Starset

The paddock is loud in that way it always is before a race weekend — cameras clicking, engines rumbling somewhere in the distance, people moving with purpose. But Max isn’t paying attention to any of it. His hand is laced with yours, thumb brushing the back of your knuckles in that absent, instinctive way he does when he’s relaxed.

Except you aren’t relaxed.

You’ve been tugging at your outfit since the moment you stepped out of the car. A dress you loved in the mirror this morning, but now, under the fluorescent paddock lights and the eyes of half the media center, it feels wrong. Too tight. Too short. Too exposed. Too something.

You don’t say a word - you never do, not when you don’t want to ruin his focus - but Max notices. He always notices.

He sees the way your shoulders curl in. The way you keep smoothing the fabric over your hips. The way you stand slightly behind him when someone walks by. He doesn’t call attention to it, doesn’t tease, doesn’t ask in front of anyone. He just squeezes your hand once, gently, like a quiet I see you.

Inside the Red Bull hospitality, the air is cooler, calmer. Max lets go of your hand only long enough to greet a few engineers, but his eyes flick back to you every few seconds. You’re smiling, polite, doing everything right - but he can read the tension in your jaw.

He steps closer, his voice low enough that only you can hear.

“You okay, liefje?”

You nod too quickly. “Yeah, just- long day.”

He doesn’t push. He just studies you for a beat, then nods once like he’s made a decision.

A few minutes later, when you’re both heading toward the balcony for photos, he shrugs off his team jacket - the one with his name stitched on the sleeve, the one he always wears until someone forces him to take it off - and drapes it over your shoulders without a single word.

No announcement. No explanation. No fuss.

Just quiet, instinctive care.

You blink up at him, surprised. “Max- you’ll be cold.”

He shakes his head, already adjusting the collar so it sits comfortably on you. “I’m fine.”

And then, softer, “You weren’t.”

Your breath catches. He doesn’t look smug about noticing. He just looks relieved that you’re covered, warm, shielded from the eyes that were making you shrink into yourself.

The jacket is huge on you - warm, soft, smelling like him. You pull it tighter around your body, and something in your chest loosens.

Max’s hand finds the small of your back, guiding you gently through the crowd. He stands slightly in front of you when cameras flash. He answers questions quickly so you don’t have to linger. He keeps you close, always touching - a hand on your waist, your shoulder, your lower back - grounding you without making it obvious.

When you’re finally alone on the balcony, he leans against the railing, eyes soft.

“You didn’t like the outfit,” he says simply. Not accusing. Not disappointed. Just stating a fact he’s known for the last hour.

You sigh, cheeks warm. “I thought I did. But then we got here and… I don’t know. I felt stupid.”

Max’s brows pull together, that protective frown he gets only with you.

“Nothing about you is stupid.”

He reaches out, tugging gently on the sleeve of his jacket where it swallows your hand. “And you look perfect in anything. But if you’re uncomfortable, that’s the only thing I care about.”

You step closer, resting your forehead against his chest. His arms come around you instantly, holding you like he’s shielding you from the whole world.

“I didn’t want to bother you,” you mumble into his shirt.

“You’re never a bother.” His voice is firm, certain. “You tell me when something feels wrong. Even if it’s small. Especially if it’s small.”

You nod against him, breathing in the familiar scent of his cologne and the faint smell of fuel that always clings to him on race weekends.

He presses a kiss to the top of your head. “Better now?”

You look up at him, wrapped in his jacket, wrapped in him.

“Yeah. Better.”

Max smiles - that soft, private smile he only ever gives you - and brushes a strand of hair behind your ear.

“Good. Then I can enjoy tonight.”

He keeps you close for the rest of the evening. When someone asks for a photo, he stands slightly in front of you, subtly blocking the angle that made you uncomfortable earlier. When you sit, he drapes an arm around your shoulders, thumb rubbing slow circles into your arm. When you walk, he keeps you tucked against his side, jacket zipped halfway so you’re cocooned in warmth.

And every time your fingers brush the embroidered VERSTAPPEN on the sleeve, you feel steadier.

Later, when the crowd thins and the noise fades, he takes your hand again, thumb brushing your knuckles just like before - but this time, you’re the one who’s relaxed.

“You know,” you say softly, “you didn’t have to give me your jacket.”

“I know.” He lifts your hand to his lips, kissing your knuckles. “But I wanted you comfortable. That’s all.”

You smile, leaning into him. “Thank you.”

He bumps his forehead gently against yours. “Always.”

And he means it - in the quiet, steady way Max always means things. Not loud. Not dramatic. Just real.

Just him taking care of you, without needing to be asked.

ᴘᴀᴛʀᴇᴏɴ: ᴇᴀʀʟʏ ᴀᴄᴄᴇꜱꜱ, ᴇxᴛᴇɴᴅᴇᴅ ꜱᴄᴇɴᴇꜱ, ᴇxᴄʟᴜꜱɪᴠᴇ ᴄᴏɴᴛᴇɴᴛ: ʀᴀɴɢɪɴɢ ꜰʀᴏᴍ ꜱᴍᴜᴛ ᴛᴏ ꜰʟᴜꜰꜰ, ꜰʀᴏᴍ ꜱᴏᴄɪᴀʟ ᴍᴇᴅɪᴀ ᴀᴜ’ꜱ ᴛᴏ ꜰᴀᴋᴇ ᴍᴇꜱꜱᴀɢᴇ ᴀᴜ’ꜱ - ᴡɪᴛʜ ᴘʀɪᴏʀɪᴛʏ ʀᴇϙᴜᴇꜱᴛꜱ

ᴀʟʟ ᴏꜰ ᴛʜᴇꜱᴇ ᴡᴏʀᴋꜱ ᴀʀᴇ ᴍʏ ᴏᴡɴ - ɪ ᴅᴏ ɴᴏᴛ ᴀʟʟᴏᴡ ᴀɴʏᴏɴᴇ ᴛᴏ ᴄᴏᴘʏ ᴍʏ ᴡᴏʀᴋ.

Wolff Residence, Monaco - 13 October 2025

Susie waited until Jack was asleep before she let herself stop being useful.

All evening, she had been the person who translated terror into routine.

Water for Ana.

A soft voice for Jack.

A sharp voice for Toto when he started looking like he might make their daughter feel responsible for the size of his guilt.

A hand on Max’s shoulder when his rage had gone too silent.

A calm explanation to Jack that no, Ana was not physically hurt, and yes, Nikolai was there, and yes, Coco had been very helpful.

But now Jack was asleep in his room with Coco tucked beneath one arm and the bedside lamp left on because he had asked, very quietly, whether “security bad days” could come through dreams.

Susie had promised him no.

It was not a promise she had any right to make.

She had made it anyway.

Now she stood in the kitchen, hands braced on the counter, staring at the kettle.

The kettle was empty. She had forgotten to fill it.

Behind her, Toto sat at the dining table with a legal pad, his phone, and a fury so controlled it made the room feel colder.

The list sat in front of him.

Stephanie.

Rosa.

Benedict.

Freya.

Joanna.

Freya had been crossed out with a note that read: accepted one local asset. Shoe conditions.

Benedict: exterior only. route assessment. something more going on.

Rosa: schedule received. angry. asked if Ana okay.

Stephanie had been boxed, underlined, crossed out, and then written again in the margin with one note beside it:

muted. security arrangements only.

Joanna’s name sat at the bottom.

Untouched.

Susie turned around.

“You still haven’t called your mother.”

Toto did not look up. “No.”

“She is the last one?”

“Yes.”

“She needs to know.”

“I know.”

He still did not move.

Susie crossed the room and sat opposite him.

Toto’s hand rested near the phone but not on it, as if the device had become something dangerous. In a way, it had. It was a door. Pressing one name would reopen a room he had only just walked out of in September.

His mother’s apartment in Vienna.

The staged tribunal.

Stephanie on the sofa. Rosa beside her. Joanna already disappointed. The dining table cleared like they expected to conduct proceedings. Toto putting the legal folder down and saying he was done negotiating Ana’s dignity.

