Page 101 of Flat Out
Her breath caught. She pressed her lips to mine like she was clinging to that vow, to me. And I clung back, promising myself I’d never let go. For a moment, she just sagged into me, silent. And I held her because I’d been starving for her all week. Cameras, critics, nightmares be damned.
“Racing 101?” Aurélie whispered after several minutes, stepping back and wiping the tears from her cheeks.
I smiled at her sadly, knowing our moment was over but already missing it. “Commit to your line.”
She nodded. “And mine’s you.” She sucked in a breath as she echoed the vow I made to her in Austria. “I love you. Please… just please don’t forget that.” With a wobbly smile, and before I could respond, she turned in her race boots and rounded the corner.
Back into the chaos with her head high the way she always did. The cameraswilllook, the worldwillspeculate, but the only truth is what we have together.
If the world wanted to know what we were? This was it. Broken, stubborn, furious, but unshakable.
Us.
The corridor was quiet,a soothing balm to my frayed nerves.
I’d slipped away from the garage for five minutes, just five, to breathe before qualifying. My boots clicked against the concrete, echoing off the walls between hospitality areas. It was a cut-through most people avoided that was out of the cameras’ sight, away from the swarm.
I needed the silence. My head and heart were still a mess from Callum, from everything I couldn’t say but desperately wanted to. I’d told myself to focus, to shove it down, to keep my eyes on the one thing that mattered. I’d been doing that my whole life anyway, so why was it suddenly impossible to do?
Scrolling through my notes, I muttered every corner of Silverstone under my breath and prayed my requests after FP3 had actually been submitted this time. My body was already screaming—neck stiff, back aching, shoulders raw from bracing. If the car fought me like that again, I wasn’t sure I could hold on.
I had retreated so far into my own head that I didn’t hear him coming.
A hand shot out of nowhere, clamping around my wrist, yanking me sideways so hard the breath whooshed out of me. My phone clattered to the ground as my back hit the wall, skull ricocheting off plaster, stars bursting in my vision. Before I could catch my balance, my arm was wrenched behind me, a tendon tearing fire through my shoulder as I was forced to turn so my front was pressed against the wall.
“What the?—”
Another hand clamped my other wrist and twisted it back until both arms screamed. My cheek ground against the wall, rough plaster biting my skin. Pain roared so sharp it made me nauseous.
A sick paralysis shot through me. My body remembered before my brain did, every unwanted hand, every too-long stare, every time a man reminded me how fragile a woman could be if he decided she should be. My muscles locked. I hated it. I hated that I froze instead of fighting.
And then I saw who held me.
Adrian fucking Morel.
His chest pressed into my back, pinning me there. His breath was hot and sour at my ear, stinking of coffee and bitterness. His grip was merciless, every inch of contact was humiliating and violating. My body recoiled with the same sick terror I’d felt in Monaco, when Santino attacked me, made me feel small and stuck. That helpless, disgusting memory gutted me all over again.
“Still think you belong here, princess?” Morel’s voice was a venomous hiss, every syllable dripping with contempt. He shoved harder, and my temple cracked against the wall again.
“Get off me!” I choked, thrashing, but he had me locked in place, stronger, heavier. My arms burned as he twisted tighter. “What is your fucking problem with me, asshole?”
He clicked his tongue, and the rancid stench of his breath had me fighting a gag. “My problem is that you don’t know your place,” he spat. “You walk in here like you’re one of us. Acting like you’ve earned it. You think because beloved Fraser fucks you and the media loves a sob story that you’re suddenly on my level?” His laugh was sharp, grating. “You’re nothing but a headline. A distraction. A pretty little girl playing dress-up in a man’s sport.”
He yanked my arms higher, and I whimpered in pain, tears pricking my eyes.Don’t you dare fucking cry right now, Dubois.I gritted my teeth and breathed through my nose.
“My problem is that every point you score makes me look like less. Every lap you finish chips away at what I’ve bled for. You don’t deserve a seat, but here you are, stealing one from drivers who deserve to be here. And everyone’s too busy drooling over the golden couple to notice you’re in over your head.”
“So your ego is bruised. Poor you,” I snapped, twisting my wrists in his grip only for him to clamp down harder on them.
“Shut up,” he snarled, his mouth brushed close to my ear, venom dripping. “Do you even realize where you are in the standings? Or are you too busy playing martyr to notice you’re fighting me for third?”
Third.
The word detonated in my head. My stomach plummeted.Fourth. I was in fourth?I hadn’t even looked, hadn’t seen it through the fog of Montreal, the cameras, Callum, all of it.
Morel laughed at my silence, the sound low and cruel. “Pathetic. You’re fighting so hard for a sport, for ‘feminism’, and you don’t even realize how well you’re doing? Shows where your priorities are.”
I thrashed harder, pushing against the wall to try to gain leverage, but his chest crushed me in, his voice curling over my skin like rot.
