happens, everybody’s gonna know how Brody got that podium spot today. And it’s probably the last win of his shitty career, right? Brody’s never come close to winning a world championship and this is sure as fuck not going to be his year.”

“I can’t believe you’re so calm about this.”

Honestly, he was a little surprised himself. He’d been breathing fire when he came off the track, but now that he was next to her, talking with her for the first time in over two weeks, he just couldn’t find it in himself to be mad. That was new and different for him. No woman had ever managed to take his mind off the track. And that probably meant that where Mira was concerned, he was in deep trouble.

“I can handle Brody and anybody else who comes at me.” He finally managed to get her to crack a smile.

“I know you can,” she said quietly.

Now that he had her, he didn’t want to let her disappear again. “Hey, let’s—”

“I have to go catch Dad,” she said abruptly, stepping away from him.

He sighed. “Right. See you in Austin?”

She nodded. “Austin.”

Then she was gone, hurrying through the paddock in the direction her father had gone. He stood watching as long as he could see the bright flash of her hair in the crowd. Yeah, he was definitely falling into the deep end with her.