Bleu

Max Verstappen’s Apartment, Monaco -  3 August 2025

Max wasn’t expecting her to actually come. Not after everything—the week from hell, the articles, the silence that always seemed to creep between them when she doubted herself. 

He’d told himself not to hope too hard.

But then the buzzer rang.

He crossed the apartment in three long strides, heart in his throat, and there she was in the doorway: Ana, hair tucked behind her ear, jacket too big on her narrow frame, expression carefully neutral in that way she wore when she was trying not to feel.

Max forgot how to breathe for half a second.

“Hi,” she said, like it was nothing.

“Hi,” he managed, stepping aside before his brain caught up. “Come in.”

She did, unhurried, and immediately two small blurs came skidding down the hallway. Sassy flung herself against Ana’s leg with a squeaky meow, tail whipping like a flag, while Jimmy sat squarely in the middle of the entryway and stared up at her with solemn judgment before hopping lightly onto the console table—directly into Ana’s space.

Max rolled his eyes. “Unbelievable.”

Ana crouched awkwardly, one hand still stiff from her bandage, but the cats didn’t care. Sassy was already purring loud enough to rattle the walls, rubbing her cheek against Ana’s knee. Jimmy pushed his head insistently against her chin, like he owned her.

“You bribed them,” Max accused, but his voice was warm, not sharp.

Ana glanced up, deadpan. “Cats don’t require bribery. They require… competence.”

Max snorted, half a laugh, half a groan. “You’ve been here thirty seconds and they’ve already forgotten I exist.”

Jimmy flicked his tail and buried his face against Ana’s collarbone as if to prove the point. Ana didn’t smile exactly, but something softened in her posture, a fraction looser, a little less armored.

She stood, adjusting her jacket, and looked at him directly for the first time. “I said I’d come,” she murmured. “So I did.”

Max’s chest tightened, not with nerves this time, but something achingly close to joy. She was here. In his home. With his cats, with him. Choosing him.

He didn’t move at first, afraid that if he reached for her too soon she’d slip away again. But then Sassy wove between their ankles with a chirp, Jimmy settled on her arms like some absurd guardian, and Ana just stood there—waiting.

So Max closed the space. Careful, slow. One hand finding hers, the other brushing the sleeve of her jacket, grounding himself in the fact that she was real and right here.

“Hi,” he whispered again, softer this time, just for her.

Ana didn’t answer with words. She only leaned, very slightly, into him. And for Max, it was enough.

They ended up on the couch. Not planned, not deliberate—it just happened, like gravity pulling them sideways until they were shoulder to shoulder, knees brushing, the cats stretched across the backrest as though they owned the place.

For a while, they didn’t talk. Max let the silence settle, tried not to fidget. Ana had her hand curled on her lap, bandage stark against her skin, her gaze flicking toward the muted TV without ever really focusing on it.

Then she looked at him. Just… looked. Long enough that Max felt the air shift between them.

He leaned in before he could second-guess it. She didn’t move away. Their lips met—soft, tentative, then hungrier in the space of a heartbeat.

It was different than before. Not frantic, not stolen moments in the shadows. This was deliberate. Her hand caught in his shirt, anchoring herself, and Max’s pulse spiked as he deepened the kiss.

Her breath hitched when he kissed her harder. She shifted closer, her thigh pressed to his, her fingers tightening like she needed him solid beneath her. 

Max’s hand slid to her waist, pulling her in, and for a moment the world shrank to just this—her mouth on his, the sharp thrum of want, the relief of finally having.

Then she broke away. Not far—just enough to press her forehead against his chest, her shoulders tense, her breath uneven.

“Max,” she whispered.

His chest tightened instantly. He stilled his hands, every muscle begging him to push forward but his brain screaming to stop, wait. “What is it?”

Ana stayed against him, her voice low, fragile. “I don’t want you to think… that’s why I came.”

He blinked, stunned. “What?”

“That I only…” She swallowed, frustrated with herself. “That I only come here for sex. I don’t—” Her words tangled, her fingers curling in his shirt like she was bracing for rejection.

Max’s heart cracked a little at the raw edge in her tone. He tilted his head, kissed the crown of her hair, slow and deliberate. “Nastya,” he murmured, softer now. “I don’t think that. Not anymore.”

She pulled back just enough to search his face, uncertain.

“I messed that up before,” Max admitted, voice rough. “I thought that’s what you wanted and I was wrong. I know better now. If you never want to—if you only want to sit here and let Sassy and Jimmy steal your attention—I’m still happy. Because you’re here. You came here. That’s what matters. You could’ve sat on the other side of the couch, or stayed in Monaco, or not come at all. But you’re here. With me. That’s all I care about.”

She blinked at him, eyes suspiciously bright. “Even if I’m… not good at this part?”

Max’s chest tightened. “You’re perfect at this part. Because it’s you. Doesn’t matter if it’s kissing, or silence, or just you sitting there doing nothing — I want it, because it’s you.”

Something broke open in her expression then, fragile and raw. 

Her mouth parted slightly, eyes darting away, like she didn’t know what to do with that. “You mean it.”

Max cupped her face gently, forcing her to look at him. “I’ve waited ten years for you.”

Ana blinked fast, like she wanted to argue but couldn’t find the words. Finally, she just exhaled and kissed him again—slower this time, less frantic, more like a promise.

Max let her set the pace. Her hands slid under his jacket, fingertips brushing warm against his chest, and his body reacted before his brain caught up. He pulled back just enough to search her face.

“You’re sure?” he asked, voice low, careful.

Ana nodded once, sharp, as if overthinking would make her retreat. “Yes.”

Still, he hesitated until she tugged his shirt with surprising insistence. That was her answer.

He stood and held out a hand. “Come.”

For a moment she just looked at it, like it was a test she hadn’t studied for. Then her fingers slipped into his, cool and trembling, and he led her down the hall.

The bedroom was dim, only the city glow spilling through the curtains. Jimmy had followed them, pausing in the doorway as if deciding whether to approve. Sassy, mercifully, stayed behind.

Max closed the door. Not a barrier — a promise of privacy.

She stood in the middle of the room, arms wrapped around herself now, jacket half-off her shoulders. Vulnerable and stubborn at once.

Max stepped closer, slow. “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want. You know that, ja?”

Her jaw tightened. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want to.”

He exhaled, relief and heat tangling in his chest. Then he touched her — not rough, not hurried. Fingers at her cheek, mouth brushing hers again, this time with the patience he hadn’t had before.

The bed caught them clumsily, laughter breaking between kisses. She tasted like mint tea and defiance. Her body pressed against his, tentative then certain, and he matched her rhythm, never leading too far ahead.

Every button, every shift of fabric was deliberate. She froze once — small, sharp — and he stilled instantly. “Okay?”

Her eyes fluttered open. Wide. Soft. “Okay.”

So he slowed. Mapped every inch with reverence. Murmured her name like it was the only word he’d ever need.

Ana wasn’t here for distraction, or escape. She was here because she chose him.

And Max intended to prove, in every kiss and every breath, that he’d never mistake that for anything less again.

***

Max Verstappen’s Apartment, Monaco -  3 August 2025

Ana hadn’t expected the couch to dissolve beneath her — not literally, but that was what it felt like. One kiss became two, became too many to count, and suddenly she was lying back against his sheets, Max braced above her, his breath catching like he couldn’t believe she was really there.

Then he froze. Just stopped.

“Ana.” His voice was rough, lower than she’d ever heard it, but careful. Too careful. His thumb brushed her cheek, his weight holding perfectly still, as if one wrong move might shatter her. “Are you sure you want this?”

For a moment, her body betrayed her — memory shoving itself between them. The pap’s questions. George’s hand, uninvited, unwelcome. The crack of bone in her wrist when she’d fought him off.

But Max’s hands weren’t like that. Max wasn’t like that.

She blinked up at him, her heart thudding. He was waiting, absolutely still, blue eyes searching hers like her answer mattered more than his own pulse.

“Yes,” she said, steady this time. “It’s you.”

Something inside his expression eased, softened — but she caught the flicker of doubt still clinging in the lines around his mouth. So she lifted her good hand and traced his jaw, grounding both of them.

“You aren’t him,” she whispered.

His breath left him in something close to a sigh. Relief. Pain. A thousand things at once. He lowered his forehead to hers, eyes closing for a beat. When he kissed her again, it wasn’t hungry. It was reverent.

Max didn’t move until she moved first. She realized that quickly — that his weight above her wasn’t a trap but a question, one she had to answer.

So she shifted, tugging lightly at his shirt, and the tension in his shoulders bled away like air from a held breath.

“Okay,” he murmured, pressing his lips to her temple, to her hairline, to the scar on her wrist. Each touch deliberate, patient, as if to overwrite every memory with a softer one. “Slow. As slow as you want.”

She swallowed, the lump in her throat stubborn but no longer choking. “I don’t want slow because I’m afraid,” she whispered. “I want slow because it’s… us. Because I want to feel it.”

His eyes flicked up, stunned and soft all at once. “You’re sure?”

She nodded. “I want this. I want you.”

When he kissed her again, she met him with intent. Her fingers threaded into his hair, tugging him closer, deciding the angle of the kiss, deciding the pace. Her choice.

He let her. He followed her lead. Every time she tugged, he obeyed; every time she pulled back, he stilled.

She tested it once — slid her hand over his, pressed his palm flat against her ribs where her heart was beating too fast. He didn’t push, didn’t wander. Just stayed there, warm and steady, until she shifted again.

Control. Agency. Hers.

And when his hands did roam — carefully, reverently — it was only because she pulled him with her.

It was so easy to trust him. It was so easy to just relax in his hold.

She breathed and it was easy. With him, she could forget to be careful. She didn’t have to scan every inch of the ceiling or anticipate the next movement; she just let the seconds spool out, one after another, until she wasn’t counting anything anymore.

When he finally slid her jacket off, it was so gentle she barely felt it. His hand grazed her shoulder, then feathered the edge of her shirt, pausing like he’d hit a forcefield. She rolled her eyes and hooked her own thumb under the hem, dragging it up, not because she was brave but because she wanted, and he was too damned polite for once.

The shirt joined the jacket on the floor. Max’s gaze flicked briefly over her, no hesitation, no apology. Just a fast, hungry sweep of skin and old scars and wonky wrist braces. She felt the heat crawl up her chest and welcomed it, burning away the last of her nerves.

He didn’t say anything cheesy or loaded. He just leaned in and kissed her collarbone, slow and thorough, lips following the curve to her shoulder. She felt her own breath stuttering out, then in, then out again, a little uneven, but not for any reason she needed to hide. This was not a test. This was not someone waiting to see if she’d break. Max’s hands were solid, but he never gripped tight. He just mapped her, his thumb following the line of her ribs, the side of her stomach, the edge of her scar as if he had all the time in the world.