Susie had not been there, but she knew the room by now.

She knew it because Toto had described it in pieces, and because the worst part of family were often built the same way: comfortable furniture, polished wood, and the expectation that cruelty would be called concern if it was spoken in the right tone.

“Toto.”

He looked up.

The expression on his face made her chest ache. “I do not want to protect her,” he said.

Susie went still.

Toto’s jaw tightened almost immediately, as if he expected her to correct him.

She did not.

He looked down again.

“I will,” he said. “I know I will. I have already told Nikolai to prepare the local asset. I will call her. I will make sure she is covered.”

His hand closed into a fist.

“But I do not want to.”

Susie inhaled slowly.

She thought of Ana, pale and too still, forcing herself through threat statements, security logic, legal procedure, family coverage. Ana had thought of Joanna. Ana had thought of Stephanie. Ana had thought of people who had turned her childhood into a list of things she needed to correct about herself.

And still, she had said they should be protected.

Because George’s logic was not rational.

Because family was a map of pressure points.

“I know,” Susie said quietly.

Toto laughed once.

No humour.

Only bitterness.

“I sent security to Stephanie,” he said. “After she called this another Anastasia overreaction. After she implied Ana enjoys making people run around because she is frightened.”

Susie’s mouth tightened. She wanted to break something.

“She is vile,” Susie said.

“Yes.”

“And you still protected her.”

“For Benedict and Rosa.”

“And because Ana asked.”

Toto’s face shifted.

There it was. The part that had lodged under both their ribs.

Ana had asked.

Ana, threatened and shaking, had asked them to protect the family perimeter.

Not the deserving perimeter.

Not the kind perimeter.

The family perimeter.

Susie leaned back, arms crossing tightly over her chest.

“She should not have had to think of them. She should have been allowed to be frightened for herself for one hour.”

Toto looked at her.

His voice roughened. “She never is. She was barely holding together, Susie. She had just read those messages, and she was already thinking about Jack’s school route. Benedict’s apartment. Rosa’s schedule. Freya. My mother.”

“I know.”

“She thought of Joanna before I did.”

Susie’s anger shifted.

Sharper.

Joanna.

Grandmother, technically.

The woman who had called Ana in Nice while Max was in surgery and told her she had created a disaster.

The woman who had told a twenty-seven-year-old women sitting alone beside an empty hospital bed that she was difficult, cold, undisciplined, morbid, strange.

The woman who had called autism a fashionable diagnosis.

The woman who had said Ana was an accident Toto made in Russia.

Susie had not heard the call.

Jos had.

That fact still made Susie feel strange.

Jos Verstappen had stood in a hospital room, heard enough, and taken the phone from Ana’s hand. Jos Verstappen had defended her.

Bluntly. Furiously. Imperfectly.

But he had defended her.

It had taken Toto’s mother less than ten minutes to become so cruel that Jos Verstappen became the safer adult in the room.

Susie would never forget that. Neither would Toto.

“She thought of Joanna,” Toto said again, quieter.

His mouth twisted around the name.

“After Nice. After everything.”

Susie reached across the table and covered his hand with hers.

“Sending security is not forgiveness,” she said.

He looked at her.

“It is not reconciliation,” she continued. “It is not you reopening boundaries. It is not you apologizing. It is not you telling Joanna than what she said was alright.”

Toto’s eyes stayed on hers.

“You are putting a guard outside the door,” Susie said. “You are not inviting her through it.”

For a second, his expression flickered.

“That sounds like Anastasia.”

“She would say it better.”

“She would say perimeter.”

Susie’s mouth almost moved.

Almost.

Then the anger came back.

“Our child was threatened tonight,” she said.

Toto’s face changed immediately.

There. The centre of it.

Ana.

Their child.

Their daughter, probably not sleeping. Probably trying to convince Max she was tired rather than frightened. Probably being held because if Max Verstappen was good for one thing tonight, it was using every injured, furious, stubborn part of himself to keep her from splintering alone.

Susie’s throat tightened.

“Our child was threatened,” she repeated. “Probably by a man who already hurt her. Who already hurt Max. Who thinks she is somehow responsible for his consequences. And we are here protecting people who helped teach her to think she has to account for everyone else’s comfort before her own pain.”

Toto’s hand turned under hers and gripped back. Hard.

“I know.”

“I am furious,” Susie said. Her voice sharpened. “I am so furious. I do not want to be reasonable about this. I do not want to be gracious. I do not want to give Joanna the benefit of age or distance or generation or whatever other excuse people use when older people are cruel,”

His mouth tightened.

“Susie.”

“No.” She leaned forward. “She called Ana an accident.”

Toto went still.

“She called her an accident while Max was in surgery,” Susie said. “She told her nobody would tolerate her without you. And now Ana has asked you to protect her. She does not deserve Ana’s concern. But Ana also does not deserve to carry what would happen if we refused.”

His eyes closed. “Yes.”

That was the miserable truth.

Joanna did not deserve Ana’s care.

Ana deserved not to suffer the consequences of being the kind of person who offered it anyway.

Toto opened his eyes. “She will say I am overreacting.”

“Then tell her no.”

His eyes sharpened slightly.

Susie squeezed his hand.

“You did it in September,” she said. “Do it again.”

He looked down at the phone.

“September was different.”

“No.” Susie’s voice was firm. “It was the same thing. They put Ana on trial then. Stephanie did it tonight. Joanna will try to do it now. The only difference is that this time, you are not there in person. You are here, on the phone, with me.”

Toto looked at her.

“And I am not going to let you forget what you already decided,” Susie said. “Basic decency or no access. Security does not change that.”

He breathed in.

Slowly. Out.

Then nodded once.

“Stay. Please.”

“Of course.”

He pressed the call button before he could think better of it. It rang four times.

Then Joanna answered.

“Torger?”

Her voice was polished, cool, mildly irritated already. The voice of a woman who expected every interruption to justify itself.

Toto’s hand tightened around Susie’s.

“Mama,” he said. “There has been a security incident.”

A pause.

“What sort of security incident?”

“A credible threat connected to the family. You will have additional protection assigned tonight.”

Another pause.

“Connected to the family,” Joanna repeated.

“Yes.”

“Is this about Anastasia?”

Toto’s eyes went cold. “Yes. Anastasia received serious threats tonight.”

Joanna sighed.

Not softly.

Not with concern.

With irritation.

Susie’s entire spine locked.

“Toto,” Joanna said, “how many times must one girl be the centre of a storm before you ask why storms follow her?”

Susie’s lips parted.

Toto did not move.

When he spoke, his voice was very quiet. “No.”

Joanna paused.

“No?”

“No,” Toto repeated. “A man threatened her. She did not summon him. She did not attract him. She did not create the storm.”

“You have always been very defensive about her.”

“And you have always mistaken cruelty for insight.”

Silence.

Susie’s eyes snapped to his face.

Good.

Joanna’s voice cooled. “Be careful how you speak to me.”

“I am being careful,” Toto said. “That is why I am still speaking calmly.”

A small pause.

Then Joanna said, “I assume this is somehow connected to that incident with that driver earlier this year.”

Toto’s jaw tightened.

“That is not information you need.”

“Of course. Secrets again. Always secrets with Anastasia. Always something dramatic that cannot be properly explained.”

“It has been explained enough. A credible threat was made. Security will contact you.”

“I am an old woman in Vienna,” Joanna said sharply. “I do not need men standing outside my building because Anastasia cannot manage her own personal entanglements.”

Susie’s hand went rigid around Toto’s.

Toto’s face did not change.

But something in the room did.

“My daughter’s safety is not a personal entanglement.”

Joanna made a sound of disbelief. “Your daughter?”

Toto went completely still.

Susie felt the shift through his hand.

A deep, cold fury.

The kind that had no room for shouting.

“Do not do that,” he said.

“I am simply saying what everyone is forced to live around. Anastasia has made a life of needing special handling, and you have trained the entire family to provide it.”

