Page 53 of Red Flagged
Merde. Maybe my threats were issued at the wrong time.
Without a word, Reinhardt moved to the breakfast bar, unlatched his briefcase with a flick of his finger, and shrugged out of his jacket. He hung it over a chair, rain still dripping off the cuffs. Then he rolled his sleeves to the elbows, revealinginked—and surprisingly muscular—weathered forearms and a watch that probably cost more than most people’s rent.
“I support what you’re doing,” he admitted, voice measured as he pushed his wet hair out of his face. “All of it.”
My spine stiffened. Callum rested a hand on my lower back for reassurance.
“But if I say that in front of the FIA board, the stewards, or anyone on official record, I’ll be removed. And I can’t make any real change if I’m locked out of the system that needs reform.”
Callum tilted his head slightly. “So you're playing the inside game.”
Reinhardt’s mouth tilted in a lopsided grin. It was the most emotion I’d seen from the man, and it was… disarming, to say the least. “Someone has to.”
Ivy’s heels clacked on the tile of the kitchenette as she came to flank my other side. “What exactly are you saying?”
He exhaled slowly and gripped the counter until his knuckles whitened. “I’m saying the sabotage should’ve been addressed weeks ago. The optics of a female driver being mishandled by her own team are already bad enough. But the falsified technical submissions? The tampered brake bias and dampers? The manipulated data and ghost diagnostics?” He turned toward me. “That’s not just unethical. That’s actionable andcriminal. And you were right to threaten legal recourse.”
I stilled.
“Your attorney’s letter got circulated within the board.”
Of course it did. Alain was nothing if not an efficient, articulate expert.
I swallowed hard, blood turning to ice. I clasped my hands in front of me to hide the shaking. “And?”
“And it scared the shit out of them,” he said bluntly, crossing his arms over his chest, his muscles flexing beneath his dress shirt. “As it should. The language was surgical. Noemotion, just precision. You laid out everything. If the FIA didn’t start investigating internally, you’d sue Luminis, Orion,andthe FIA for gross negligence, endangerment, gender-biased discrimination, and failure to enforce safety protocol.”
Kimi moved closer to us. “Oh, you mean her voice is finally being heard?”
“Yes, she was terrifyingly convincing,” Reinhardt confirmed. Then to me directly, he stated, “You’ve endured more than I can publicly admit without implicating myself. But I see it. We all do. The problem is, Orion isn’t just a team. It’s a brand built on legacy that employs a two-time world champion. You confront their driver, you confront the team as a whole. And if I go scorched earth, the board will protect it out of self-interest.”
I threw my hands in the air, snapping, “So what, they get away with it?”
“No,” Reinhardt said sharply. “Henric’s finished. I have enough documentation to end his career tomorrow. The chain of falsifications leads directly to him when you look at the big picture. But I think it’s best to wait until the end of the season to nix him, because we can use his compliance to our advantage. The real problem is Morel.”
Callum’s eyes flicked to me. I didn’t look at him. I couldn’t. Not yet.
“I have copies of everything your counsel sent, along with the FIA’s internal response,” Reinhardt continued, pulling a stack of documents from his briefcase. “This is the unofficial version—unedited, unpolished, unredacted.”
He placed the thick folder on the counter and opened it, spreading the pages out for our review. Everyone gathered on our side of the counter like we were about to dissect state secrets.
Ivy reached for the first set, flipping through the pages with practiced speed. My eyes scanned over headers and footnotes:Correspondence: Henric Beaumont,FIA Steward Review Log(Flagged Inconsistencies),Telemetrics Reconciliation: Race 6–9,Orion GP: Internal Memo – Driver #29 Deviation Justification,Sponsorship Retaliation Timeline.
Each line read like a death knell.
Emails Henric had sent to tech stewards, asking them to "reclassify" telemetry anomalies. Official copies of the FIA submissions withmysubmissions stapled beneath them, proving that Rhea had falsified them. Internal memos from Luminis trying to justify my mechanical failures as “driver error,” even when the data told a different story. And worse, contracts tied to sponsorship payouts that were slashed right after I started speaking out.
It wasn’t paranoia.
It was a playbook. Apattern. Proof of retaliation disguised as coincidence. Evidence of sabotage cloaked in red tape.
And it wasso much worsethan I could have ever thought.
“Holy shit,” she breathed.
Marco leaned over her shoulder. “These are all real?”
“Stamped and signed,” Reinhardt said. “Off the record, I had to threaten two internal auditors to get this. The FIA would rather this be buried in a concrete vault than see sunlight. But I believe if you want systemic change, you have to drag the rot into the daylight.”