She wondered, through the sparks at the back of her skull and the strange, laughable disbelief that this was real, whether this was what other people meant when they talked about sex ‘meaning something.’ She’d always hated that phrase. It sounded like a horoscope. 

But now, with Max’s hands moving steady and reverent, her own heart kicking against her ribs, she got it: For the first time, she suddenly wanted it to. To matter, to last, to be something more than fun or stress relief or a way to pass the hours between flights. She wanted to remember this tomorrow, and the day after, and 80 years down the line when her body was dust. 

There was a gentleness to him she’d never noticed before. He didn’t need her to be anyone but herself, battered edges and all.

He made a space for her that wasn’t about owning, or controlling, but about—what? Witnessing? Sharing? She didn’t have the right word, and maybe that was the point.

Ana let him undress her, slow and easy, and she did the same for him, careful with the zipper, careful with the way his arms tensed as she slid his shirt off. He grinned at her, sheepish, as if he couldn’t believe this was real either.

“God, you’re beautiful, Nastya,” he muttered, like he’d forgotten himself, and she almost hated how much it landed, sharp and bright behind her ribs.

“Don’t start,” she said, but the protest was hollow, especially with his mouth on her throat and his hands steadying her hips like she was something precious.

The world narrowed down to Max and only Max. To his mouth on hers, and his fingers slipping inside her, her hips rolling up to meet him, because she didn’t want more foreplay, she only wanted him.

She reached for the box of condoms in his bedside drawer, and he took it from her, exhaling a laugh into the hollow of her throat. Fine, he’d do it—he always did. She was grateful for the automatic movements; she didn’t want to have to think. Not for the next ten, twenty, thirty minutes. Maybe not ever again.

The first press of him was slow, so slow she had to bite her lip to keep from reaching down and just pulling him into her. She wanted to feel everything. She wanted to remember tomorrow how he’d felt—the careful stretch, the low sounds he made, the way his hand trembled as he steadied her knee with both hands, like she might vanish beneath him if he let go.

Ana wrapped her body around his, ignoring her awkward cast, still around her wrist, as she curled her good hand into the short hairs at the nape of his neck, gasping as he bottomed out.

Even though they had been doing this since 2016, she would never get over the feeling of having him inside her like this, to feel him so close to her that she could feel his heartbeat pressed against her own. 

He brushed his lips over her temple, a move so soft and sweet it was in sharp contrast of feeling his body bracketing hers on the bed, spearing hers.

“Please,” Ana whispered, and that was all she needed to say. 

His hips rolled into hers in a slow cresting wave and she bit back a curse as the friction shuddered through her, sharp and then melting. 

Max’s breath stuttered into her hair, hot and almost desperate, and he moved with a patience that was nearly cruel, dragging out the tension between them until she wanted to scream. She let her head fall back against the pillow, cast thumping against the blankets. 

Max’s hands found her hips, and then he was all around her—heat and weight and the trembling steadiness she didn’t want to admit she needed so badly. Every movement was calibrated, like he was trying to learn her all over again.

He held her gaze, and she stared right back at him, daring him to look away first. She felt everything. The scrape of his thigh against hers and the whisper of linen tangled under her calves. 

She lost time. Lost everything except the relentless, measured pace of Max inside her and the way he always, always waited for her gasps to sharpen into something ragged and wild before he even let himself get close. She clamped both hands over his back, her nails scraping along the line of his spine, and felt the shudder run through his whole body. He didn’t look away. Not once.

She pulled him down, let her body say what she didn’t have words for. Ana wanted to wrap herself so tightly around him that all the empty spaces inside her would finally, finally shut up. 

Her good hand found his jaw, held him there with a bruising, if slightly pathetic, grip. They were both trembling now. His breath, her pulse—everything blurred together.

When she came, it sparked through her so hard she thought she might see stars behind her eyelids. She felt him pick up the pace, not much, just a slight stutter, a small uncoiling of something careful inside him. 

She realized he’d waited for her, like always, holding himself back until she couldn’t take it anymore, and she let herself coast through the aftershocks, barely aware of the low, dark sound Max made as he followed right after. He collapsed on her, not deadweight but letting himself rest there, his arms trembling slightly on either side of her head.

Ana let herself feel the quake of his body through hers, the way his heartbeat hammered wild into her shoulder. She wrapped herself tighter, greedily. 

She didn’t want to come back to earth; she wanted to float right here, at the edge of exhaustion and wanting, for a little longer. The world outside stayed stubbornly on the other side of the closed bedroom door.

Eventually, Max propped himself up, bracing his elbows beside her. He looked at her with a mess of hair and bright, too-blue eyes, sticky with sweat and something about to break. His mouth twitched, but no dumb joke landed. Instead, he kissed her again, soft, lazy, completely unhurried.

She let herself smile against his mouth. Not a smirk—just a real, goddamn smile.

***

Max Verstappen’s Apartment, Monaco -  4 August 2025

The room was quiet except for the soft hum of the city outside and the slow rhythm of their breathing. Ana laid half-draped across his chest, her hand curled against his side like she’d forgotten she was holding on. Her hair—loose now, not twisted up or clipped back for once—spilled over his arm and across the pillow, pale and silvery in the dim light.

Max had always thought of her hair as untouchable. In the paddock, it was precise, sleek, pulled back into a braid or bun that told the world she was in control. Even here, even when they were intimate, he only ever caught flashes of it—his hand fisting in it when she kissed him too hard, the strands slipping through his fingers like ice. But now… now it was just there. A tumble of long, icy blonde waves he’d never been allowed to touch the way he wanted.

Carefully, almost reverently, he let his fingers slide through it. It was softer than he’d imagined, catching light in shades of white and silver and something warmer underneath. He twirled a piece idly, watching it coil and fall, coil and fall again.

Ana stirred, tilting her head back to look at him with a faintly suspicious squint. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” he said quickly, caught but not guilty. Then, softer: “Playing with your hair.”

Her brow furrowed like she wasn’t sure if that was allowed. “Why?”

Max shrugged, his thumb brushing over the strands. “Because I never get to. You never let it down.”

That earned him a quiet huff of amusement. “It gets in the way.”

“I like it,” Max murmured. “I like you like this. Not in the way. Just… you.” He paused, fingers still combing gently, as though afraid she’d take the moment back. “Feels like mine, when it’s down like this. Like I get to see something no one else does.”

Ana’s lips parted as if to argue, but she didn’t. She only shifted closer, her forehead pressing into his shoulder, letting him keep threading his fingers through her hair.

He never got to do this. Oh, sometimes — during those rare, frantic moments — he’d fist his hand in it, pull her back against him, let the strands slip through his grip like silk. But this? Slow, idle, just playing with it?

Never.

He gathered another strand, winding it lazily around his finger before letting it fall. “When we’re… you know—” his grin tilted, “—sometimes I get to hold it. But not like this. Not slow.”

Her lips quirked, uncertain but amused. “You want to play with it?”

Max leaned down, kissing her temple. “I want to touch all the parts of you you never let anyone else touch. Even this.” His thumb brushed her hairline. “Especially this.”

She went quiet, watching him as though she was weighing the statement the way she’d weigh an equation. Then, slowly, she let her head fall back onto his chest, closing her eyes.

“You’re ridiculous,” she murmured.

“Probably,” Max said, grinning into her hair, threading his fingers through again, deliberately slow. “But it’s nice.”

It wasn’t about claiming. It wasn’t about fire and heat. It was about this — her hair fanned across him, his hands free to tangle and soothe, her breathing even and unguarded.

Max smiled — a stupid, helpless thing. “You’re never going to let me braid this, are you?” he whispered into the crown of her head.

“Mmm,” Ana murmured, half-asleep. “Not symmetrical enough.”

He huffed a laugh, low and quiet, and kissed the top of her head. “Figures.”

His hand kept moving, combing gently through the strands, tracing the line where blonde turned silver in the moonlight. He thought about all the times he’d wanted to do this, but never asked — because asking would have broken the spell, reminded her that he wanted more than she was ready to give.

Now she was here, tucked under his arm, letting him touch without pulling away.

Max thought he could spend the rest of his life just playing with her hair and calling it victory.

***

Text Messages: Daniel Ricciardo & Max Verstappen

Daniel: soooooo is george still alive after all these bullshit articles or did u already bury him behind the hungaroring paddock 😬

Max: Toto’s lawyers are dealing with that. I don’t need to bury him.

Daniel: you sound… weirdly calm?? like scary calm.

Max: I’m fine.

Daniel: nah nah nah even over text i can tell you’re like… glowing or some shit spill it, mate what’s going on?? 👀

Max: …

Daniel: max. do not make me drag it out of you.

Max: SHE LOVES ME.

Daniel: wait WAIT WHAT 😱😱😱😱😱

Max: She said it. Finally. To me.

Daniel: bruh i’m actually sitting in my kitchen screaming into a jar of nutella rn like no one talk to me for 5 mins SHE LOVES YOU?!?!

Max: Yes. She does. And I don’t think I’ve ever been this happy in my life.

Daniel: holy shit who knew hell would freeze over in 2025 mad max smiling about LOVE 😭😭😭 ok congrats mate but also i need DETAILS immediately

***

Group Chat: “WHO IS MAX VERSTAPPEN DATING”

 (Members: Lando Norris, Oscar Piastri, Carlos Sainz, Daniel Ricciardo)

Lando: I still can’t believe it. Max. And Ana Wolff. WHAT do they even TALK about????

Oscar: …systems efficiency? brake migration? torque maps?

Carlos: 😂😂 Oscar you’re not wrong. I saw her once explain hybrid energy redistribution to an FIA tech delegate like she was explaining how to boil pasta.

Daniel: No but seriously. Imagine the pillow talk. Max: “so baby how was your day?” Ana: “well I recalibrated a predictive model for turbo thermal efficiency.” Max: “😳”

Lando: NO NO NO I refuse. Max Verstappen, the guy who yells at pigeons in the paddock, is out here nodding along to PhD thesis level lectures???

Oscar: You say that like he didn’t actually READ her PhD. He literally said it in an interview.

Carlos: He said he only understood every second word. Which is… generous.

Daniel: Max has a crush on her brain.

Lando: I still don’t get it. How does it WORK??

Oscar: Lando. She builds stars into cars. He drives them until they break physics. It works.

Carlos: 👏 well said.

Daniel: Also. Let’s be honest. If Ana can handle Toto AND Max in the same room, she’s built different.

Lando: …okay but I’m still not over it. MAX. VERSTAPPEN. AND. ANA. WOLFF. My brain refuses.

Oscar: You’ll get used to it.

Carlos: Yeah. You’ll get used to it when they win everything together in 2026.