“She was threatened.”

“And I am sorry if that is true.”

If.

Susie nearly stood.

Toto’s thumb pressed once against her hand.

Not stopping her.

Holding himself.

“It is true,” he said.

Joanna continued as if he had not spoken. “But you cannot expect the rest of us to be rearranged every time she spirals. Rosa is upset. Stephanie is upset. Benedict barely speaks. You have fractured this family over one girl’s sensitivities.”

“One girl’s sensitivities,” Toto repeated.

“Yes,” Joanna said, emboldened now. “And nobody is allowed to say it. She was difficult as a child, Torger. She is difficult as a woman. This is not hatred. This is reality. She takes and takes — attention, patience, excuses — and then acts wounded when people finally tire.”

Toto’s face had gone pale with rage.

Susie held onto him.

Not because she thought he would do something.

Because she could feel the force of what he was keeping inside.

“We had this conversation in September,” he said.

“Yes,” Joanna snapped. “You came into my home and threatened your family with lawyers because that girl cannot tolerate criticism.”

“You called her an accident.”

“She was an accident,” Joanna said.

The words cut through the kitchen.

Clean. Unapologetic. Susie stopped breathing.

Toto did not.

He looked straight ahead, hand locked around Susie’s.

Joanna continued, voice hard now, stripped of polish.

“You may not like the word, but it is the truth. She was the consequence of your mistake in Russia. A child we did not know existed. A child who arrived already damaged and then demanded the entire household bend around the damage.”

Toto’s eyes went flat.

Susie had seen him angry often.

She had rarely seen him like this.

Joanna was not finished.

“And now she is a grown woman still demanding it. You call it autism. You call it trauma. You call it brilliance. I call it what it is: an inability to adapt and a lifetime of being indulged by a guilty father.”

Toto inhaled.

Very slowly. When he spoke, his voice was low and deadly calm.

“If you say one more sentence like that, I will end this call and your security arrangements will go through security only.”

Joanna laughed once.

A brittle sound.

“So now I am managed by hired muscle because I speak plainly?”

“Because you speak cruelly.”

“No, Torger. Cruelty is what you did to Rosa. Cruelty is cutting off a daughter because Anastasia whispers in your ear.”

“Anastasia had absolutely nothing to do with Rosa’s trust structure.”

“She always has something to do with it.” Joanna’s voice sharpened. “That is the point. She stands there with those dead eyes and that flat voice and lets everyone else become the villain. Stephanie tried to discipline her. She became the villain. Rosa asks why she is treated differently. Rosa becomes the villain. I speak truth. I become the villain.”

Susie could feel her pulse in her throat.

Dead eyes. Flat voice.

Toto’s hand shook once.

Once. Then stilled.

“You know nothing about her eyes,” he said.

Joanna ignored it.

“She has never wanted to be part of this family,” she said. “She wanted your guilt. Your money. Your protection. Your name.”

Toto’s chair scraped back so sharply Susie flinched.

He stood.

Not because Joanna could see him.

Because his body could not remain seated under the weight of that sentence.

Susie stood with him, still holding his hand.

“You called her,” Toto said.

Joanna went quiet for half a beat.

He continued.

“After what happened in Baku. She had not slept. She had spent three days holding herself together by a thread. We were all holding by a thread. And you called her to tell her she was an accident. To complain to her about decisions that I made that she had nothing to do with.”

“She needed to understand what she was doing to this family!”

“No,” Toto said, voice sharpening for the first time. “She needed an adult to ask if she was safe. If she had eaten. If she had slept. If she was frightened.”

“She is not a child.”

“You never let her be one.”

The silence after that was immediate.

Susie closed her eyes.

God.

Joanna recovered quickly.

“She made herself impossible to mother.”

Toto went still.

Susie’s eyes opened.

The words seemed to hang in the kitchen.

Impossible to mother.

Toto’s voice, when it came, had changed.

It was quieter. Much colder.

“She was eight years old.”

“She was already strange before she came to you. That much was clear.”

“She was eight.”

“And at eight, a child can still be corrected.”

Susie made a sound then.

She could not stop it.

Toto’s eyes flicked to her.

Joanna heard.

“Is Susie there?” she asked.

“Yes,” Toto said.

“Of course she is.” Joanna’s voice dripped with contempt now. “Another woman who found purpose in making Anastasia into a cause.”

Susie reached for the phone.

Toto did not give it to her.

Not because he thought she was wrong.

Because if Susie spoke now, the call would become something else, and Toto was not finished.

“You will not speak like that about my wife,” he said.

“I will speak about what I see. Susie encourages this. She has always enjoyed being the understanding one. The rescuer. The woman who could do what Stephanie could not.”

Susie’s face went hot.

Toto’s voice dropped.

“Susie treated Anastasia like a person.”

“A person who divides every household she enters.”

“No,” Toto said. “A person you never bothered to understand because calling her difficult protected you from asking what she had survived.”

Joanna scoffed. “Survived. Such dramatic language.”

“She was abandoned by her mother.”

“She was delivered to her father.”

“She was abandoned.”

“She was given a better life than she would ever have had otherwise.”

Toto’s face twisted. Not with doubt. With disgust.

“A better life does not excuse harm inside it.”

“That is modern nonsense.”

“No,” Toto said. “That is accountability.”

Joanna inhaled sharply. “You have become very grand in your guilt.”

“Yes,” Toto said.

The simplicity of it stopped her.

“Yes,” he repeated. “I am guilty. I should have protected her sooner. I should have protected her from Stephanie. I should have protected her from you. I should have protected her from every person who looked at a frightened child and decided she was inconvenient.”

Joanna’s voice turned icy.

“And I suppose you believe I abused her.”

Toto did not hesitate.

“I believe you harmed her.”

Silence.

Susie’s eyes burned.

Joanna’s voice, when it came, was lower.

“You are my son.”

“She is my daughter.”

“You would throw away your mother for an accident?”

The kitchen went utterly still.

Toto’s face emptied.

For a second, Susie thought he might hang up then.

He did not.

When he spoke, each word was precise.

“I am going to say this once.”

Joanna said nothing.

“Anastasia is my daughter. Not an accident. Not a complication. Not a Russian mistake. Not a difficult girl. Not a diagnosis. My daughter.”

His voice shook once.

Only once.

“You will not speak about her like that again. Not to me. Not to Susie. Not to Jack. Not to Benedict. Not to Rosa.”

Joanna was silent.

Toto continued, colder now.

“Security will contact you in fifteen minutes. You will answer because a threat exists and because Anastasia, despite everything you have said to her and about her, thought you should be protected.”

That landed.

Susie could feel it.

For the first time, Joanna did not reply immediately.

Then, quieter but still sharp, “She asked?”

“Yes.”

“Perhaps she enjoys appearing magnanimous.”

Toto’s expression snapped shut.

There was no other way to describe it.

One second, there had been rage and pain and some terrible hope that the truth might pierce through.

The next, there was a door closing.

“No,” he said.

Joanna began, “Torger—”

“No.”

“You cannot—”

“No.”

Silence.

Toto’s voice was controlled again, but the fury beneath it was unmistakable.

“This conversation is over. Your security contact will call. If you refuse cooperation, it will be documented. Do not contact Anastasia. Do not contact Susie. Do not call me again unless it concerns security logistics.”

Joanna’s voice rose. “You cannot forbid me from speaking to my granddaughter. You are being manipulated.”

“No,” Toto said. “I am finally listening.”

“You will regret this.”

“I already regret far more than you understand.”

He ended the call.

For one second, nothing happened.

Then Toto lowered the phone slowly.

His hand was shaking.

Not much.

Enough.

Susie stood opposite him, breathing hard, her own body lit with a fury so intense it felt almost clean.

Toto stared at the phone as if it might ring again.

It did not.

“Toto,” Susie said.

He did not answer.

“Toto.”

His jaw flexed.

Then he turned and, with frightening precision, placed the phone face down on the table.

