Chapter 4 The Crack in the Upright

“A private matter,” Mr. Valcourt replied, his voice flat as slate.

“Of course.” Ronan dipped his head with a smile that managed to be both polite and dangerous. His gaze lingered on me a beat too long, curious and bright. “Then I’ll leave you to it, sir. I have qualifying tomorrow, and a team principal who will have my head if I’m late.”

“The Valcourt delegation will be in your garage.” Something in Mr. Valcourt’s shoulders eased. Business was probably the one language he trusted. “Our engineers want to see how the new power unit holds up.”

That was news to me. According to the novel, the Valcourt Group never returned anyone’s calls. Apparently they just sold engines to one team and kept quiet about it. Ronan’s team, of course.

I drew a breath. “Father. May I come tomorrow?”

His head snapped toward me. “You? You have never shown the slightest interest in the family business.”

“I’ve changed.” I kept my hands folded and my voice even, though my pulse thudded against my ribs. “I’d like to see what the family is investing in.”

He studied me for a long, unreadable moment. I could almost watch him weigh it: the daughter who had humiliated him, the daughter who had just knelt on his floor, the daughter who might become a liability in public.

“I don’t mind,” Ronan cut in lightly, rocking back on his heels. “I could use one person in that garage who isn’t paid to be nice to me.”

Mr. Valcourt exhaled through his nose like a bull deciding whether the fence was worth the trouble. “You will attend as a Valcourt guest,” he told me, each word clipped. “You will behave. You will not make a scene.”

I almost laughed. Make a scene. I had made quite enough of those for one night. “Understood.”

The next afternoon, the circuit smelled like hot rubber and money.

I had watched races before, on a laptop at 2 a.m. with a bowl of noodles. Seeing one live was something else entirely. The grandstands shimmered in the heat, the paddock buzzed with people in team colors who walked fast and looked important, and the sound of engines warming up somewhere beyond the garages made my teeth hum.

I trailed Mr. Valcourt’s delegation through the corridors in a borrowed Valcourt Group blouse, trying to look like someone who belonged. Cameras flashed. Whispers followed me like flies.

“That’s Stanton’s wife,” a woman hissed behind a clipboard.

“The one who screamed at him in the paddock?” her friend breathed back, eyes wide.

A man in a team polo craned his neck to stare. “What is she doing here?”

I kept my chin up and my face blank. Apparently Juliet’s reputation had arrived long before she did.

[Mission One time remaining: 06:11:08.]

Six hours. My stomach flipped. Qualifying started in forty minutes.

I slipped away from the group on the pretext of finding a restroom and took a wrong turn into the back corridor behind the garage. It was narrow and lit by harsh white strips, stacked with crates and tool carts. Somewhere ahead, two men were speaking in low, tense voices.

“It flagged again on the left-front upright.” The younger voice cracked on the last word.

“I saw.” The older one sounded worn thin. “Within tolerance, technically.”

“Technically?” Paper rustled sharply. “There’s a hairline in the scan, Doyle. A hairline. If that lets go at three hundred, he’s in the wall before he even knows what happened.”

A chair creaked. “The spare doesn’t arrive until after qualifying, and the boss wants him out there. It’ll hold. It’s one session.”

I stopped moving.

Every hair on my arms stood up.

[Ronan Whitaker’s car hit the wall at two hundred and eighty kilometers an hour.]

The novel had never said why. It had never cared why. But I knew now, as clearly as I had ever known anything.

I shoved the door open.

Two engineers froze: a gray-haired man in a team polo with a tablet in his hand, and a younger one with grease on his cuffs, who went pale the moment he saw my face. They looked at me. Then at my Valcourt blouse. Then at each other.

“Miss, this area is restricted,” the older one said, drawing himself up.

“The left-front upright.” My voice came out thin and unsteady. I swallowed and tried again. “You can’t send him out on it.”

Doyle lowered his tablet. His eyes narrowed, and I watched recognition slide across his face like a cold front. “You’re Stanton’s wife.”

My heart sank.

“I’m Juliet Valcourt.” I lifted my chin. “The Valcourt Group builds your engines. I heard every word. There’s a crack, and you told each other it would hold.”

“Miss Valcourt.” He tasted the name as if he didn’t quite believe it, and his tone cooled to ice. “With respect, we have already assessed it. It is within tolerance. I don’t know what game you’re playing, but I suggest you leave this to the engineers.”

“It isn’t a game.” My hands curled into fists. “Please.”

He turned his back and walked off, tablet tucked under his arm.