Daniel: Or when Ana shows up at the wedding and Toto has to walk her down the aisle to Mad Max 😂

Lando: STOP. I can’t.

***

Murphy Sheep Farm, Harlestone, England  -  4 August 2025

Xia hadn’t expected the silence to hurt quite this much. Ana wasn’t answering her messages anymore — not the cautious ones, not the apologetic ones, not even the bare, functional check-ins. And Xia couldn’t blame her. She’d crossed a line when she leaked the video, no matter how good her intentions had been.

But when the new articles dropped — Ana’s diagnosis dragged into headlines, twisted into something ugly — Xia’s fury burned hotter than regret. She wasn’t going to sit back while Russell’s camp shredded Ana’s reputation piece by piece.

So, she acted.

It didn’t take her long. A sloppy, arrogant manager in George’s orbit had left breadcrumbs, and soon Xia knew where Russell’s camp had gotten Ana’s file. That alone made her teeth grind.

She didn’t stop there.

The phishing email she crafted was laughably simple — disguised as a “security verification” from one of his own sponsorship portals. George clicked it within minutes. And just like that, Xia was inside. His computer. His emails. His Instagram. Everything.

Hook.

Line.

Sinker.

It was almost too easy.

At first, she just watched. Emails, schedules, draft statements. But the more she scrolled, the more her rage sharpened. 

She saw everything: the spin attempts, the strategy memos, the emails with his legal team. It was a smug, self-pitying swamp.

He thought he could spin assault into a misunderstanding? Thought he could weaponize Ana’s autism? Thought he could get away with this?

Not while Xia was breathing.

She didn’t nuke his account immediately. That would be obvious, traceable. No, she went for humiliation by a thousand cuts.

First came the posts:

Within hours, George Russell’s account, with its millions of followers, had started posting:

A bright Nike campaign video with the caption: “The only three stripes I care about 🏃‍♂️✔️ #JustDoIt”

A Flymo lawnmower ad, gleefully tagged: “summer projects >>> #satisfying #FlymoPartner”

A Hugo Boss fragrance reel: “Real men wear Boss. #BeYourOwnBoss”

A Dainese motorcycle gear promo: “Style. Safety. Strength. #dainese”

Each post neatly undercut Adidas, Einhell, Dior, and Alpinestars — the very brands paying him millions.

And then came the kicker: a carousel of resources about sexual harassment support charities. Helplines. Links. Donation drives. The caption read: “Accountability matters. Survivors deserve to be heard.”

By morning, Russell’s management would be choking on the fallout. Adidas would be on the phone demanding why their athlete was posting about Nike. Dior Men would hate seeing Boss in their lane. Einhell wouldn’t tolerate him pushing Flymo. And Alpinestars? Gone.

Sponsorship was about trust. About image. About being controllable.

George had just become the opposite.

Xia’s lips curled into a cold smile.

He wanted to play games with Ana’s life? Fine. She’d dismantle his.

***

Twitter: What the hell, George?

@/f1tea: ummmm why is george suddenly promoting nike when he’s literally an adidas athlete??

@/chaoscornerf1: LMAOOO did george just soft launch his new sponsor… flymo???? 💀💀💀

@/whattheformula: I can’t believe george russell went from dior men to hugo boss overnight lmao

@/f1femmes: okay but the harassment charities?? whoever hacked this… good for you

@/enginefailurepod: BREAKING: george russell has become the world’s most expensive influencer for brands he isn’t even signed to 😂

@/gridgirlchronicles: nah this is actually brutal… adidas is gonna end him

@/paddockbanter: george russell’s instagram has gone rogue. nike ads. flymo lawnmowers. harassment helplines. it’s chaos and i’m here for it.

@/f1memes4days: this hacker knows EXACTLY what they’re doing 😭😭😭 posting competitors + harassment charities?? sponsors are gonna yeet him into the sun

@/lilypadwithwifi: george rn waking up to see his insta turned into a nike x hugo boss x sexual harassment awareness account: 😶

@/mercinsidertea: say what you want about this hacker, but they understood the assignment.

@/SkySportsF1: BREAKING: Multiple unusual posts have appeared on George Russell’s official IG — brand content out of character + links to sexual harassment charities. Russell’s team has been contacted for comment. We’ll update. #HungaryGP

@/gridgossip: Whoever is running George Russell’s social this morning is either trolling his sponsors or someone just found the worst “social media intern” ever. Screenshots already circulating. 🔥

@/F1JournalistJane: Sources: Russell's team says the posts were unauthorised and are being removed. Investigations underway. If true, this will be a PR nightmare — whoever’s behind it has ensured maximum chaos. #F1

@/adidasalerts: We are aware of unauthorised posts on an athlete account. Adidas has reached out to the management team for immediate clarification. No further comment at this time.

@/mercedesinsider: If this is a hack it’s brutal timing. If it’s deliberate disinformation, it’s worse. Either way — expect legal action and a very angry comms day. #Altair #AnaWolff

@/pitlanepundit: Twitter vs Instagram: the old “sponsor bait” move. Whoever did this knows how to make corporate phones ring. Pretty smart, morally questionable. (And yes, the charity links look genuine.)

@/f1lawyerlady: Reminder: posting or forcing false statements on an account you don’t control = illegal. If brands are misrepresented, contracts can be terminated. This will move into civil & possibly criminal territory very fast.

@/feministpitwall: The charity carousel in his feed reads like a statement of accountability. Whoever posted it may have wanted public attention on survivors — but weaponising an individual’s account is not the way. Still: survivors first. #ListenToSurvivors

@/MaxieFanClub: Imagine waking up to your rival’s team in flames and George’s feed full of lawnmowers. This season never stops. 😂

@/charlesmymonaco: I’ve seen some weird PR hacks, but this is next level. Sponsors will not be happy. Karma’s real

@/PRCrisisCoach: If I were Russell’s team: 1) full account lockdown, 2) immediate statement confirming compromise, 3) notify sponsors, 4) call law enforcement. Silence = disaster.

@/tifosi_tweets: “George’s account hacked & posting Nike ads” is my new favorite headline of 2025. F1: where sports, scandal & marketing collide spectacularly.

@/f1datahumour: George’s feed went from racing pics to “How to mow your lawn” in 3 posts. Someone remix this with a pit stop soundtrack pls.

@/journalist_ella: We have confirmation from a source that Russell’s comms team claims posts were not authorised. Police and cybercrime units are being informed. Official statement expected within the hour. 

@/LandoLover: If this is a hacker trying to “help” Ana, it’s wildly irresponsible. If it’s Russell’s PR team trying to be defensive? Even worse. Either way, stop using charity messaging as a weapon. Respect survivors.

@/SponsorWatch: Brands are already monitoring. Athletic & lifestyle sponsors are especially sensitive to image risks — if posts aren’t controlled by the athlete, expect immediate damage control calls and emergency clauses to be invoked.

@/F1InsiderTweet: Paddock whispers: someone with a grudge and tech skillset decided to punish the camp that leaked Ana’s info. Could go badly, could force a reckoning. But it also drags a charity’s name into a PR spat — messy.

@/nostalgicfan1: Remember when the biggest drama was a tyre gamble? Good times. #F12025

@/PaddockInsider: Well. That escalated. George’s IG just started posting Nike/ Flymo/ Boss/ Dainese promo material and a carousel of sexual-harassment helplines. Either someone’s doing very obvious PR sabotage — or his account was compromised. Chaos incoming.

@/F1MemeLord: GEORGE RUSSELL: “I love Adidas” Also GEORGE RUSSELL’S INSTAGRAM TODAY: Nike sponsored post 😭🤡

@/GridJournalist: Multiple sources telling me George’s team is scrambling. Posts are being deleted but screenshots are everywhere. If this is a hack, it’s spectacularly timed. If not — the sponsorship fallout will be immediate.

@/f1fan_1989: Lol web3 gone wrong. Someone explain to George how brand partnerships work? This is PR suicide.

@/WomenInMotorsport: Posting helplines? Good. Using someone’s platform to amplify support for survivors? Good. Hacking is illegal. But if accounts were used to weaponize a survivor’s medical history, I understand the anger behind this.

@/AnaStansUnite: If this was done to stop Russell’s camp from weaponizing Ana’s life — power to whoever did it. But still: illegal. I’m just so tired of the world making survivors fight on three fronts.

@/GridConspiracies: Who benefits from this? If you think of motive, it’s either a desperate PR ploy or a retaliatory hack. Either way: BRILLIANT soap opera for the paddock.

@/SponsorWatch: Brands are on high alert. Sidelining an athlete over hacked content is messy — but public misalignments with brand identity are a nightmare. 

@/fan_in_the_stands: Can we stop clapping for “hacks as justice”? This is messy. But damn, the screenshots are savage.

@/TotoWatch Toto’s phone is probably smoking. 

***

Wolff Residence, Monaco - 4 August 2025

The kitchen was warm with the smell of espresso and toasted bread when Ana walked in — and not alone.

Max Verstappen trailed after her, looking far too comfortable for someone who had only just arrived. His hair was mussed in a way Susie’s sharp eyes didn’t miss, and Ana’s skin had that faintly luminous look Susie had only seen on her on few occassions

Toto, halfway through buttering a slice of pumpernickel bread, froze mid-motion. His jaw tightened, his eyes flicked to Max, then back to Ana, then down at the knife in his hand like he was considering a very old Austrian solution to this situation.

Susie bit back a smile. Oh, Toto.

Ana, for once, didn’t notice the tension. Or maybe she did and simply didn’t care. She dropped into the chair beside Jack, brushing his hair back absently. She looked… lighter. Almost buoyant.

“Guten Morgen,” Ana said simply, sliding into a chair like nothing was unusual. She was smiling. Actually smiling.

“Morning,” Max added, with a nod. He looked unruffled, maybe even smug.

Susie had to duck her head to hide her grin as Toto muttered something sharp in German under his breath and set his paper down a little too hard. She could practically see the vein in his temple throbbing.

Jack, bless him, didn’t bother with tact. He narrowed his eyes at Max across the table like a miniature watchdog. “You’re here,” he said flatly.

“Yes,” Max said, deadpan. “I’m here.”

Jack narrowed his eyes over his cereal, spoon clinking against the bowl. He gave Max a look that could only be described as suspicious, before leaning toward Ana. “He’s here again?”

Ana smoothed Jack’s shirt collar, unruffled. “Yes. He’s having breakfast with us.”

Jack gave a doubtful little grunt and returned to his cereal, muttering something under her breath. 

Susie hid her laugh behind her coffee cup. Oh, Jack was definitely Toto’s child — protective to the bone, territorial, already grumpy about Ana’s attention being divided.