Not thrown.

Placed.

That was somehow worse.

“She said impossible to mother,” he said.

Susie’s throat closed.

“She said Ana was impossible to mother.”

“Yes.”

“I want—”

He stopped.

Susie stepped closer.

“What?”

He shook his head.

“I do not want to say it.”

“Say it.”

His eyes lifted to hers.

There was fury in them still.

White-hot.

Unspent.

“I want to make her understand what it feels like,” he said. “To have the person who should protect you turn every wound into a defect.”

Susie’s eyes burned.

“I know.”

“I want to hurt her with it.”

“I know.”

“I am still protecting her. Because Ana asked.”

“Yes.”

He let out a sound that was almost a laugh, almost something broken.

“She said Ana only asked to appear magnanimous.”

Susie’s face hardened.

“She would.”

Toto looked toward the dark hallway where Jack slept.

Then back at the phone.

“I am not calm,” he said. “I am not done being angry. I hate them.”

Susie did not correct him.

Not tonight. She only stepped closer and put her hands on his arms.

“I know.”

“I hate that Ana thought of them.”

“I know.”

“I hate that she is better than they deserve.”

“So do I.”

Toto closed his eyes.

His breathing was too tight.

Susie moved one hand to the back of his neck.

“Look at me.”

He did.

His eyes were wet now, but the fury had not gone anywhere.

It sat behind them like fire behind glass.

“She is protected,” Susie said.

His mouth twisted.

“Joanna?”

“No,” Susie said sharply. “Ana.”

He went still.

“Ana is protected,” she repeated. “That is why you made the call. That is why you protected the perimeter. Not because Joanna deserved it. Not because Stephanie deserved it. Because Ana deserves not to have another thing to blame herself for.”

Toto stared at her.

Then nodded once.

The phone buzzed.

They both looked at it.

Nikolai.

Nikolai:Your mother confirmed. Local asset assigned. Cooperation minimal but sufficient.

Toto read it.

Something like relief tried to move across his face and failed because anger blocked the way.

“She cooperated,” Susie said.

“Minimal,” Toto replied.

“That is enough.”

“No,” he said.

Susie understood.

Enough operationally.

Not enough morally. Never enough morally.

“No,” she agreed. “It is not enough.”

For a while, they stood in the kitchen in silence.

The kettle remained empty.

The legal pad sat on the table with Joanna’s name finally crossed out, but not cleanly. Toto picked up the pen and drew one hard line through it.

Then another.

Then he put the pen down before the paper tore.

Susie watched him. He was still furious.

“Toto,” she said quietly.

He looked at her.

“She should never speak to Ana again.”

Susie’s voice went quiet. “Then make that the boundary.”

He turned back.

“Not tonight,” Susie said. “Not in rage. But soon. Clear. Written. No direct contact with Ana unless Ana initiates. No messages. No calls. No commentary through Rosa or anyone else.”

Toto breathed in slowly.

That helped. Structure.

A place to put the anger without handing it to Ana.

“Yes,” he said.

“And COTA,” Susie added.

His expression tightened immediately. “She is going. I cannot protect her from that.”

“But you can make sure she knows she does not have to be the person Joanna thinks she is,” Susie said.

Toto frowned.

“The impossible child,” Susie said. “The difficult girl. The one who has to keep proving she is not too much by never stopping.”

His face changed.

“She gets to stop,” Susie said. “If COTA is too much, she gets to stop. If she goes and then breaks, she gets to come home. If she decides not to go in the morning, that is not George winning. That is Ana choosing. She needs to hear that.”

Toto nodded.

“And you need to hear it too.”

His jaw tightened. “Yes.”

The kettle sat empty behind her.

Susie looked at it and let out a breath.

“I forgot the water.”

Toto stared at her.

Then at the kettle.

For one absurd second, neither of them moved.

Then he made a sound.

Not quite a laugh.

Too angry to be a laugh.

But close enough to human that Susie took it.

“I’ll fill it,” he said.

“No. Sit.”

“I can fill a kettle.”

“You are still visibly homicidal.”

“I am not homicidal.”

“Toto.”

He paused.

Then, after a beat, “Fine.”

Susie filled the kettle.

Her hands were still shaking.

She let them.

Behind her, Toto sat back down, phone face down, one hand pressed flat against the table like he was anchoring himself to the wood.

When the kettle began to boil, she looked over her shoulder.

He was staring at the legal pad.

At Joanna’s crossed-out name.

Susie brought two mugs to the table and sat beside him rather than opposite.

After a moment, Toto’s hand found hers.

He did not say anything.

He did not have to.

***

Email Subject: Immediate Security Escalation — COTA

From: Toto Wolff <[email protected]> To: Bradley Lord <[email protected]>

Bradley,

I need you looped in before this begins moving through formal channels tomorrow morning.

Anastasia received a series of credible threatening messages this evening. The content included direct threats to her safety, references to Baku, and language that strongly indicates George Russell as the sender or originator. 

Police, legal counsel, and private security are already involved. Nikolai Maroz is handling immediate close-protection coordination on Anastasia’s side.

This is not to be discussed outside a strict need-to-know group.

We are treating this as an active security matter ahead of COTA. Anastasia has made clear that she intends to travel and work the weekend. I tried to object; she was very clear. I will not remove her from her work because a dangerous man wants her frightened out of it. That said, her attendance is conditional on a full security sign-off.

Effective immediately, I want the following coordinated with Mercedes security, circuit security, local authorities where appropriate, and only the minimum required operational staff:

Hardened travel plan for Anastasia, including airport transfers, hotel arrival/departure, and all movements between hotel, circuit, and any Mercedes-controlled locations.

No solo movement under any circumstances. Anastasia is to have close protection at all times outside secured private spaces.

Revised paddock movement plan. Controlled routes only. No unnecessary exposure in public-facing areas. No informal media crossings. No unscheduled sponsor or hospitality appearances.

Hotel security review, including room location, access logs, lift routes, staff access, and emergency exits.

Credential review. Anyone with proximity to Anastasia, or the engineering areas should be checked again. I do not want assumptions based on existing accreditation.

Communications discipline. No public discussion of Anastasia’s travel, movements, accommodation, or schedule. Internally, this is to be shared only where operationally necessary.

Clear extraction plan. If Nikolai, Mercedes security, or Anastasia herself decides the situation is unsafe or untenable, she leaves immediately. No debate. No optics discussion.

I want this handled calmly and without theatre. Anastasia does not need to walk into a paddock that treats her like an incident. She needs to be able to do her job with protection around her, not attention on her.

Please coordinate with Nikolai Maroz first thing and then come back to me with a proposed COTA movement and access plan. Keep Russell’s name out of written circulation beyond those who legally or operationally require it.

Anastasia is not to be challenged about whether she “really” needs this. She has already spent the evening trying to protect everyone else from the consequences of what happened to her. I will not have her managing the emotional or logistical discomfort of people who should simply be doing their jobs.

Regards, Toto Wolff CEO & Team Principal Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS Formula One Team

***

Bradley Lord’s House, Brackley - 13 October 2025

Bradley Lord had been asleep for twenty-three minutes when Toto Wolff’s email arrived.

Not enough sleep to count as rest.

Just enough for the body to feel personally betrayed by waking up again.

His phone buzzed on the bedside table with the particular insistence of an email that came from someone who did not believe in the concept of business hours when the building was on fire. Bradley opened one eye, saw Toto Wolff, saw the subject line, and immediately knew the building was, at minimum, smoking.

Immediate Security Escalation — COTA

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Bradley muttered.

His wife, without opening her eyes, said, “Work?”

“Yes.”

“Fire?”

“Likely.”

“Actual fire or Mercedes fire?”

Bradley opened the email.

Read the first line.

Then sat up.

“Mercedes fire.”

She made a sympathetic sound into her pillow and went back to sleep, which was the correct choice. 

Bradley had made several incorrect choices in his life, including working in Formula One communications, but waking his wife fully for a crisis that could be summarized as George Russell continues to be the reason I cannot have peace was not going to be one of them.

