Chapter 2 The Champion

MAYA POV

“You've been overdriving the entry into Turn Four.”

Nico didn't bother looking up from the data screens.

“Good morning to you, too. Try leading with a greeting next time.”

“You brake too late, then correct with the wheel instead of the throttle. It costs you two-tenths every lap.”

I dropped my bag onto the chair beside the simulator.

“I've been driving that corner my entire career.”

“Then I'm sure you know what it used to do.” He tapped something on the screen. “This isn't the car you crashed in.”

The words hits harder than they should have.

Perhaps that was the point. I climbed into the simulator without answering. Nico adjusted a setting on the panel and stepped back, giving me room to settle into the seat.

“Ready?” he asked.

“I'm always ready.”

“Good. Again.”

The track appeared on the screen. I attacked the lap the way I always did: late braking, early throttle, pushing the car until it felt like an extension of my own body. The first few corners went well. My times looked decent.

Then I reached Turn Four.

I braked too late, corrected with the wheel, and lost the same two-tenths.

“Again,” Nico said.

I tried once more. But the result was still the same. Then he leaned toward the screen, studying the data.

“Your entry is too aggressive. You're trying too hard by forcing the car through the corner instead of just letting it—”

“I know what I'm doing. Okay?”

The words came out sharper than I'd intended. Nico straightened.

I pulled off my gloves and tossed them onto the console.

“And you don't get to stand there and act like you've never pushed a car past the edge. That's how you win championships. You attack. You don't sit back and wait for the race to come to you. Do you?”

For a moment, he said nothing, then he folded his arms.

“I control the race. You try to murder it. Both methods work, but yours breaks more things.”

I stared at him. A laugh escaped me, short and entirely without amusement.

“God, you're irritating.”

“Yes, I know.”

The maddening thing was that he didn't even sound offended. And before I could come up with a response, the door opened.

Adrian Mason walked in with the easy confidence of someone who had never entered a room without assuming he'd improve it simply by being there.

He took one look at us and grinned.

“Still trying to murder every corner, Baudelaire?”

“Only the ones that deserve it.”

“Then I hope the corners must have got good lawyers.”

I shook my head, fighting a smile.

Adrian had always been like this. Quick with a joke, impossible to intimidate, and blessed with the ability to make almost anything feel less serious than it was. Unlike some people, he'd never treated me like a novelty because I was a woman in a racing seat or a tragedy because I'd been injured.

His gaze shifted to Nico.

“I heard the champion got assigned to babysitting duty. Thought I'd come see if the rumors were true.”

Nico returned his attention to the screens. Adrian looked back at me.

“You look better than last year. Still got that reckless thing in your eyes, though.”

“Some of us didn't have the luxury of taking a full season off.”

His grin softened, just a little.

“Don't let him turn you into a robot. The sport's already full of those.”

“I heard that,” Nico said without looking up.

“Good. Saves me repeating myself.”

Adrian gave me a casual salute and left. Immediately, the room felt quieter after he was gone.

I glanced at Nico, expecting some dry remark about Adrian's lack of professionalism. Instead, he was studying the telemetry, his expression giving nothing away.

“You could at least pretend to enjoy yourself,” I said.

“I'm working.”

“oh, tragic.”

He didn't answer. I turned back toward the simulator, determined to finish the session without giving him another reason to criticize my driving.

The door opened again. This time, it was Evelyn.

She came in carrying a tablet under one arm and a cup of coffee in the other. Her gaze moved from me to Nico, then back to me.

It took her approximately two seconds to understand that the atmosphere in the room could sour milk.

“Give us a minute,” she told Nico.

I expected an argument. Instead, he nodded, set down his tablet, and stepped outside.

The door clicked shut behind him.

Evelyn placed her coffee on the desk and sat on its edge, watching me with the expression she usually wore when she was about to ask a question she already knew I wouldn't want to answer.

“You had another one, didn't you?”

I looked away.

“Please don't call it that.”

“Then stop pretending I'm stupid.” Her voice remained gentle. “Your hands were shaking when you got out of the car yesterday. I saw it.”

I rubbed my thumb along the seam of my glove.

“Maybe I was cold.”

“Maya.”

“Fine. I mean, maybe the car was shaking. You can never know.”