Susie sipped her coffee, pretending not to notice Toto silently combusting beside her.

They ate in uneasy silence for a few minutes, broken only by Max politely complimenting the jam (“very good, Susie”), and Jack stabbing his cornflakes with suspicious intensity. Ana, meanwhile, was unbothered — eyes bright, posture relaxed, almost glowing. Susie thought she hadn’t seen her daughter look so light in years.

Toto finally cleared his throat. “So,” he said, voice a fraction too loud. “Summer break is coming up.”

Ana nodded, stealing a slice of toast. “Yes. I was looking at the calendar.”

“I’ll be in Brackley tomorrow,” Toto continued, tone clipped, eyes fixed on his plate.

“Great,” Ana said easily, as if she hadn’t just set his blood pressure spiking by waltzing in with Max Verstappen at her side 10 minutes earlier. “I’ll come,” Ana said simply. “Altair still has refinements. And Kimi will need post-race debrief.”

For a moment, Toto just stared at her like she’d spoken Martian. “You’ll what?”

“I’ll come,” she repeated simply, reaching for more toast. “I want to go over the Altair integration data in person.”

Max’s mouth quirked like he was suppressing a grin.

Susie, watching it all unfold, felt something warm settle in her chest. For the first time in weeks, Ana looked… settled. Light. Even with Toto silently combusting two chairs down, she was steady in her own skin.

Susie caught Toto’s eye over the table, and when his expression flickered between fury, disbelief, and fatherly panic, she allowed herself the smallest, most wicked smile.

He was going to have to live with it.

Because Ana was happy.

And that was worth every coronary in the world.

***

Wolff Residence, Monaco - 4 August 2025

Toto had just set his coffee cup down when the phone buzzed against the counter, Bradley’s name lighting up the screen. He excused himself from the table — Susie raising an eyebrow, Max suspiciously polite over the dishes, Ana focused on buttering toast for Jack as if nothing in the world was on fire.

He answered anyway. “Ja, Bradley?”

The line was pure chaos. “George’s Instagram has been compromised. Posts went up overnight — Nike, Flymo, Boss, Dainese, plus harassment charity links. Screenshots everywhere. Sponsors are losing their minds. His management is panicking. The press are all over it.”

Toto pinched the bridge of his nose. “Scheiße.”

Bradley rattled on: “We’re monitoring fallout, but Adidas already issued a statement. Dior and Einhell are asking questions. It’s a mess. Cybercrime units have been contacted. George’s team is screaming sabotage.”

Toto closed his eyes, exhaling slowly. “Of course they are.”

For a moment, silence stretched. His mind ticked back to the kitchen — Ana’s faint smile as she leaned toward Jack, Max far too comfortable in his seat, Susie’s eyes dancing with quiet amusement. And then… that same Ana, furious after the paparazzi, cool and deliberate about data, sharper than anyone he’d ever known with code and systems.

Toto’s stomach twisted.

“Bradley,” he said carefully, “do we know who did it?”

“Not yet. His team’s insisting it’s a targeted hack. They’ll probably try to pin it on ‘disgruntled insiders’ or even Mercedes staff. We need to be ready for the blowback.”

Toto’s jaw flexed, unease prickling down his spine. “Mhm.”

He ended the call with the usual clipped assurances, but as he lowered the phone, the thought struck him with uncomfortable clarity:

What if it was Ana?

She had the capability. God knew she had the motive. George had dragged her through hell — the assault, the articles, the medical leak. And Ana, when wounded, was not passive. She turned precision into weaponry.

But no — she was in Monaco last night. He’d seen her. She’d walked in this morning with Max, soft and luminous in a way that suggested anything but a clandestine hacking spree.

Still. He couldn’t shake it.

Toto pressed his palm against the counter, willing down the thought. His daughter was brilliant. His daughter was dangerous. And his daughter was hurt.

If she had done this… part of him wasn’t sure whether to ground her or applaud.

From the kitchen, Jack’s voice rang out, loud and annoyed: “Max, that’s MY jam!” Susie laughed softly. Ana hummed under her breath.

Toto stared at his phone, sighed, and muttered to himself in German. “Gott hilf mir. I’m going to lose my mind.”

***

Wolff Residence, Monaco - 4 August 2025

Ana had just settled back onto the sofa, Jack’s half-finished Lego spread across the coffee table like a battlefield, when her father walked in. His posture gave him away before he spoke — shoulders too rigid, jaw tight, the look of a man trying to bottle a storm.

She looked up, wary. “What?”

Toto hesitated only a second before blurting it out. “Ana… did you hack George Russell’s Instagram?”

The question was so blunt, so absurd, that Ana just blinked at him. “What?”

“You heard me,” Toto pressed, eyes narrowing. “This morning his account was compromised. Posts about Nike, lawnmowers, harassment charities—” He made a sharp gesture, exasperated. “It looks retaliatory. And I know you’re angry. So tell me now: was it you?”

Ana stared at him, momentarily too stunned to answer. Then she let out a sharp, incredulous laugh. “Papa. I’ve been here. With you. With Jack. With…” Her eyes flicked, almost unconsciously, to Max, who was perched on the armchair, watching the exchange with bemused curiosity.

“I didn’t touch George’s Instagram.” She shook her head, still baffled. “Honestly, I haven’t hacked anything in years.”

The room went very still.

Max’s brows shot up. “Wait—” he leaned forward, pointing at her, eyes wide. “Years?”

Ana rubbed her temple with her good hand, already regretting opening her mouth. “Max—”

“No, no, no. Don’t ‘Max’ me.” He crossed the room in three long strides, crouching beside her chair, eyes locked on hers. “Are you telling me you used to hack things? Actually hack things?”

Ana’s ears warmed. She hated when he looked at her like that — half fascinated, half horrified. “…Occasionally.”

“Occasionally?!” Max hissed, his voice jumping an octave. 

Ana frowned at him, deadpan. “That wasn’t the important part of that sentence.”

“Excuse me, it’s absolutely the important part,” Max countered, equal parts horrified and delighted. “You’re just going to throw that in like—like you used to play tennis and then gave it up?!”

“It was… practice.” she said defensively, pushing her hair behind her ear. “ Curiosity. Systems are puzzles. Sometimes I wanted to see if I could solve them. It’s not… it’s not like in films,” she murmured. “It was debugging, backdoors to old lab kit. I’m a systems engineer, Max. We poke at things to see how they work. It’s not a hobby anymore.”

Susie rinsed a plate quietly, then set it down with a calmness that implied she’d already decided the moral arc of the conversation. She leaned on the counter and looked at Ana with the exact mixture of fondness and mischief she used for every impossible thing Ana did. “If she did it,” Susie said lightly, “she wouldn’t get caught.”

Toto’s eyes flicked from Susie to Ana, a flicker of incredulity edged with fear. “You’re not answering me,” he said. “Not with hypotheticals. If you had—if you had done anything like that—there are legal consequences, Anastasia”

Ana sighed, pushing her chair back so it scraped the floor. “Papa, listen to me. I did not hack George Russell’s Instagram. I’ve been busy with Altair and Jack and—” her hand flicked vaguely toward Max “—him.”

Toto’s eyes searched hers, sharp and assessing, as if he could force truth out of her bones.

Ana met his stare without flinching. “It wasn’t me. If it had been me, you wouldn’t be asking — because they’d never have traced it at all.”

The corner of Max’s mouth twitched upward. “Okay, that’s… terrifyingly hot.”

“Verstappen,” Toto snapped.

Max had the decency to cough, though the smirk lingered.

Ana dragged her hands through her icy-blonde hair, exasperated. “Papa, I swear to you — I’m not the one lighting George’s sponsorships on fire. I might want to, but I didn’t. Whoever did it isn’t me.”

Toto’s jaw worked; for a second his resolve fractured and she saw the father under the team principal — exhausted, furious, and utterly terrified for the mess that had been dropped in their laps. He ran a hand over his face and exhaled.

“Good,” he said finally, the single syllable full of relief and warning at once. “Because whether you did or not, I don’t want any of my family putting themselves in the legal crosshairs.”

Ana nodded. The corner of her mouth loosened into something that might have been a smile if she hadn’t felt so raw. “I won’t,” she promised. She meant it. She wanted no more fire.

Max crossed the room and dropped into the chair beside her, close enough that she could feel the heat radiating from him. He didn’t ask more questions. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders instead, the simple, human gesture saying what no words managed: I believe you.

Toto watched them, a complicated expression passing through his features — pride, irritation, something like surrender. He left the room without another word, phone already at his ear to call Bradley and the legal team, but the immediate suspicion that had chased him in had eased a fraction.

Ana let her head fall back on the chair and stared at the ceiling. In the small quiet that followed, Susie’s mug clinked against the counter and Max’s presence was steady and warm. The world outside could still burn; for the moment, the kitchen was just a kitchen and she was just allowed to breathe.

***

Text Messages: George Russell & Alex Albon

George: Mate. You don’t understand. This is all a setup. Mercedes. Toto. Ana. They’re all against me.

Alex: George. Stop.

George: No listen. My Instagram got hacked? Who else could do that but Ana? She’s a systems engineer. She’s probably in my laptop too. None of my electronics are working properly anymore. Coincidence? I don’t think so.

Alex: …George. It’s not a conspiracy.

George: It is! She’s been after me since the start. Wouldn’t take my feedback, built that stupid Altair thing to make me look bad. And now suddenly my sponsors are furious, my socials are destroyed, and everyone hates me. You don’t see the pattern??

Alex: I do see the pattern. IT’S NOT A CONSPIRACY, YOU ASS.

George: What are you talking about?

Alex: You assaulted her. Because you thought being her boyfriend would mean you keep your seat. And when she said no, you didn’t stop. And when that blew up in your face, you ran to the press and smeared her with every disgusting story you could think of.

George: It wasn’t like that—

Alex: It was EXACTLY like that. I saw you. I saw how obsessed you were. Everyone did. You turned her into some kind of bargaining chip for your career.

George: She gave mixed signals—

Alex: No. She didn’t. You just didn’t listen.

George: You’re not even giving me the benefit of the doubt.

Alex: Because there IS no doubt. George, look at yourself. You sound insane. Everyone’s angry not because of some conspiracy. It’s because of what YOU did.

George: So you’re taking her side.

Alex: I’m taking the side of reality. And let me be clear: do NOT contact me again. We’re done.

George: Alex—

Alex: No. Do not.

***

Group Chat: WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!

(Members: Lando Norris, Oscar Piastri, Max Verstappen, Yuki Tsunoda, Liam Lawson, Isack Hadjar, Oliver Bearman, Esteban Ocon, Gabriel Bortoleto, Nico Hulkenberg, Kimi Antonelli, Valtteri Bottas, Pierre Gasly, Franco Colapinto, Charles Leclerc, Lewis Hamilton, Alex Albon, Carlos Sainz, Lance Stroll, Fernando Alonso)

Alex: Just got off texts with George. He’s fucking insane.