He read the email once.

Then again.

Then a third time, because by the second reading his brain had begun rearranging the information into categories.

Threats to Ana.

References to Baku.

Language indicating George Russell.

Police involved.

Legal involved.

Nikolai involved.

Toto furious enough to write with terrifying clarity.

Ana still intending to travel to COTA.

Bradley lowered the phone and stared into the dark.

“I am going to murder George Russell,” he said quietly.

His wife, apparently not asleep after all, mumbled, “Don’t put that in an email.”

“I won’t.”

“Good.”

“I’ll put it in Teams.”

“Bradley.”

“I’m joking.”

“You’re not.”

“No.”

He swung his legs out of bed and reached for the lamp.

The room filled with soft yellow light. Too soft for the scale of disaster currently unfolding in his inbox.

Bradley opened the email on his laptop because some crises deserved a full keyboard.

He read it again.

The problem with Toto Wolff was that when he wrote like this, Bradley could feel the unspoken parts between the sentences.

She is physically safe.

Meaning: she is not okay.

She intends to travel and work the weekend.

Meaning: I have already lost this argument.

I will not remove her from her work because a dangerous man wants her frightened out of it.

Meaning: I am furious enough to become unreasonable and am choosing, with great violence, not to.

She does not need to walk into a paddock that treats her like an incident.

Meaning: Bradley, if one camera, one journalist, one staff member, one sponsor guest, one person with a phone makes my daughter feel like a spectacle, I will burn down the earth and ask finance to invoice the ashes.

Bradley rubbed both hands over his face.

Then he got up and went to the small desk near the window.

His laptop woke.

So did his migraine.

He opened a fresh document and typed:

COTA — ANA SECURITY / COMMS ESCALATION

Then stared at it.

Then added, under his breath, “Subtitle: George Russell, you absolute nightmare.”

He did not type that.

He wanted to.

(He had standards. Low standards, sometimes, but standards.)

Bradley had worked in Formula One long enough to know that “security issue” could mean many things. An overenthusiastic fan with a paddock pass. A sponsor guest who thought the word VIP meant access to oxygen others did not get. A photographer too close to a hospitality entrance. A leak. A threat. A stalker. A parent. Occasionally, somehow, all of the above.

But this?

This was not a normal security issue.

This was personal.

Personal was always worse.

Personal moved unpredictably. Personal crossed borders. Personal made rational people become irrational and irrational people become catastrophically inventive. Personal meant the threat was not necessarily looking for opportunity in the broad sense. It was looking for her.

And her was Ana Wolff.

Bradley sat back in his chair and stared at the ceiling for one second.

Mercedes would protect Ana.

That was not the question.

There were plenty of things Bradley Lord doubted in life. He doubted the good faith of certain tabloid journalists. He doubted the structural integrity of many temporary hospitality builds. He doubted any driver who said, “I don’t care what people think.” He doubted every crisis described to him as “small.”

But he did not doubt that Mercedes would protect Dr. Ana Wolff.

She was theirs.

The paddock still did not understand that.

Some of them thought Ana was Toto’s daughter in the way children of powerful men often floated at the edge of institutions. A name. A complication. A person allowed through doors because blood opened them.

They were wrong.

Ana had earned the doors.

(And then improved the locks.)

The engineers trusted her because she was frighteningly good. The strategy room trusted her because she could look at a system and see three failures before anyone else finished the first coffee. The younger staff trusted her because she never mocked questions. The older staff trusted her because she did not waste words. The mechanics liked her because she labeled cables correctly and once silently fixed a diagnostic display during a red-flag delay without acting like it was a favor.

Bradley liked her because she was the only person in the building who could say “that would be a reputationally inefficient lie” and make it sound both insulting and helpful.

Mercedes would protect her.

Of course they would.

That did not stop Bradley worrying.

Because protecting someone in private was one thing.

Protecting someone in the paddock was another.

A Formula One paddock was a small city built entirely out of access hierarchies and expensive lanyards. 

People moved through it believing they had the right to be wherever their badge allowed them and several places it did not. Cameras existed in hands, on shoulders, on phones, behind tinted hospitality windows, inside accreditation systems, and occasionally in the souls of people who claimed they were “just capturing atmosphere.”

And COTA was COTA.

Loud. Wide. Exposed. Hot. Sponsor-heavy. Media-heavy. Fan-heavy. A place where walkways became funnels and hospitality became theatre and every movement could become content if the wrong person noticed.

Ana’s first paddock appearance after the threat would have been complicated enough.

Except it would not just be that.

Bradley leaned back slowly.

“Oh, you have got to be kidding me,” he said to the ceiling.

The ring.

Bradley had almost forgotten the ring.

No — not forgotten. Suppressed. Like the mind suppresses trauma, dental work, and the 2021 Abu Dhabi press conference calendar.

COTA would very likely be the first time the media saw Ana’s engagement ring properly.

A visible ring on Toto Wolff’s daughter. 

On Mercedes’ systems lead. On the woman connected to Max Verstappen in a way the public did not yet fully understand, because somehow the most operationally paranoid family in Formula One had managed to keep one of the biggest personal stories in the sport below boiling point for this long.

Bradley stared at his laptop.

Security threat.

George Russell.

Baku.

Ana at COTA.

Max Verstappen injured, moving toward Mercedes, probably one crutch away from committing a crime if anyone looked at Ana wrong.

Toto Wolff furious.

Engagement ring.

Press speculation.

Drivers noticing.

Photographers zooming.

Social media detectives.

COTA cameras.

Sponsors.

Netflix, God forbid.

Bradley put his head in his hands.

“I am going to murder George Russell,” he said again.

This time, his wife said nothing.

A wise woman.

Bradley opened another document.

ANA RING / PUBLIC VISIBILITY — OPTIONS

He stared at the title.

Then immediately closed the document.

“No,” he told himself. “One fire at a time.”

But that was not how fires worked in Formula One.

They merged.

The ring mattered because the threat mattered. The threat mattered because the ring would increase attention. Increased attention made security harder. Security harder made media movement plans stricter. Stricter media movement plans made people ask questions. Questions led to speculation. Speculation led to photographers looking for the thing people were speculating about.

And there was also Ana herself.

Bradley had enough sense not to think of Ana as fragile. Fragile was the wrong word. Ana was one of the strongest people he had ever met, though he suspected she would call that inaccurate and then offer a structural correction.

But strength was not the same as invulnerability.

People confused those all the time.

Especially in Formula One.

A strong person could still be hurt. A private person could still be exposed. A brilliant person could still be frightened. A calm voice could still be the sound of someone holding themselves together by force.

Bradley had seen Ana at work during ordinary stress. She became quieter, sharper, more exact. She moved less. She answered questions more literally. People who did not know her sometimes thought she was unbothered.

Bradley had learned to be wary of that.

Ana unbothered had a dry comment, a pointed eyebrow, and an ability to dismantle bad logic in five words.

Ana too still was something else.

He opened Teams.

Hovered over Mercedes Security.

Then decided he needed to think before he started waking people.

Not too long.

Just enough to avoid creating a panic under the banner of preventing one.

He created a list.

Immediate need-to-know:Toto. Bradley. Mercedes Head of Security. Legal. Travel coordinator. COTA liaison. Hotel security contact. Probably Shov? Other Senior Engineering staff. Definitely Solomon. Possibly communications deputy, but only if briefed under lock and key.

He paused.

NOT need-to-know:Anyone who might say “poor Ana” in a corridor. Anyone who might say “is it true?” within earshot of mechanics. Anyone who thinks discretion means “tell only my three closest colleagues.” Netflix. Absolutely not Netflix. Hospitality. Not yet. Sponsors. No.

Then he opened a response to Toto.

Did not type.

Not yet.

There was another problem.

Public posture.

If Ana arrived at COTA with visibly tightened security, and no explanation, people would notice.

If she arrived with a ring, people would notice.