She gave me a look. I sighed.

“I'm fine, Ev.”

“No, you're not. And that's okay.” She paused, searching my face. “I've known about the episodes since the crash. You don't have to protect me from something I've already seen.”

I hated how easily she could strip away all my excuses.

Evelyn had been there when I'd woken up in the hospital, confused and hurting, trying to understand how a single race could turn my entire life upside down. She'd seen the frustration, the sleepless nights, and the moments when even the thought of returning to a track made it difficult to breathe.

And she had never made me feel weak for any of it. Maybe that was why I hated lying to her.

I looked down at my gloves.

“Sometimes I think I'm past it. Then I get into the car, and it's like my brain forgets where I am.”

Evelyn's expression softened.

“That's not the same as going backward.”

“Feels like it now.”

“I know.”

She didn't try to offer some inspirational speech about courage or tell me that everything happened for a reason. She simply stayed beside me until I could breathe without feeling as though I needed to prove something. Then she nudged my knee.

“Just don't shut me out. Not after everything we've been through.”

I managed a small smile.

“You're the worst best friend. You never let me get away with anything.”

“Someone has to keep you honest.”

She squeezed my shoulder before standing.

“I'll be on the radio. Try not to kill the virtual car.”

“No promises.”

When she left, I sat in the simulator for another minute, staring at the dark screen.

Then Nico returned.

He took one look at me and said nothing about the conversation he'd missed. He simply checked the controls and waited until I had strapped myself in.

“Ready?”

“Can we just get on with it?”

He nodded. The screen lit up.

I reached the first corner without trouble. The second was clean. By the time I approached Turn Three, I had almost convinced myself that the earlier conversation with Evelyn hadn't unsettled me. Then the track blurred.

Gravel. Sky.

The shape of Nico's car rotating in front of me.

My breathing turned shallow. The steering wheel felt wrong beneath my hands, too light and too far away. I tried to correct my line, but I couldn't tell where the corner ended or how much track remained ahead of me.

For a terrifying moment, I wasn't inside a simulator.

I was back in that car again. And I didn't realize I'd stopped steering until the simulator shut down.

The sudden silence was almost worse than the noise.

I tore off the headset.

“I didn't tell you to stop.”

Nico stood beside the seat, one hand resting on the emergency cutoff.

“You weren't seeing the screen anymore.”

“I was fine.”

“No, you weren't.”

He didn't move closer. He didn't reach for me or try to pull me out of the seat. He simply remained where he was, giving me enough space to decide what to do next.

“You don't have to prove you're not afraid on every lap,” he said quietly.

Something defensive flared inside me.

“You don't know what I have to prove.”

He held my gaze. For once, there was no sarcasm in his expression. No impatience. No trace of the champion who seemed to have an answer for everything. Just something I couldn't quite identify.

“I know,” he said.

That was all. I unfastened the straps and climbed out before he could say anything else. I grabbed my bag and left the room, furious with him, with myself, and with the fact that he'd witnessed something I'd spent two years trying to hide.

I needed air.

I was halfway down the corridor when voices drifted from the small office near the end.

The team principal's voice came first, low and indistinct.Then Nico spoke.

“If she's going back to that track, someone needs to tell her what really happened.”

I stopped. The office door was half open through the gap, I could see part of Nico's face.

What really happened?

I'd heard those words in a hundred different forms over the past two years, usually from people trying to explain away the crash or reassure me that the stewards had investigated everything properly.

But Nico had said them differently.

Not like a man defending himself. Like a man who knew something I didn't.

He turned suddenly, his gaze finding mine through the narrow opening.

For a second, neither of us moved.

The team principal continued speaking, apparently unaware that the conversation had just changed.

I stepped toward the doorway.

“What really happened?”

Nico didn't answer. His expression tightened, but he didn't look away.

I waited, my anger giving way to something far more unsettling.

Uncertainty.

For two years, I'd been certain I knew what happened on that track. Nico had pushed too hard. Our cars had collided. I'd paid the price.

It was a simple story, and I'd built an entire wall of resentment around it.

But if Nico knew something I didn't, then the story might not be as simple as I'd believed.

And if that was true, I had no idea who I was supposed to blame anymore.