Pierre: Insane how?

Alex: Like full-on conspiracy board insane. He thinks Ana hacked his laptop, his phone, AND his Instagram.

Lando: 💀💀💀 not Ana playing 4D chess while coding the car

Max: She didn’t hack him.

Yuki: She could though 👀

Kimi: She absolutely could.

Alex: I KNOW she didn’t hack him. He’s convinced though. Said “Altair was built to make me look bad.”

Oscar: Mate. He actually said that?

Alex: Word for word.

Valtteri: 🙄 That’s not insanity, that’s guilt and paranoia.

Yuki: George = clown 🤡

Carlos: At this point he’s digging himself deeper every time he opens his mouth.

Lewis: I don’t even care about his conspiracy nonsense. What I care about is him and his team leaking Ana’s diagnosis.

Charles: Yeah. That’s—no. That’s too far.

Lewis: Too far? Charles, it’s unforgivable. Weaponising autism to smear her? To excuse his behaviour? Do you know how many people in this sport are neurodivergent in some way? Engineers, strategists, drivers. We rely on them. And now some idiot thinks he can turn it into a weakness in the press?

Fernando: That’s the part that disgusts me. It’s cruel.

Pierre: Yeah… I’m with Lewis. That crossed a line.

Lance: It feels like everything just keeps escalating.

Isack: Okay but the hacked Instagram posts were hilarious 💀💀

Oliver: Nike. Flymo. Hugo Boss. Dainese. The CHAOS of it all.

Franco: The lawnmower ad had me crying 😂😂

Gabriel: The harassment charities though?? That was the savage bit.

Esteban: If that really wasn’t Ana… someone else clearly wanted George to burn.

Nico H.: Whoever did it knew exactly where to hurt him. Sponsors are gonna roast him alive.

Valtteri: I woke up, checked IG, saw George advertising Flymo, and thought I was still dreaming.

Carlos: Yeah, but let’s not lose sight of the real thing here. George assaulted someone. Everything since is just noise.

Lewis: Exactly. Don’t let the memes distract you. Ana deserves respect, not this circus.

Lando: …fair. but also… the memes are gold 😭

Alex: George seriously doesn’t think he did anything wrong. That’s what’s terrifying.

Oscar: Mate, you did the right thing cutting him off.

Lando: Yeah. There’s no coming back from this.

Lewis: He doesn’t belong in this paddock anymore. Not after what he did to her, and not after what his camp has done since.

Valtteri: Agreed.

Kimi: Yeah. Altair doesn’t hate anyone. But I think we all hate George now.

Yuki: Facts.

Max: Good. He deserves it.

***

Baumgartner & Chevallier, Counsel to Susie and Toto Wolff

To Editors and Publishers,

We are writing on behalf of Dr. Anastasia Wolff and Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team.

Your recent coverage of ongoing HR proceedings concerning Mr. George Russell has not only crossed the line of journalistic integrity but has also violated fundamental rights to dignity and privacy. Dr. Wolff has been subjected to repeated attempts to discredit her professional standing through articles that mischaracterize the incident under investigation, distort her contributions to the team’s technical work, and — most egregiously — disclose her private medical information without consent.

The disclosure of Dr. Wolff’s autism diagnosis constitutes a serious breach of confidentiality and data protection law. It is irrelevant to the matter at hand, weaponised solely to stigmatise her and to excuse conduct that remains inexcusable. Autism is not a liability. It is not an explanation for harassment. It is not, and will never be, a shield for predatory behaviour.

This coverage has not only harmed Dr. Wolff but has insulted the many neurodivergent individuals who are integral to the sport. Formula One is built on the brilliance of minds who think differently. From engineering to strategy, countless neurodivergent staff members across every team are responsible for the very innovations that define this industry. To suggest that neurodivergence undermines competence is discriminatory and deeply damaging.

The attempt to shift scrutiny away from Mr. Russell by smearing a colleague is a disgrace. Dr. Wolff’s reputation stands on her own achievements: her systems research, her doctorate in engineering, and the measurable results of the Altair project, which delivered immediate competitive gains. No amount of character assassination will change that.

We demand the immediate removal of defamatory and discriminatory material from your platforms, and the publication of a correction acknowledging that the disclosure of medical information was unauthorized, irrelevant, and unlawful. Failure to comply will result in legal action in the jurisdictions where you operate.

Dr. Wolff has not sought th spotlight. She has asked only to be judged on the quality of her work. That work speaks for itself — in the numbers, in the results, in the car on track. No campaign of innuendo will change that.

This letter serves as both a legal warning and a statement of principle: the exploitation of private medical information to excuse misconduct will not go unanswered.

Your publications have crossed a line that stigmatizes every neurodivergent professional in Formula One. It is an attack on an entire community whose intellect and perspective make this sport possible.

Group Chat: “TEAM 33”

 (Members: Max Verstappen, Jos Verstappen, Raymond Vermeulen)

Jos: What the hell is going on with Russell? HR investigation, suspension… I don’t like it.

Raymond: I’ve seen the statement. Very vague. No one in the paddock seems to know specifics yet.

Jos: Vague = bad. What did he do, Max? You must’ve heard something.

Max: …

Raymond: Max? You okay?

Jos: Don’t tell me he pulled something with you. Because I swear if that’s the case—

Max: It’s not about me.

Raymond: But you know more than we do.

Jos: So? Spit it out.

Max: Not my story to tell.

Jos: Bloody hell, Max. That’s not an answer.

Raymond: If it affects you or anyone close to you, we need to know. This isn’t just paddock gossip. This is serious.

Max: … I’ll handle it.

Jos: “Handle it”? What the hell does that mean?

Raymond: Max. Please. If this involves someone you care about, you don’t have to do it alone. We can help. But we need to know what’s happened.

Max: Not now.

Jos: Max—

Max: Drop it.

Jos: What the fuck was that?

Raymond: …That sounded personal. Very personal.

Jos: If he thinks he’s going to keep this from us—

Raymond: Calm down. Let’s give him space. He’ll tell us when he’s ready. But whatever Russell did… it clearly hit close to home.

***

Text Messages: Kimi Antonelli & Oliver Bearman

Ollie: Bro. BRO. Tell me I didn’t just read that right.

Kimi: You read it right. Max Verstappen. And Ana.

Ollie: I feel like I need to sit down. This is… WHAT??

Kimi: I’m literally shaking. Neither of them ever said A WORD. 

Ollie: I thought she didn’t even like people 😭😭 Turns out she just likes Max Verstappen???

Kimi: I swear my brain just shut down. … Okay no. I’m texting Max.

Ollie: WAIT. WHAT. NO. What are you gonna say??

Kimi: I’m gonna tell him not to hurt her.

Ollie: KIMI. He’s a FOUR TIME WORLD CHAMPION. You can’t just threaten Verstappen over text like he’s some kid at school.

Kimi: Watch me. He can win all the titles he wants. That’s Ana.

Ollie: … Okay but actually I respect it. Please screenshot it for me when you do.

Kimi: Fine. But if I disappear it’s because Max Verstappen killed me.

Ollie: Worth it. For Ana.

***

Text Messages: Kimi Antonelli & Max Verstappen

Kimi: Listen to me very carefully Verstappen. If you hurt her If you make her cry If you EVER make her feel like she’s not enough

Kimi: I don’t care how many world championships you have. I don’t care how many cats you own. I don’t care if you could crush me like a Red Bull can.

Kimi: I will find you. And I will make you regret it.

***

Wolff Residence, Monaco - 28 July 2025

Toto Wolff was not in the mood for visitors. 

His phone buzzed, screen lighting with the doorman’s number.

He frowned, already running on fumes from the day, his mind heavy with Ana, the storm circling Mercedes.

“Yes?” he answered, clipped.

“Mr. Wolff…there’s someone here. He’s asking to be let up. Says you’ll want to see him.” A pause. “Max Verstappen.”

For a beat, Toto thought he’d misheard. “What?”

“Mr. Verstappen is in the lobby. He insists on speaking with you. Says it’s urgent.”

Toto stared at the wall. Verstappen? Here? The fury that had been simmering since George’s suspension twisted sharp. This was the last complication he needed.

He hung up without answering, already striding toward the sitting room. “He’s here,” Toto said flatly. “Downstairs.”

Susie looked up from the guest room door, where she’d been keeping half an ear out for Ana. Her brows knit. “Who?”

“Max Verstappen.”

For once, even Susie looked thrown. She blinked, then tilted her head, calculation sparking behind her eyes. “And what does he want?”

“He insists on speaking to me. Says it’s urgent.”

Susie exhaled slowly, and then — maddeningly calm — said, “Let him up.”

Toto turned on her, incredulous. “Was?”

“I want to see what this is about,” she said evenly, though her gaze flicked toward the guest room again. “I think Ana may not have told us everything.”

Toto’s stomach sank.

Five minutes later, Max Verstappen stood on their doorstep. No cameras, no entourage, no arrogance — just a young man taut with fury and exhaustion, his hands flexing at his sides like he didn’t know what to do with them.

“I need to see Ana,” Max said without preamble. His voice was low, raw. “Please.”

There were five things Toto wanted to say, most of them involving the words absolutely not, over my dead body, and what the fuck is happening?!

Toto’s brows shot up. “Entschuldigung?”

Max’s eyes flicked past him toward the hall, toward where Ana laid resting. His throat worked, and then the words spilled, fast, as if he couldn’t keep them in any longer.

“We’ve been together for almost ten years.”

Silence.

Utter, crashing, brain-flattening silence.

Toto blinked. Once. Slowly.

He felt the blood rush to his head, the floor tilt beneath him. Ten years? His mind spat the math back at him — twenty, nineteen, eighteen — and rage hit him like a physical blow.

“You want to repeat that?” he said, dangerously calm.

Max didn’t back away. “I’m not lying.”

“You’re telling me,” Toto said, his voice rising, “that you have been sleeping with my daughter for a decade, and you never thought that might be relevant information?”

Max didn’t even flinch. “She didn’t want anyone to know.”

Toto stared at him. “You didn’t want me to know.”

“She asked me not to tell you.”

“And you didn’t think that maybe, at some point, morally, you should have grown a spine and told me anyway?!”

Max bristled. “She’s not a secret. She’s never been a secret. Just private.”

“Private?!” Toto snapped. “You’ve been in my home. At my table. You’ve looked me in the eye while I talked about our future. You—Jesus, Max, you—*”

He had to stop. Had to breathe, because otherwise he was going to slam a fist into the stone wall behind him.