If she arrived without the usual freedom of movement, people would notice.

Bradley hated attention economies with every tired bone in his body.

He opened the ring document again.

Stared at it.

The question formed despite his best efforts.

Did they want Ana to post beforehand?

A controlled reveal. A quiet Instagram post.

A hand photo. Maybe not even a hand photo. Something soft. Something architectural. A caption that said enough without inviting comment war.

Bradley immediately grimaced.

Because the last Instagram post Ana had made had not exactly lowered the emotional temperature of the internet.

Ana did not post like a media-trained person.

Ana posted like someone who had examined the concept of public communication, found most of it inefficient, and decided to say the exact thing in the exact way that would cause maximum psychological damage to anyone trying to interpret it through normal PR rules.

It was one of the things Bradley respected about her.

It was also why his high blood pressure existed.

A pre-COTA post might reduce the ring circus by turning speculation into known fact.

Or it might detonate everything early.

Dr. Anastasia Wolff confirms engagement to Max Verstappen ahead of COTA amid heightened Mercedes security.

No.

Absolutely not.

Maybe a post from Max?

Bradley snorted.

Max Verstappen’s idea of a subtle Instagram reveal would probably be a photo of Ana’s ring with the caption mine and comments turned off too late.

Maybe joint?

Worse.

Maybe nothing. 

Let the ring appear naturally and manage the fallout.

But “naturally” in the paddock meant a Getty photographer capturing a six to seven figure sapphire under harsh Texas sunlight while some fan account circled it in red and wrote UM???

Bradley put his fingers to his temples.

Maybe the ring but no Max?

Let Ana post something beautifully cryptic and then let the internet start wild conspiracy theories if she was getting married to increasingly cursed options?

“George Russell,” he whispered, “I hope every charger you own only works at an angle.”

The laptop pinged.

A Teams message from Mercedes Security.

Apparently Toto had not waited for Bradley to begin the cascade.

Of course he had not.

SECURITY:We’ve received preliminary from TW. Do you have comms guidance yet?

Bradley stared at the message.

“Do I look like a man with guidance?” he asked the room.

The room did not answer.

He typed:

BRADLEY:Working on it. Treat as strict need-to-know. No written detail beyond credible personal threat / COTA escalation. I’ll join call in 10.

Then he opened Toto’s email again and began drafting his reply.

He deleted the first line.

Then the second.

Then the third, because Toto, what fresh hell was honest but not useful.

He settled on:

Toto,

No.

Too calm.

He tried again.

Toto,

Still the same.

Bradley sighed and continued.

He would deal with the absurdity later.

Now he needed to be useful.

He typed:

I’m on it. I’ll coordinate with Security and Nikolai immediately and keep this to the smallest possible group.

Then paused.

Because there were things Toto needed to know that were not security logistics.

And Bradley’s job, annoyingly, was to be the person who said them.

He typed more slowly.

We also need to think about public visibility. If Ana travels with tightened movement protocols, people may notice. If her ring is visible, they will definitely notice. We need a plan for whether we let that surface organically or consider a controlled acknowledgement before or during the weekend. I am not recommending a decision tonight, but we should not walk into COTA pretending this will not become part of the noise.

He stared at the paragraph.

Then added:

That said, her safety and comfort come first. I will not push a public-facing solution if it increases pressure on her.

Good.

That was the line.

Bradley did not want to make Ana post.

He did not want to make Ana hide either.

He wanted, ideally, for the entire internet to take a long walk into the sea.

But failing that, he wanted Ana to have choices.

He kept typing.

I’ll prepare options: no comment, controlled minimal statement, or pre-emptive personal post if she and Max want it. Nothing goes to her tonight unless you or Susie think she is ready for that conversation.

He almost wrote and unless Max Verstappen can resist growling at me.

He did not.

Again: standards.

The Teams pinged again.

This time from his comms deputy.

DEPUTY:Sorry to message late — saw security flag. Is this something I need to wake up for?

Bradley stared at it.

Then typed:

BRADLEY:Not yet. Keep phone on. If anyone asks tomorrow morning, you know nothing beyond “routine COTA planning.” And please do not let anyone say “routine” in writing near me.

DEPUTY:That bad?

Bradley hesitated.

Then:

BRADLEY:Bad enough.

He closed Teams before more people could become awake.

The problem with Mercedes was that they were very good in a crisis.

This was usually helpful.

It also meant everyone competent developed a sixth sense for when a crisis existed, and then they began appearing like summoned spirits.

The security call started six minutes later.

Bradley joined in a hoodie, glasses, and the expression of a man who had aged since opening his laptop.

Security was already there.

Of course they were.

Two of them appeared on screen in a dark room, faces expressionless, looking like they had been born inside a threat assessment.

“Good evening,” One of them said.

“Bad evening.”

“Understatement.”

“Yes.”

Legal joined. Someone from travel joined and immediately looked like they regretted it.

Bradley took notes.

Hardened transfers.

Hotel access.

Private entrances.

Lift control.

Credential review.

No solo movement.

Restricted internal awareness.

Contingency extraction.

Toto updated, but not copied on every operational detail unless necessary because Toto would start optimizing from rage and nobody needed that at midnight.

Bradley wrote it down as: Limit TW tactical involvement unless required.

He did not write: Toto currently emotionally armed.

(Bradley definitely thought it though.)

Halfway through the call, Travel asked, “Will Dr. Wolff be willing to adjust her paddock schedule?”

Bradley said, “If the adjustment is justified by security logic, yes. If it sounds like avoidance, no.”

Mercedes Security asked, “What about media visibility?”

Everyone went quiet.

“Yes,” Bradley said. “That’s the other part. Security changes will attract attention if handled clumsily. We need to keep her movement protected without making her look like a guarded dignitary.”

“She is somewhat a guarded dignitary now,” Travel said weakly.

Bradley looked at him.

Travel went silent.

“No,” Bradley said. “She is Dr. Wolff coming to do her job.” Bradley continued, “If anyone internally starts treating her like a story, I will become unpleasant.”

Legal said, “Define unpleasant.”

“No.”

Nobody asked again.

Then he raised the ring issue because he hated himself and because ignoring problems did not make them vanish, it made them trend.

“There is also personal visibility,” Bradley said carefully. “This may be the first public weekend where her engagement ring is clearly visible.”

Travel blinked. Security sighed. Legal closed his eyes.

“The ring is significant?” Travel asked.

Bradley stared at him.

“Have you met Formula One media?”

“No.”

“Lucky.”

Security said, “Do we need a separate media protocol?”

“Yes,” Bradley said. “Photography hotspots, paddock entrance, hospitality balcony, garage approach. We cannot forbid people from photographing her in accredited areas, but we can limit unnecessary exposure and control our own staff behavior.”

Legal asked, “Statement?”

“Not tonight,” Bradley said. “Options tomorrow. No comment remains viable unless the ring becomes a direct question, in which case we need an answer that does not invite a feeding frenzy.”

“What answer?”

Bradley removed his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

“Something like: Dr. Wolff is here in her professional capacity. We are not commenting on personal matters.”

The call ended forty-two minutes later with enough action items to ruin several people’s mornings.

Bradley sat back in his chair and looked at the list.

He trusted the system.

That was the strange thing.

He trusted Mercedes.

He trusted Security. He trusted Toto’s fury to fund whatever needed funding. He trusted Susie to notice the emotional risks no one else saw.  He trusted Ana too.

That was what worried him.

Because Ana would cooperate with security if the logic was sound.

Ana would follow a plan if the plan was efficient.

Ana would accept a shadow if the shadow did not crowd her.

And then Ana would walk into COTA with her head up, her ring possibly visible, her threat assessment memorized, her father furious, her fiancé injured, half the sport watching, and act like she was fine because being fine was often the price private people paid to keep moving.

Bradley hated that.

He hated that he admired it.

He hated that his job was to help make it possible.

His laptop pinged again.

This time from Toto.

TOTO:Understood. Prepare options. Do not involve Anastasia tonight.