I found Ronan in the garage ten minutes later, zipped into his race suit with his helmet cradled under one arm, laughing at something a mechanic had said as though this were any other Saturday. He spotted me and his whole face lit up.

“Mrs. Stanton!” He spread his free arm wide. “Come to wish me luck?”

“Don’t drive.”

He blinked. Then he laughed, bright and warm, as if I had told a very good joke. “You’re going to have to give me a better reason than that.”

“The left-front upright is cracked.” I stepped closer, dropping my voice so only he could hear. “They know. They’re sending you out anyway.”

The laughter drained away. Something wary and sharp slid into his eyes. “Who told you that?”

“I heard it.”

“You heard it.” He tilted his head and studied me the way he might study a strange noise in an engine. “Did Jeffery send you? Is this psychological warfare, Mrs. Stanton? Because he’s usually subtler.”

“Nobody sent me.” My throat burned. “Please, Ronan. Don’t go out there.”

“The engineers cleared the car.” He said it gently, in the careful voice people use on someone they think is unwell. He even patted my shoulder. “It’s fine. I promise. Go sit down and have some tea.”

He pulled on his helmet.

I watched it slide over his head, and with it went my last chance of talking him out of this. The visor snapped shut. Mechanics swarmed the car like bees. Someone barked “Clear,” and the engine fired with a shriek that rattled my bones.

The nose of the car crept forward toward the open garage door and the bright, waiting pit lane beyond.

I didn’t decide. My body decided for me.

I ducked under the rope, sprinted across the concrete, and planted myself in front of an idling Formula 1 car with both arms spread wide.

“Stop!”

The world exploded. Mechanics yelled. Someone lunged for my arm. The engine note dropped as the driver lifted off, and every head in the garage turned. In the visor I could see only a dark reflection of myself: a small, wild woman in a borrowed blouse, shaking from head to toe.

“Get her out of there!” The team principal’s roar cracked across the garage. “Security! Now!”

Two guards seized my arms and hauled me backward. I didn’t fight them. I kept my eyes on the car and said it over and over, hoarse and desperate, in a voice nobody could hear over the noise.

“Check the upright. Please, check the upright.”

They dragged me behind the rope. The team principal was shouting. The engineers were arguing. Somewhere behind me Mr. Valcourt was saying my name in a tone that could have frozen soup. And in the middle of it, the engine cut off, and the car sat silent.

Nobody moved for a long moment.

Then Ronan climbed out of the cockpit, tugged off his helmet, and spoke quietly, so clearly the whole garage heard. “Check it.”

“Ronan—” the team principal started.

“I said check it.”

Doyle scowled and crouched beside the front wheel with a flashlight. A young mechanic joined him. The scanner came out again. The garage went so quiet I could hear my own heartbeat.

Then the engineer went very still.

“Boss.” His voice had changed completely. It was smaller now, almost reverent. “Boss, come and look at this.”

The team principal strode over, scowled, bent down. His face drained of color before my eyes.

“It’s through,” Doyle whispered. “It’s not a hairline anymore. It’s through. If he had taken it out at speed…”

He didn’t finish the sentence. Nobody needed him to.

I sagged against the guards’ grip. My legs had stopped holding me up some time ago.

When they finally let me go, I found myself on an upturned crate in the corner, a paper cup of water trembling in my hands, watching a dozen people swarm around a car I had just kept from killing someone. The team principal had stopped glaring at me. Mr. Valcourt had stopped looking like he wanted to disown me. Nobody seemed to know what to say.

A pair of racing boots stopped in front of me.

I looked up. Ronan stood there with his suit unzipped to the waist and his hair damp with sweat, studying me with a look I couldn’t read. The mischief was still there, but something else had risen up underneath it.

“I thought,” he drawled slowly, “you were supposed to be busy worshipping your husband.”

My mouth twitched in spite of everything.

“When did I become worth risking your life for?”

He waited, head tilted, his eyes holding mine as he searched for the trick, the motive, the catch.

I looked away first. I was too tired to be careful. “Don’t flatter yourself,” I muttered. “I have my reasons.”

He laughed, low and short, and shook his head. He didn’t press. But he didn’t walk away either, and I got the distinct feeling that I had just stopped being a joke to him.

Then the blue light bloomed at the corner of my vision, and everything else went quiet.

[Mission One: Not yet complete.]

[Time remaining: 05:42:19. Threat level: Reduced, not eliminated.]

My blood turned to ice.

The crack had been found. The car was safe. The man in front of me was alive.

But the system hadn’t said saved.

It had said reduced.