Max swallowed. “I didn’t want to lie to you.”

“But you did. You arrogant little—”

“Toto.” Susie’s voice cut sharp through the air. She’d stepped forward, her expression ice. But her fury wasn’t for him. She was glaring at Max like she might physically shove him back through the door.

“You think you can just show up here,” she said, her voice deadly soft, “after hiding this from us for ten years, and demand to see our daughter? After what she’s been through?”

“I love her,” Max said hoarsely. “And I need to know she’s okay.”

Toto didn’t speak. Didn’t move.

Max looked between them—calm, but tight with something fragile. “It started off—casual. It stopped being that a long time ago. I didn’t say anything because she didn’t want anyone to know. Not even you. She didn’t want this to affect your relationship,” Max said. “Or mine with you. Or the team. Or anything.”

“And you thought that was healthy?” Susie snapped. “You thought letting her suffer in silence while hiding the one person she trusts was a good idea?”

“I never made her hide,” Max bit back. “She asked me to. I would have shouted it from the rooftops. I would have married her the second she said yes.”

The silence shattered into pieces.

“You—” Toto started, voice gone hoarse. “You what?”

“She didn’t want anyone to know,” Max repeated. “Not the media. Not the teams. Not you. We were careful. But I’ve been in love with her since I was twenty. And she—” He faltered. “She loves me too. Even if she doesn’t say it.”

“Careful?” Susie snapped, stepping closer. “You call hiding a decade-long relationship from her parents being careful?”

“We didn’t want it to become a scandal. We didn’t want you to think—”

“To think what?” Toto cut in, voice low and dangerous. “That you were sleeping with your rival’s daughter behind closed doors? That you were sneaking around the grid like a bloody teenager? That my daughter has spent ten years shouldering that secrecy while building the most advanced power unit in the world? Is that what I wasn’t supposed to think, Max?”

Shock and fury coiled together, molten in his chest. His daughter. His daughter. Ten years, and Max Verstappen had the audacity to stand in his doorway and only admit it now?

“I didn’t come to argue,” Max said, jaw clenched. “I came because I love her.”

Then: “You didn’t think to mention this before you signed a multi-year contract with the team I run? Before you showed up at my family home asking after my daughter like a worried boyfriend?”

Max opened his mouth. Closed it again. “We kept it quiet. It wasn’t about the job. We didn’t want it to get messy.”

Toto laughed. Once. Cold. “Oh good, Max. Because this isn’t messy at all.”

Max stood his ground. “You have every right to be angry. But I’m not here to justify it. I’m here because she’s hurt and I love her.”

Toto barked a humorless laugh. “Oh, you love her? You love her and yet I had to find out after a decade because you decided to show up at my door like a goddamn romcom cliché?”

Max’s mouth tightened.

“You know what I’ve been dealing with today?” Toto snapped. “My daughter’s trauma. Her broken wrist. HR investigations. Legal reviews. George Russell being walked out of Brackley in disgrace—and now this?”

“I didn’t come to pick a fight,” Max said, quieter now. “I just came to check on her. I’ve been losing my mind. I thought I could wait, but I can’t. Not when I know what happened. Not when I know she’s hurting.”

Toto studied him.

Measured him.

Then stepped back from the door.

“Leave your shoes by the mat,” he said.

Max blinked.

“You get five minutes,” Toto added. “And if Anastasia doesn’t want to see you, you leave. No questions. Understood?”

Max nodded, already toeing off his sneakers.

“Verstappen.”

Max paused.

“If you ever hurt her—if you lie, or manipulate, or make her feel small for even one second—there won’t be a team, a contract, or a paddock in the world that will protect you from what I will do next.”

Susie shut the door with a sharp click. “One wrong move,” she said evenly, “and you’ll regret stepping foot in this apartment.”

Max didn’t argue. He didn’t even glance at her. His eyes locked on the closed hallway door at the far end — the one leading to Anastasia’s room.

Toto stepped deliberately into his path. “She’s sedated. She needs rest. I will not have you agitating her further.”

Max swallowed, his voice rougher than Toto had ever heard it. “I don’t want to agitate her. I just… I need to see her. Please.”

The “please” nearly undid Toto’s resolve — not because it softened him, but because it rang with desperation he didn’t expect from the man across from him.

For the first time that night, Toto looked properly at him. Not the rival, not the four-time world champion, not the stubborn thorn in Mercedes’ side. Just a man who looked like he was fighting to stay upright.

Susie touched Toto’s arm. “Let him. If Ana truly has been with him all these years, then she’ll want him near. Keeping them apart might do more damage than good.”

Toto didn’t like it. He didn’t trust it. But he stepped aside.

Max moved down the hallway, every stride taut with urgency but careful, measured. He paused at Ana’s door, knocked softly — once, twice — before slipping inside.

Toto followed far enough to stand in the doorway. He couldn’t help himself.

Ana was half-curled in the bed, pale against the sheets, her wrist immobilized, her lashes damp from earlier tears. She stirred faintly at the sound of footsteps, brow furrowing in half-conscious recognition.

Max stopped just short of the bed. His jaw clenched; his hands flexed uselessly at his sides. Then, in a voice barely above a whisper:

“Fuck, Ana.”

Anastasia stirred. Her brow furrowed, lips moving. The half-dreaming words that spilled out made Toto’s chest cave in.

“I’m sorry… I always ruin everything… I’m sorry…”

Toto reached forward instinctively, but Max was already there. He dropped to his knees by the bed, hand hovering above hers but not daring to touch. His voice broke, urgent and soft.

“No, Nastya. No. You didn’t ruin anything. Not this. Not us.”

Toto froze. Us.

He didn’t know what the hell this was. How long it had been going on, what Ana had been carrying, why she hadn’t told them. But as he watched his daughter finally relax, her trembling easing as Verstappen sat there whispering, something else settled in too.

Max wasn’t leaving. Not tonight. Not while Ana needed him.

And Toto hated that a part of him — the father part, not the team principal — was relieved for it.

***

Text Messages: Valtteri Bottas & Lewis Hamilton

Valtteri: Well. That explains a lot.

Lewis: You can say that again. I thought Max just hated George for racing reasons.

Valtteri: No. Clearly not. He sounded like he was ready to fly to Brackley and strangle him.

Lewis: And honestly? I’d hold him down for it. George crossed a line that can’t ever be uncrossed.

Valtteri: Agreed. But now there’s another problem.

Lewis: What.

Valtteri: Toto. Max + Ana = a storm. And I don’t know if Toto’s anger will be more about George or about Max being in her life for ten years without him knowing.

Lewis: You’re not wrong. You know Toto. Control is everything for him. Finding out his daughter’s been with Verstappen of all people, behind his back? That’s dynamite.

Valtteri: And Susie. If she didn’t know either, she’ll be even more furious.

Lewis: Yeah. And Ana… poor Ana. She doesn’t need this mess. She’s already been through hell this week.

Valtteri: I should’ve warned Toto sooner. About George. I had the signs. Just didn’t think he’d cross that line. I won’t forgive myself for that.

Lewis: Stop. You’re not the one who crossed it. George is. You’re here now. That’s what matters.

Valtteri: …you sound like Susie.

Lewis: She’s usually right. Don’t tell her I said that.

Valtteri: 😂 Your secret is safe.

Lewis: Not joking though. If Max hurts her— I’ll end him.

Valtteri: Get in line. I’m Finnish. We know how to make people disappear.

Lewis: That’s the first reassuring thing I’ve heard all day.

***

Text Messages: Nico Rosberg & Lewis Hamilton

Lewis: I don’t want you blindsided.

Nico: This already sounds bad. What is it.

Lewis: Ana. She’s been seeing Max. For years, apparently.

Nico: … EXCUSE ME?!

Lewis: Yeah. Found out about it tonight.

Nico: HE TERRORISED ME IN 2016. THE CHAIR INCIDENT. THE SPA INCIDENT. THE BRAZIL DIVEBOMB.

Lewis: I remember, Nico. I was there.

Nico: And now he’s with Ana??? Ana WOLFF??? Do you know what that means??

Lewis: That Toto’s blood pressure is about to hit new records?

Nico: I don’t blame him! Of all the people on the planet, Max Verstappen?? Does Ana even know what she’s doing?

Lewis: Careful. Ana’s been through enough. She doesn’t need you judging her on top of it.

Nico: I’m not judging her! I’m judging HIM. Max Verstappen. Oh god. He’s practically family now.

Lewis: Welcome to my week.

Nico: …you know what? For once in my life, I actually feel sorry for Toto.

Lewis: Yeah. Same.

***

Wolff Residence, Monaco - 28 July 2025

Max knelt at her bedside, fingers locked around her smaller, bandaged hand. He thought he’d burned through every reserve of anger — at George, at himself, at the world that had let this happen. But nothing prepared him for Ana like this.

Her lashes trembled against her cheeks, skin pale and clammy from sedation. She looked breakable in a way he had never seen. Then, suddenly, her weak grip closed around his hand, the panic slicing through even the fog of the drugs.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, voice cracked and ragged. “Spa—I’m sorry, Max, I didn’t mean it, I didn’t—”

His name. Their fight. The words landed like knives, straight through him.

“Ana,” he breathed, leaning closer, desperate. “You don’t need to—”

But she shook her head frantically, tears spilling into the pillow, raw panic etched into every line of her face. “No—you don’t understand. I ruin everything. I push you away and I ruin it, and you hate me for it, I know you do. I should’ve been better. I should’ve—”

Max’s chest caved in. He wanted to pull her out of the fog, drag her into clarity, make her see. He had waited ten years to hear her say she wanted him, needed him. He had begged in silence for scraps of this honesty.

And now here it was, spilling out of her in half-hysterical sobs. Not clarity. Not choice. Just a wound torn open.

Max brushed trembling fingers across her damp cheek, forcing his voice steady. “Nastya. Stop. You didn’t ruin anything. Do you hear me? Nothing. That fight didn’t matter. None of it matters.” His voice broke, but he pressed on. “I could never hate you.”

Her eyes cracked open, glazed but locked on him, desperate. “You’ll leave. Everyone leaves.”

Max’s heart clenched so hard it nearly split his ribs. He bent until his forehead pressed against hers, whispering like a vow: “Not me. Never me. I should’ve told you that in Spa. I should’ve told you every day. I’m here, Nastya. I’m not leaving.”

Her breathing hitched, shuddering, like she couldn’t quite believe him. Still, her hand twitched in his, the faintest tightening of fingers.

Max shut his eyes, torn apart. He had what he’d always wanted: her truth. But it was hollow, poisoned by trauma and sedatives, dragged out in front of her parents standing in the doorway. Not freely given. Not whole.

It gutted him more than silence ever had.