Bradley exhaled.

At least that was settled.

Then, a second message:

TOTO:And Bradley?

Bradley waited.

TOTO:If anyone treats her as a spectacle, I expect it handled.

Bradley looked at the screen.

Then typed:

BRADLEY:It will be.

He paused.

Then added:

BRADLEY:She is one of ours.

The reply did not come immediately.

When it did, it was only one word.

TOTO:Yes.

Bradley sat back.

There it was.

The whole thing, really.

Not the threat. Not the ring. Not the media circus waiting in Austin with cameras and lanyards and the collective restraint of starving gulls.

Ana was one of theirs.

Mercedes protected their own.

Not always perfectly.

Formula One rarely did anything perfectly except create emergencies at inconvenient times.

But they would protect her.

Bradley closed the laptop halfway, then opened it again because he remembered three more action items.

He added them.

Then a fourth.

Then, in a private note no one else would see, he wrote:

George Russell has created a security crisis, a legal crisis, a media crisis, a driver management crisis, and possibly an engagement reveal crisis in one evening. Impressive only in the way a sinkhole is impressive.

He looked at it.

Deleted it.

Then wrote instead:

Prepare COTA holding lines.

Much more professional.

Much less satisfying.

He finally stood at 2:17 a.m., turned off the desk lamp, and looked once toward the dark bedroom where his wife was asleep.

His phone buzzed again.

Bradley froze.

Looked down.

A calendar reminder for 8:00 a.m.:

COTA comms sync.

He stared at it.

Then whispered, “I am going to murder George Russell.”

From the bedroom, his wife mumbled, “Still don’t put that in an email.”

Bradley put the phone face down. “No promises.”

Text Messages: Max Verstappen & Gianpiero Lambiase

Max:GP.

GP:What happened?

Max:Ana got threats tonight.

GP:What kind of threats?

Max:Serious. Police are involved. Security is involved. 

GP:Is Ana safe?

Max:Physically, yes.

GP:Are you safe?

Max:Yes.

Max:I am warning you because of Mercedes.

GP:Me?

Max:Yes.

GP:Why me?

Max:Because you are coming with me.

GP:Max.

Max:I doubt they would go for you. But I wanted you to know. I don’t think you are a target.

GP:That is very reassuring from the man currently texting me about threats.

Max:I am trying to be responsible.

GP:Was it about Baku?

Max:Yes.

GP:Fuck.

Max:Yes.

GP:And Ana?

Max:Yes.

GP:Fuck.

Max:Also yes.

GP:What do you need from me?

Max:Nothing.

GP:Try again.

Max:I just wanted to warn you. Maybe check if anything weird happens. Unknown numbers. People near the house. Emails. Messages. I don’t know.

GP:I will.

Max:Do not tell many people.

GP:I won’t.

Max:Eloisa should know enough to be careful.

GP:Of course.

Max:Francesca too maybe. Not details. Just careful.

GP:I’ll handle it.

Max:I hate this.

GP:I know.

Max:Ana thought of everyone else first. She was shaking and still made a list. Family. Routes. Security. People who might be used.

GP:That sounds like her.

Max:It should not have to.

GP:No.

GP:And you?

Max:What about me?

GP:Are you okay?

Max:No.

GP:Honest answer.

Max:I want to do things I should not do.

GP:Do not make this harder for Ana by trying to solve it with anger.

Max:I know.

GP:I mean it.

Max:I know.

GP:She needs you steady. Not calm. I’m not asking for miracles. You can be furious later.

Max:I am furious now.

Max:I am sorry.

GP:Don’t apologize for warning me.

Max:No. For involving you.

GP:Apology noted and rejected.

GP:I’ll speak to Eloisa. I’ll keep my phone on. If anything happens, I’ll tell you. Thank you for telling me. And thank Ana as well. 

GP:You are not alone in this.

Max:I know.

GP:Do you?

Max:Trying to.

GP:Good.

Max:Thank you.

GP:Any time.

Max:Also don’t open unknown links.

GP:I work with Formula One, Max. I am familiar with basic security hygiene.

Max:Ana told me to say it.

GP:Then thank Ana for implying I am eighty-seven.

Max:She said age is not the issue.

GP:Wonderful.

Max:She said human curiosity is the issue.

GP:She is unfortunately correct again.

Max:GP?

GP:Yes?

Max:Be careful, please.

GP:I will, mate.

***

Maison Étoiles, Monaco - 13 October 2025

Nothing was missing. Nothing was broken. 

The furniture was still in the same place, the lights still warm.

Sassy was asleep in a position of great personal importance on the back of the sofa. Jimmy had abandoned Jack only after being bribed with food and praised for his “service during a bad day.”

But the room had changed anyway.

There were invisible marks now.

Police had sat there.

Lawyers had spoken from speakerphones.

Nikolai had stood by the entrance like a locked door with a Russian accent.

Toto had paced the hallway until Susie quietly told him to stop.

Jack had fallen asleep, his cheek pressed to Susie’s shoulder, Coco under his chin. Susie had carried him out carefully, while Toto followed with her bag and the expression of a man who was trying very hard not to look back too many times.

He had failed.

He had looked back twice.

At Ana.

Then at Max.

Max had nodded once.

Toto had nodded back.

It had not been peace. It had been a handover. Max understood that.

He understood it in his bones.

He understood it in the old racing way too, the passing of a damaged car from one sector to the next, the entire team holding its breath and pretending control was a thing humans could own.

Now the door was closed.

Security was still outside. Nikolai had not gone far. Raymond had checked in twice. Toto had sent three updates and then, presumably, been physically restrained by Susie or a sleeping Jack or the concept of restraint itself.

Ana stood in their bedroom, barefoot, hair half-fallen from the clip she had put it in hours ago, still wearing the jumper Susie had made her put on because she had started shaking again.

She looked smaller without the room full of people.

Max hated that.

Not smaller because she was weak. Smaller because she had spent hours being precise enough to survive, and now the precision had nowhere left to go.

He was on the bed, leg propped up, body aching in the background in a way that had become so constant he had almost stopped noticing it.

Almost.

He noticed it whenever he wanted to move quickly.

Whenever Ana looked like that.

He noticed it then.

“Come here,” he said quietly.

Ana looked at him.

For a second, nothing happened.

Then she crossed the room and sat beside him, not quite touching.

That was its own answer.

Max did not reach for her immediately.

He had learned that too. Some days, Ana wanted contact like oxygen. Other days, the wrong touch at the wrong moment turned her body into a locked system.

Tonight, he waited.

Her hands were in her lap. Fingers still. Too still.

Her hair had slipped over one shoulder in one light, uneven sheet.

Max looked at it, then at her face.

“Can I brush your hair?”

Ana blinked.

Something moved in her expression.

Memories of Scotland, maybe. The living room at Susie’s parents’ house. Rain against the window. Max sitting behind her with a brush in his hand, trying to be gentle and terrible at hiding how much he wanted to take care of her without making it into a thing she had to respond to.

“You want to brush my hair?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Because he needed something his hands could do that was not violence.

Because if Max could not go to George and throttle him, and could not stand without making three people tell him to sit down, and could not unwind the messages from her mind, he could at least take out the pins and smooth the tangles carefully until her breathing changed.

Because he loved her.

Because she was slowly splintering apart beside him and he needed to give her somewhere soft to fall.

He said, “Because I liked doing it in Scotland.”

Ana looked down at her hands.

Then nodded. “Yes.”

The word was barely there.

Max reached for the brush on the side table, taking the brush carefully and shifted as much as his leg allowed.

“Turn around a bit.”

Ana obeyed.

She sat next to his good leg, her back angled toward him. The jumper hung loose over her shoulders. Her neck was bare where the hair had fallen away. Max could see the tension there, the muscle held too tight.

He took out the clip first.

Her hair spilled down.

He set the clip on the table beside his phone, screen down, because neither of them needed to see another message tonight.

Then he began at the ends.

Slowly.

Carefully.

