Page 39 of Overtake
Right. His lap. His car. His...
“Hayter goes purple. One-thirty-one six-nine-zero.”
“Mierda.”
Roxana’s laugh makes him smile. “Now do you want to focus on your own driving?”
She knows Nico can’t resist a challenge. Fine. If that’s how it’s going to be...
He settles deeper into his seat and everything else falls away. It’s just him and the car and the perfect lap waiting to be found.
Time to show everyone why they call him El Conejo.
Race weekend meals are scheduled like pit stops with a bit more leisure, and the WolfBett dining room hums around him as Nico eats. Engineers debate over data, mechanics relax on break, and Carlos sits across from him, sipping coffee.
“Your line through 13 improved. After you stopped trying to copy Petra’s approach.”
Nico doesn’t pretend to misunderstand. “I wasn’t copying.”
“No? What then? Analyzing? Mm-hmm.” His father smiles. “Every driver has their own style. Their own magic. You have yours, she has hers.”
“Yo sé, Papá.” Nico’s more interested in his meal than this conversation. “She finds grip where others don’t.”
“So you weren’t distracted?”
Nico looks up at his father from beneath his brows. “No. Studying competitive lines.” He checks his scheduling app. Twenty-three minutes left in his meal break before he needs to head to the karting facility again. He pockets his phone and looks around.
Heinrich and the aerodynamics team occupy the closest table, absorbed in setup data on their tablets.
“Ah.” Carlos steals a grape from Nico’s plate, then glances at his own phone as it lights up, probably checking out a team pressrelease. He monitors every team’s movements, always looking for opportunities for the drivers he manages. “And the karting instruction? Did you study competitive lines there too?”
“Viejo—”
Papá puts the phone aside. “Graham Pritchard came to see me this morning.” Carlos keeps his voice low. The dining room might be mostly team personnel, but paddock walls have ears. “In the Jove business unit.” He means Jove Morrison, a rival team. Carlos manages one of their F2 drivers.
Nico spears grilled yellow squash with his fork.“¿Por qué?”
“To remind me of old debts.” Carlos’s expression darkens as Junior swaggers past their table and heads out to the paddock. “And suggest that perhaps it’s time for the Belmonte family to remember who helped us when we needed it.”
“Why is he speaking for the Bettertons?” Nico’s food suddenly tastes like ash.
Carlos had protested lax aero regulations. Speeds through Eau Rouge at Spa were beyond what the safety barriers could handle. But the manufacturers wanted faster cars, more spectacular racing. They didn’t want to hear about risk. They forced Papá out of his FIA safety position. Then Damien and Karl backed him, and suddenly, everyone listened. Papá says their support kept him in motorsport and saved lives.
“A good question.”
“Did they send him?”
“No sé.” Carlos shrugs. “They’ve been good to our family. First with my position, then taking a chance on you.”
“True, but Junior undid much of that good will.” Nico looks down at his plate, jaw tight.
Carlos nudges his foot under the table. “I haven’t forgotten what he did to Nia,mijo.”
Nico meets his father’s eyes and sees the same hatred reflected. They sit with their shared guilt and anger, twomen who feel they’ve betrayed the women of their family by remaining where they are.
Carlos steals another grape. “The question is what matters more, Nico. Old debts? Or what’s right for the sport?”
“What’s right is what’s right.” The memory of Nia’s tears rises unbidden. Nico still feels the rage that had consumed him when he’d seen Junior’s hands on his sister. Her struggle to push him off her. Nico had been smaller then, barely thirteen to Junior’s nineteen, but fury had made him fearless. And stupid.