Still, he stayed bent over her, repeating it into her skin like a prayer: I’m here. I’m not leaving. Not now. Not ever.

But she didn’t seem to hear him. Her eyes drifted unfocused, tears slipping sideways into her hair. “You deserve someone normal,” she whispered. “Not me. Never me.”

Max’s throat burned. He pressed his forehead against her hand, clutching it like an anchor. “Don’t you dare,” he rasped, voice splintering. “Don’t you dare say that. You’re everything. You’ve always been everything. I don’t care about Spa, I don’t care about fights, I don’t care about normal. I only care about you.”

Her fingers twitched again, the smallest flicker of strength, as though she was trying to hold on.

Max swallowed hard. It should have been everything — honesty, walls torn down, the love she never spoke aloud. But not like this. Not wrung out of her under sedation, not soaked in fear.

And still, he couldn’t let go of her hand. Not even if Toto Wolff himself tried to tear him away.

From the corner, he could feel Toto’s eyes boring into him, Susie’s presence sharp as glass. He didn’t look. He couldn’t.

All he could see was Ana.

It should have been everything. Instead, it felt like being gutted alive.

***

Text Messages: Valtteri Bottas & Peter “Bono” Bonnington

Valtteri: You heard yet?

Bono: Heard what? About George being suspended? Yeah. Still can’t believe it.

Valtteri: Not that. About Ana.

Bono: What about Ana? She’s resting, isn’t she? She’s back in Monaco. With Susie?

Valtteri: She’s with Verstappen.

Bono: …sorry?

Valtteri: Together. Couple. Apparently.

Bono: You’re joking. Please tell me you’re joking.

Valtteri: Not joking. Came out in the drivers’ chat. Max admitted it himself.

Bono: Bloody hell. So all these years, all the whispers, all the times she vanished in Monaco— It was him?

Valtteri: Yes.

Bono: Toto must be climbing the walls. And Susie… god, Susie must be ready to wring his neck.

Bono: I don’t even know what to say. Max Verstappen and Ana Wolff… that’s— I mean, it makes sense in a terrifying way, but… Bloody hell.

Valtteri: Exactly. Bloody hell.

***

Wolff Residence, Monaco - 28 July 2025

Susie had weathered plenty of shocks in her life — boardroom coups, PR crises, sponsor ultimatums delivered over champagne flutes. She thought she had a stomach for it.

But this?

Her daughter drugged and feverish, whispering apologies into the dark. And Max Verstappen — Max bloody Verstappen — on his knees at her bedside, looking like he’d been stripped down to bone and sinew, clutching Ana’s hand like it was the only thing tethering him to the earth.

Susie’s arms folded tightly across her chest. She wanted to drag him out by the collar, throw him into the hallway, demand to know what gave him the right to appear here with this kind of intimacy.

And yet—

She couldn’t look away.

He wasn’t performing. There was no arrogance, no posturing, none of the bite he carried in press conferences. Just raw, desperate tenderness. She’d known Max since he was a teenager, a cocky little flame-thrower in a Red Bull suit, but she had never seen this.

Not until now.

Susie glanced sideways at Toto. His jaw was rigid, shoulders drawn tight, hands flexing at his sides. Rage simmered off him in waves. But he wasn’t moving to throw Verstappen out either.

Because Ana had stopped thrashing. Because, for the first time that evening, she wasn’t crying.

Susie’s breath caught when she heard it: the little broken murmur — you deserve someone normal.

Max’s reaction was instantaneous, visceral. He bent over her hand, voice cracked raw. “Don’t you dare say that. You’ve always been everything.”

Susie’s pulse stumbled.

Ten years. Ten years of this, hidden under their noses. How? How had Ana — her Ana, quiet, stubborn, armoured with precision — managed to conceal something this vast, this consuming?

She’d known her daughter was private, guarded. She’d worried, in quiet moments, that Ana was lonely. But she’d believed that if someone mattered enough, if someone really reached her, Ana would let them in.

And she had.

Just not them.

Not her own parents.

Susie’s nails pressed into her palms. Shock and fury burned together, but beneath it — sharper, more dangerous — was curiosity. Because if Verstappen was telling the truth, if he and Ana had been twined together for nearly a decade, then what else didn’t they know? What nights, what fights, what stolen mornings had her daughter lived without them ever seeing?

She wanted answers. Every last one of them.

Her gaze flicked back to the bedside. Max was murmuring softly now, words too low to catch, his thumb brushing rhythmically across Ana’s palm. It was steady, grounding — the kind of instinctive gesture that came from years, not weeks.

And Ana, even in her haze, leaned infinitesimally toward him.

Susie exhaled, slow.

She wasn’t ready to forgive. She wasn’t ready to welcome him into their home, their family. But the strategist in her, the mother in her, couldn’t ignore what her eyes were telling her.

This wasn’t casual. This wasn’t opportunistic.

This was the kind of bond you couldn’t fake.

Her fingers tightened on her folded arms. She would find out everything — when it started, why they kept it secret, why Ana thought she had to carry this alone.

But for now, she let the silence stretch, eyes sharp and unblinking, as she watched Max Verstappen sit rooted at her daughter’s side like he had no intention of moving.

And Susie knew one thing with absolute clarity.

She’d get her answers.

Even if she had to drag them out of him one by one.

A few minutes later, the room had gone quiet, save for the hum of machines and Ana’s even, sedated breaths.

Susie sat rigid in the chair by the window, arms crossed, sharp eyes never leaving Max. Toto stood near the dresser, broad shoulders blocking half the lamplight, every inch of him taut with controlled fury.

Max stayed where he’d been since Ana drifted into sleep — on the edge of her bed, one hand still resting on the blanket near her wrist. He hadn’t moved once. 

Susie finally broke the silence. Her voice was low, measured, but carried the same weight she used in boardrooms.

“Now you’re going to tell us everything, Max. Ten years of… this. No lies. No evasions. If you want to stay in this room, you owe us the truth.”

Max’s jaw tightened. For a moment, he looked like he might fight them — that familiar defiance flashing behind his eyes. But then his shoulders slumped, gaze dropping to Ana’s hand beneath his.

“Everything?” His voice was hoarse. “Fine. But you’re not going to like it.”

Toto’s reply was a rumble, clipped and dangerous. “Try me.”

Max exhaled slowly, staring at the floor as though the words might burn holes there.

 “She never let me all the way in. Not really. She—” His throat worked. “Ana never said she loved me. Not once. And I knew that if I said it, she would run.”

Susie felt the admission hit like a stone in her chest.

Max pressed on, voice raw. “She doesn’t talk about the future. Doesn’t want to plan, doesn’t want to imagine. Every time I try, she shuts down. Keeps me at arm’s length like she’s… terrified.”

He rubbed his face hard with one hand, then let it fall. “She thinks if she lets me in too far, I’ll leave. Just like her mother did.”

The words hung heavy in the room, dense enough to choke on.

Susie froze. The ache of it pierced her clean through — because she knew Ana’s abandonment by her birth mother had left scars, but hearing Max put it into words, stripped of Ana’s deflections and walls, left no room for doubt.

Toto shifted, the lines of his face tightening further. But behind the storm in his eyes was something else — recognition. A cold, dawning realization.

He looked at Max long and hard. “You said you met her in Monaco. 2016.”

Max blinked, wary. “Yeah. After the race.”

Toto’s jaw clenched. 

Susie thought back — Ana, eighteen then, withdrawn, quieter than usual that summer. A shift she hadn’t been able to put his finger on.

The pieces slotted together with sickening clarity.

Toto’s voice came out like gravel. “You were her first.”

Max’s eyes flicked up, startled. He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.

Susie’s stomach turned.

Her daughter, still practically a child then. And Max — barely older, but older enough. Their worlds colliding in a way neither she nor Toto had ever imagined.

Toto’s fists curled at his sides. “Scheisse.” The word was almost a growl.

But Susie, ever the one to keep her composure when her husband’s temper flared, leaned forward, pinning Max with a stare sharp enough to cut glass.

 “So you’ve been carrying this with her — all of it — for nearly a decade. Her silence. Her fears. Her walls. And you never once thought to come to us?”

Max swallowed hard. “She didn’t want you to know. She didn’t want anyone to know. It’s not about me hiding it. It’s about me respecting what she needed. Even when it killed me.”

Susie sat back slowly, her mind racing.

Max Verstappen, reckless on track, ruthless in the paddock — and yet here, admitting he’d let Ana hold him at bay for years because he loved her enough to wait.

It was everything she wanted for her daughter — someone who would stay, no matter how many walls Ana built.

And yet, the betrayal of not knowing, of being shut out, burned bitter in her chest.

She glanced at Toto. His fury was still banked hot, but she saw the same conflict in his eyes. Anger and shock, yes — but also the unmistakable truth: their daughter loved this man, even if she hadn’t said the words aloud.

And maybe — just maybe — he loved her enough to weather it.

****

Wolff Residence, Monaco - 28 July 2025

The apartment was silent save for the faint hum of the air conditioning and the occasional restless shift from Ana’s bed. She hadn’t stirred since finally slipping into deeper sleep. The sedatives had settled her trembling, though Toto still caught the flicker of her brows every so often, the ghosts that chased her even through unconsciousness.

Max hadn’t moved from his vigil on the edge of her bed. He sat hunched forward, Ana’s hand wrapped in both of his, thumb tracing idle, endless circles across her knuckles. He looked like a man carved from stone and grief — immovable, sleepless, burning himself down to embers just to keep her tethered.

Toto had thought he would throw him out. He still wasn’t sure why he hadn’t.

Beside him, Susie touched his arm gently. “You need sleep,” she murmured.

He opened his mouth to argue — but the words never came. His bones felt like lead. Rage, shock, heartbreak — it all pressed down on him like ballast. He hadn’t been this exhausted since the season he almost walked away from the sport altogether.

Susie kissed his shoulder lightly, then leaned closer. “Come,” she said quietly. “Let him stay. He’s not leaving her side tonight.”

Toto’s jaw clenched. He wanted to snarl that Verstappen had no right, that he’d forfeited every ounce of trust by keeping his and Ana’s relationship hidden for ten years. But when he looked — really looked — at the boy slouched in that chair, he saw something else.

Not the four-time world champion. Not the rival he’d battled across constructors’ tables and FIA meetings. Just a young man with bloodshot eyes, clutching his daughter’s hand like the world might end if he let go.

And for the first time, Toto wondered if maybe Ana hadn’t told them not out of malice, but because she knew they wouldn’t understand.

Susie pulled at his arm again, and this time, he let her lead him toward the door. He paused in the frame, turning back one last time.

“Verstappen.”

Max’s head lifted immediately, alert despite the hour.

Toto met his gaze, steady and unflinching. “If she wakes afraid, if she’s unsettled — you call me. Immediately. Verstanden?”

