Page 5 of Green Flag
“You don’t need to be so dramatic,”I scolded with an eye roll, sounding a lot more confident than I felt. If I needed Dad’s information, I needed to remain calm. He couldn’t pick up on my desperation.
But his eyes only narrowed.“With you, I do. I mean it, Everly, you are not to discuss him. Toanyone.”
I nodded. But it wasn’t a promise.
I turned on my heel and followed Livie as she led the way to the VIP area. “We’ll get you a drink and I’ve got to gather some paperwork for you to sign. Sorry, everything is a bit hectic this weekend. I mean, it is every weekend.” She breathed in deeply as if trying to gather the energy for the right words.
“Ciclati is a handful,” I said for her.
She shrugged. “I like being busy,” she told me, as I opened one of the doors and gestured her through. “And both of the Ciclati racers, Luca and Nix, are two of the best men I’ve ever met. I want them to get good publicity, not just because of my job. Though with the inquiry and Pedro Velazco… it hasn’t been easy.”
My feet stopped. I was still holding the door. “What?”
She’d mentioned the man I had been strictly forbidden to bring up.
“Did you say Pedro?”
A thick, solid lump formed in my throat at saying his name, but it had come out in one desperate plea for information.
“Velazco?” I added, the obstruction growing and tightening my voice.
“Well, you know who he is, right?”
She mistook my startled gaze for a no.
He was my first everything — kiss, love, downfall.
My confidence used to sound like his voice.
I used to think he loved me for who I was. Now I wasn’t sure he ever really did.
Sure, he’d become a fuckwad, but his name still tasted bittersweet.
“He was the sports analyst before Abbé. He shipped drugs across the world,” she told me. “Using the transport Ciclati offers for the races.”
I nodded along, agreeing with the lie as I had for the last four years. The only thing he was guilty of was being with me, and that was enough for my dad to ruin him.
“He got caught a few years ago but was released three months back,” she continued. “But he recently threatened to come onto the grounds.”
That was news to me.
If he was threatening Ciclati, he might be able to help me more than I’d originally thought. I’d messaged him as soon as he was released, wondering if he’d give me evidence against my dad, but I’d been ghosted.
If he wanted to come back here, there had to be a reason. Maybe he had proof that my dad had been the one responsible all along.
But he couldn’t stomach seeing me because I was the reason he’d got locked up.
“The grid girls are giving tours,” she said as we walked. “You must know loads of people from before, right?”
I shrugged. A lot had changed in four years.
Further down the corridor, leathered and looking serious, stood Nixon Armas, Ciclati’s most formidable racer. Ruthless. Bad boy. The current champion of StormSprint.
He was the one constant at Ciclati other than my father.
“Alright, Ever?” he asked, but his eyes were on Livie. He didn’t wait for my response, just breathed in deeply. “You busy, Livid?”
“Yes,” she said, her voice tight as she gestured me through the tunnel.
