Page 15 of Red Flagged
The words were half-drowned out by the rain hammering the tent roof, but not before the sting of them sank deep, like claws tearing into my flesh. Suddenly the pain was radiating through my whole body.
Callum spoke before I could. “Watch it,” he warned, voice lethal.
Henric looked at him, unimpressed. “Excuse me?”
“I said,watch it.” Callum unfolded his arms, every inch of him coiled like a lion ready to pounce. I shuffled closer to him, needing his strength when I felt like my body, mind, and spirit were all about to break.
The betrayal came in waves. My body was done pretending to obey me. I’d survived the sexism, the criticism, the crash,the sabotage, the accusations, the cameras, but this? This was something else entirely. The kind of pain that stripped you down to your bones and reminded you that for all your fight, you were still made of flesh and blood and a body that could fail you. I couldn’t breathe without feeling it echo. I couldn’t tell if the wetness on my skin was rain or sweat or the first sting of tears.
“Son—” Dom started, but Callum cut him off with a glare.
“We’ll take responsibility for our part, but she doesnotoweyou,” he pointed a finger at Henric, “groveling for a racing incident. Every driver, every team, deals with multiple crashes every season. You want accountability? You’ve got telemetry. You want to make it personal? Try me instead.”
The air in the tent went still. All the medical professionals stopped moving, and even Dom blinked from the bite in his tone.
I wanted to step between them, to stop this before it exploded, but the next cramp made me falter. I masked it by clasping my hands in front of me, squeezing my fingers together so hard that I thought I might bruise. Callum’s hand was there instantly, strong and steady at my back. The world narrowed to that touch—the pressure of his palm, the silent question pulsing through it:how bad is it?
“Callum,” I murmured, pivoting toward him. “We already know that Henric doesn’t support the female driver on his payroll?—”
Before I could finish my sentence, the flap of the tent whipped back so hard it smacked the pole.
“Jesus Christ,” Callum muttered.
Reinhardt, the FIA president himself, barged in first—coat half-buttoned, rain gathering in the brim of his fedora. Behind him came Silvio Mancetti of all people, Ferrari’s team principal and my future boss, with a folder clutched in his hand like a weapon of mass destruction.
“I’ve seen more of you two today than my own bloody family,” Reinhardt barked, face flushed. From fury or the cold, I couldn’t tell. “I told you to keep your personalfuckingfeelings out of this sport!”
Callum and I both stiffened. He straightened to his full height, shoulders squared, calm and cold as the man, the myth, the legend the media worshiped. I stayed seated, breathing through another low, twisting ache in my abdomen, pretending it was nothing more than embarrassment.
Henric opened his mouth—of course he did—but before he could speak, Silvio slammed the folder down on the nearest table. “Are youtryingto kill my driver, Henric?”
The tent went dead still.
My head snapped up.My driver?I wasn’t even in Ferrari red yet, but Silvio stood there, fire and fury personified, his Italian accent cutting through the rain as hedefendedme. So he knew about the shitstorm that Luminis was putting me through too.
Thank God.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Henric shot back.
Silvio reached over and yanked a rolling tray closer, scattering syringes and medical tape in his path as he spread the telemetry pages across the metal surface. The papers bled color where the rain had hit them, data smearing like blood in water. His gestures were sharp and surgical, slicing through the tension in the room.
“This,” Silvio hissed, flipping open the folder. Sheets of telemetry and wear analysis scattered across the table—lap data, load differentials, fuel mapping. “I came straight from the Luminis garage. Your engineers claimed her setup was safe. It wasn’t. You ran her on worn dampers fromMonaco,for Christ’s sake. You call this safe?”
Reinhardt stepped forward, jabbing a finger at him. “Silvio, that’senough?—”
“No,” Silvio cut him off. “You listen, Vic. I’ve known you for fifteen years. We have a good relationship. Don’t throw that away now.”
That revelation made us all go still. After a moment of Silvio and Reinhardt staring each other down, Reinhardt nodded, implying Silvio should continue.
“You were there in that meeting this morning when she brought this up—whenbothof them did—and you thought waiting until after the race to start an official investigation was acceptable. And now you have the audacity to be pissed when they inevitably crashed because her car is a serious fucking safety problem?” He stabbed a finger at the page. “Look at this degradation curve! Any other driver would’ve lost the rear halfway through Sector 2, especially in this fucking weather. The fact she kept control this long is proof of her skill, not her recklessness. Fraser was the unlucky bastard in her path.”
Henric paled, but Reinhardt’s fury only deepened. “You’re accusing me of negligence? Because two drivers couldn’t control their tempers?”
“This isn’t about their tempers, and you know it,” Silvio snapped. “Aurélie Dubois has fought tooth and nail to prove herself in this sport. We should all look at her as a role model, not as a liability.”
Reinhardt huffed a sardonic laugh, his nostrils flaring. He pulled his cap off and ran a hand through his salt-and-pepper hair. “Her character is not being called into question here, Silvio. This is about the fact that this morning I told them to keep it professional.”
“Impacts happen all the time. Why are we acting like this is a big deal? The biggest problem here is that a driver submitted multiple safety concerns and was ignored because of her gender.”