Max nodded, voice rough but sure. “I understand.”

Toto lingered half a beat longer, then forced himself down the hall. Susie slid her arm around his waist, guiding him toward their room. The door shut behind them with a soft click, muffling the weight of what they’d left behind.

“You should lie down. You’ve done all you can,” Susie said quietly.

He shook his head, though he knew she was right. “She’s my daughter. I should—”

“She’s asleep,” Susie cut in gently. “And Max is sitting with her. He isn’t moving. I think you and I need to admit we’re not the ones she wants at her bedside right now.”

That stung, sharper than he wanted to admit. His instinct was to fight it, to insist that no one could love Ana more than her father, that it was his job to be there. But the picture of Verstappen sitting hunched in that chair, eyes red, hand wrapped around Ana’s…

It hadn’t been for show. Toto knew the difference.

He let out a long breath, shoulders dropping. “I don’t like it. Ten years and she never told us. Ten years and she chose him, every time, but not us.”

Susie’s hand found his, squeezing. “That’s not how she sees it. She’s scared. You heard Max.”

Toto did. And that was perhaps what unsettled him most: how much sense it made. How perfectly it fit with all the little fractures in Ana he’d tried to plaster over. The way she flinched at the idea of permanence. The gnawing doubt in her voice when she asked if he ever wished she were “normal.”

And yet Max — that boy he’d dismissed as reckless, arrogant — had stayed. Ten years. Quietly, stubbornly. He hadn’t run.

Toto lay back at last, staring at the ceiling. “If he hurts her, Susie—”

“He won’t,” she interrupted again, her voice firm. “Not in the way you fear. You saw him tonight. He’s already hurt enough for both of them.”

Silence stretched. The hum of the city filtered faintly through the window. For once, Toto didn’t argue.

Because down the hall, in the dim light of Ana’s room, Verstappen was still there. A sentinel in the chair, steadying her hand even in sleep.

Susie patted his arm. “On the plus side, at least she picked one with excellent car control?”

“Not helping,” Toto muttered.

***

Wolff Residence, Monaco - 29 July 2025

Ana woke slowly, the world piecing itself together in fragments. The ache in her wrist pulsed first, dull but constant; the sour taste of medication coated her tongue. Her head throbbed faintly, the way it always did after hospital sedatives, as though her body still hadn’t quite figured out which way was up.

She blinked at the ceiling, then turned— And froze.

Max Verstappen was sitting in a chair at her bedside.

Not a dream. Not a hallucination. Not some cruel trick of her tired brain. He was really there.

“…Max?” Her voice came out hoarse, incredulous. Her throat ached, but that was nothing compared to the ache in her chest. “You—you can’t be here.”

Max jerked awake in the chair at her bedside. Hoodie wrinkled, hair a mess, eyes bruised with exhaustion. He straightened instantly, as if her voice had jolted him alive.

“Hey,” he said softly.

Her pulse leapt. “You’re… what? You’re here? What are you doing here?”

Max tried for a smile, but it was a tired, fragile thing. “Couldn’t stay away.”

Ana pushed herself up a fraction, wincing at the pull in her injured wrist. “No, Max—you don’t understand. Papa will—he’ll…” She shook her head, breath catching. “He’ll kill you.”

“He already yelled,” Max interrupted gently. “Susie too. But they let me stay.”

Tears burned despite her resistance, spilling over hot and fast. “You shouldn’t have come.”

Max exhaled like she’d just punched the air from his lungs. Then, softly: “I couldn’t stay away.”

Ana shook her head again, the disbelief making her voice crack. “You’ll regret it.”

“Not once in ten years,” Max said, squeezing her hand now, grounding her with his touch. “Not once.”

Her eyes burned, traitorous tears rising fast. “You shouldn’t have come.”

Max leaned forward, voice steady, careful. “I had to.”

Her chest lurched. “If Papa finds out—”

“He already knows,” Max said quietly. “Both of them. Last night.”

Ana’s stomach dropped. “Oh god.” She pressed her good hand against her face. “Oh god, oh god. No. No. You weren’t supposed to—”

“Too late,” Max cut in, gently but firm. “Ana. They know. And I’m still here.”

Ana shook her head hard, blinking against tears. “You’ll regret this. You’ll regret me. Everyone does.”

“No,” Max said at once. His chair scraped back as he moved closer, crouching beside her bed. “Don’t do that. Not with me.”

Her voice cracked. “My mother always said I ruin things. I ruin people.”

“You don’t,” Max said fiercely. “You don’t ruin anything. Not with me. Not ever.”

Ana stared at him, fragile and half-broken, her wrist aching under its cast. The panic made her voice sharp. “You’ll leave. They all do. Everyone leaves.”

Max swallowed hard, eyes steady on hers. “I won’t.”

She wanted to believe him. God, she wanted to. But her whole body trembled with the weight of everything unspoken.

“I love you.”

She froze. Completely. The words had lived between them for years, unspoken, burning at the edges but never allowed out. And now here, like this, in the wreckage of sedation and humiliation and fear—he just said it.

Her chest heaved. Her mouth worked before her brain could catch up.

“I love you too,” she blurted, half-hysterical, too loud, like the dam had cracked and spilled everything at once.

The words just… fell out.

She froze. The silence after it made her dizzy. She clapped a trembling hand over her mouth as if she could shove the words back in. Her eyes stung with fresh tears.

So did Max.

Her eyes widened like she was realizing it in real time. “I said that out loud, didn’t I.”

He blinked. Nodded once.

“Oh, fuck.” Her voice cracked. “I didn’t mean to do that—”

“I’ve waited ten years, Ana.”

She sniffled. “Not like this.”

“Don’t take it back. Please don’t take it back.”

Her chest heaved. Her wrist throbbed. She wanted to crawl out of her skin. Not like this. Not like this.

But Max was looking at her as though the entire world had just shifted on its axis. Not triumphant, not smug, not even relieved—just raw, wide-eyed, devastated with the sheer weight of it.

“Ten years,” he said again, quieter now, almost broken. “You think I didn’t know? Every time you pulled away. Every time you swallowed it back. I knew. I knew, and I waited. I’d wait forever if that’s what it took.”

Her good hand shook as she dragged it over her face. “You don’t understand.”

“I do,” Max said immediately. “I do. You’re terrified I’ll leave. You think you’re too much, or not enough, or that you ruin things. But Ana—” He leaned forward, his voice firming like steel under pressure. “I’m not your mother. I’m not anyone else. I’m still here.”

Her throat closed up. Her heart slammed against her ribs like it wanted to break free.

“You can’t promise that,” she whispered. “You can’t know.”

“I can,” Max said, fierce and steady. “Because I know myself. I know what I want. And it’s you. It’s always been you.”

Tears spilled again, hot, unchecked. “Max…”

He squeezed her hand, so careful of her wrist, grounding her as though he could anchor her to the earth by sheer will. “Don’t take it back. Not now. Not ever. Please.”

Her lip trembled. “I don’t know how to do this.”

His thumb traced a slow, steady circle over her skin. “You don’t have to know. You just have to let me stay.”

The words lodged deep, right where the cracks lived. She wanted to shove them away. She wanted to cling to them like lifelines. Both at once.

For a long moment, she said nothing, staring at him through the blur of her tears. Her pulse raced so hard she thought she might be sick.

Then—so soft he almost missed it—“Don’t go.”

Max exhaled shakily, relief shuddering out of him like the tide breaking against shore. He pressed her hand gently against his cheek, closing his eyes as though he could breathe her in.

“I won’t,” he promised, voice rough, threaded with ten years of wanting. “Not now. Not ever.”

Ana’s breath hitched, sharp and unsteady. She didn’t trust herself to believe him. But for the first time in years, maybe she wanted to.

***

Wolff Residence, Monaco - 29 July 2025

Max couldn’t look away from her.

She was pale, her lashes wet with tears, hair messy against the pillow. Still shaking. Still fragile. But she’d said it. The words he had dreamed of for years. I love you too.

And now she was looking at him like she wasn’t sure whether to cling to him or shove him out the door.

He swallowed hard, throat tight. “Ana… about Spa.”

Her face crumpled instantly. She turned away, pressing the heel of her good hand against her eyes. “Don’t. Please don’t. I can’t—”

“No,” Max said quickly, leaning in, desperate to cut the spiral before it carried her away. “Listen. I was an ass. I was frustrated, and angry, and I took it out on you. I never should’ve—”

“You were right,” Ana whispered, voice small and cracked. “I push you away. I never let you in, and then when you get angry it’s my fault for—”

“Don’t.” He caught her hand before she could bury herself further, holding it tight. “Don’t do that. You don’t get to take all the blame. I lost my temper. I said things I shouldn’t. I’m sorry.”

Her chest shook on a rough breath. Slowly, painfully, she turned her head back to look at him. “I’m sorry too.”

Max’s heart squeezed so hard it almost hurt. That was all he’d needed. Not excuses, not deflection—just her. Meeting him halfway.

And then—hesitant, fragile—she added, “If we… if we tried. If we really tried. Do you think it could work?”

The question knocked the air from his lungs. For a second he thought he’d misheard her, that sedation was still tugging at her mind and the words weren’t real. But her eyes—red and raw and terrified—were steady on his.

Max felt something spark in his chest, so sharp and so sudden he almost laughed. 

Ten years of waiting, of hoping, of holding himself at the edge of her walls—crumbling in one breath.

Relief, joy, disbelief—all tangled until he thought he might laugh or cry or both. Ten years of waiting, of hoping, of being pushed away only to find her again—finally, finally she wasn’t running.

“Yes,” he said fiercely, without hesitation. “God, yes. Ana, I’ve wanted nothing else. I don’t care how hard it is. I don’t care how long it takes. I’ll wait, I’ll fight, I’ll do anything. Just—let me try with you.”

Her lip trembled, but this time she didn’t look away. “Okay,” she whispered.

Max’s whole body jolted like he’d just crossed a finish line at 300 kph. Okay. The word roared in his ears, dizzying, euphoric.

He wanted to throw his head back and laugh. He wanted to shout it to the world. He wanted to kiss her until neither of them could breathe.

Instead, he just squeezed her hand tighter and let the grin break across his face, helpless and boyish, the kind of smile he hadn’t felt in years.

“Okay,” he echoed, his voice wrecked with relief. “You won’t regret it. I swear you won’t.”

Ana’s eyelids fluttered, exhaustion tugging her down again, but her fingers curled weakly into his. For once, she didn’t let go.

Max sat back in the chair, heart pounding, the giddy smile still plastered to his face. He knew the road ahead would be chaos. Toto. Susie. The paddock. Everything.

But Ana had said okay.

She’d said I love you too.