The first stroke caught a little.

Ana did not flinch, but Max felt the way her whole body prepared to.

“Sorry,” he said.

“It is fine.”

“No, it pulled.”

“It is just hair.”

“It is your hair.”

She was silent.

Max kept brushing.

He had no practical experience in this kind of thing beyond Ana and the one time an 8 year old Victoria had shoved a hairbrush at him in their mother’s kitchen.  But he was careful.

For a while, there was only the sound of the brush moving through her hair and the low hum of the house. 

Outside, Monaco glittered like nothing bad ever happened in expensive places.

Ana’s breathing changed slowly.

Not quite relaxed, but maybe less braced.  Max took that as a win.

Then she said, “You want to ask me something.”

He paused. “No.”

Ana turned her head slightly. “Max.”

He huffed. “Fine.”

He drew the brush through another section of hair. Then another.

He chose his words with the kind of care he usually reserved for wet braking zones and radio messages when everyone was listening.

“Are you sure it’s George?”

Ana went still.

Max regretted it immediately.

Not the question. Maybe the timing. Maybe the softness of it, because it sounded like doubt when it was not meant to.

He put the brush down for a second.

“Nastya,” he said. “I’m not saying you are wrong.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.”

She did not turn around.

Her voice was flat. Too flat.

Max picked up the brush again because stopping made the room too sharp.

“I just need to know,” he said. “Because if there is any chance it is someone else—”

“It is George.”

No hesitation. No uncertainty.

Max’s jaw tightened. “Because of Baku?”

“Partly.”

“Because of the seat?”

“Yes.”

“And the other things.”

Ana’s head dipped slightly.

“Yes.”

Max kept brushing.

Slowly.

“What other things?”

Ana’s shoulders tightened.

Then settled again.

“He used phrases he used before,” she said. “Not exact duplicates. But close enough. Conceptual fingerprints.”

Max hated that she had a phrase for it.

Conceptual fingerprints.

Of course she did.

“He said I was defective,” Ana continued. “He used that word before. Not always directly. Sometimes he would phrase it as concern.”

Max’s hand stopped.

Ana did not. “He said he could help me be easier. More normal. That I made things difficult for myself by refusing to learn how people expected women to behave.”

Max stared at the back of her head.

The brush was still in his hand. He could not move it.

Ana’s voice stayed calm. “That is not the phrase he used tonight. Tonight he was less careful.”

Max’s fingers tightened around the handle.

“Max.”

He looked at her.

She had turned her head slightly again, not enough to meet his eyes. “Keep brushing.”

He swallowed hard.

Then forced his hand to move.

One stroke. Then another.

Careful. Don’t pull. Don’t make her manage you.

“He thought you were a way to Toto,” Max said.

“Yes.” Ana’s answer was immediate. Almost tired. “George was not the first either.”

Max’s hand froze again.

This time, Ana did not tell him to continue. The room seemed to shrink around that sentence. 

George was not the first.

Max heard it as information first. Then he heard it as what it was.

A wound with more than one name.

“What does that mean?” he asked.

Ana was silent for long enough that Max thought she might not answer.

Then she reached forward and took the hair clip from the table, turning it once between her fingers.

“It means men often look at me and see proximity,” she said. “To my father. To Mercedes. To information. To access. To power they think I do not deserve because I am not using it the way they would.”

Max did not speak. His mouth had gone dry.

“At Cambridge, some of them wanted to know Toto,” she continued. “Or wanted to say they knew Toto’s daughter. Or wanted to test whether I was arrogant. Or broken. Or both.”

The brush moved through her hair.

Slowly.

Max did not remember deciding to move it again.

“One man joined an entire lecture series he did not understand because he thought if he helped me socially, I would introduce him to Papa. He called me frigid after I told him I did not do introductions as repayment for unwanted sandwiches.”

Max made a sound. It was not a laugh.

Ana’s mouth moved faintly. “He had terrible sandwich judgment.”

“Nastya.”

“I know.”

Her fingers tightened around the clip.

“Another one asked if Toto had arranged my doctorate because no one like me could pass interviews without family pressure. When I replied that nepotism did not improve matrix algebra, he told people I was a cold bitch.”

Max’s jaw hurt.

“Who?”

“It does not matter.”

“It matters to me.”

“It happened years ago.”

“That does not mean it doesn’t matter.”

Ana went quiet.

He could see the side of her face now. The edge of her cheek. Her eyelashes lowered. Her mouth pressed into that still line that meant something inside was moving too fast.

“When I did internships, it became more complicated,” she said. “People were more polite. Usually. But the logic was similar.”

“Because Toto.”

“Yes.”

“And because you are good.”

Ana did not answer.

Max brushed another section. “You are,” he said.

“I know I am competent.”

“That’s not what I said.”

“It is close enough.”

“No.”

She turned slightly at that. Just enough that he saw the confusion before she hid it.

Max set the brush down again.

He should not have.

But he needed both hands for this.

One went lightly to her waist.

The other to the loose fall of her hair, smoothing it once over her shoulder.

“You are good,” he said. “Not just competent.”

Ana looked away.

That was too much.

Fine.

He could wait. He had time. He had the rest of his life, if she let him.

She said, “Men like George do not understand women who are useful but not available.”

Max’s stomach turned.

Ana’s voice had become very soft. “They like the idea of me in theory. Clever. Connected. Not publicly emotional. Private. It lets them imagine whatever they want. Then they become angry when I am a person instead of an interface.”

Max closed his eyes briefly. An interface.

He hated that most of all.

Maybe because he understood it too well.

He had been made into a machine by people who liked the results more than the person. 

Talent. Winning. Data. Skill. A thing that performed under pressure and everyone preferred not to ask what pressure cost.

Ana as interface.

Max as a car.

George had looked at Ana and seen a button to press.

The thought made Max feel violent in a way so clean it scared him.

Ana said, “He was different because he believed the story all the way through.”

Max opened his eyes.

“What story?”

“That I was the gate. If he could become important to me, he would become permanent to Mercedes. To Papa. To the future he thought he was owed.”

“The seat.”

“Yes.”

“He thought being with you would save his seat.”

“Yes.”

Max’s voice came out low. “And when you said no…”

“Then I became the reason the gate closed.”

Max looked at the back of her head.

Her hair was brushed now.

Smooth.

Light.

Soft under his hand.

The rest of her looked like she was being held together by invisible pins.

“The messages were George,” she said. “Because he did not threaten me like a stranger would. He threatened me like a man who had already written an entire argument in his head and was angry I still refused to accept my assigned role.”

Max’s chest tightened. “Assigned role.”

“Yes.”

“What role?”

Ana’s fingers went still around the clip.

“The defective thing that should have been grateful.”

Max could not breathe for a second.

Not properly.

He looked at her neck, her shoulders, the careful line of her spine, and saw the splintering then.

Not dramatic.

Ana did not fall apart the way other people did.

She did it in fractions.

A pause that became too long. A hand that stopped moving. A voice that lost its edges and became pure fact.

A body that sat too still because if it moved, something might break loose.

She was splintering in front of him one almost-invisible piece at a time.

And Max, who could read tyre degradation in half a lap and hear a bad shift before most people noticed the sound had changed, saw it too late and all at once.

He put the brush down. “Nastya.”

“I am fine.”

“No.”

“I am processing.”

“No.”

She made a small sound.

Almost irritation.

Almost fear.

“Max.”

“You are not fine.”

“I know that.”

The answer came too quickly.

Too sharp.

Then she stopped.

Her hand opened.

The clip fell onto her lap.

For a second, neither of them moved.

Then Ana whispered, “I know that.”

Max’s heart cracked.

He shifted carefully and reached for her. Slow enough that she could pull away.

She did not.

He gathered her back against him, awkwardly because of the cast, one arm around her waist, the other across her chest, hand open over her sternum so she could feel it if she needed pressure.

Ana went stiff.

Then stiffer.

Then, all at once, she folded.

Her body simply lost the structure it had been using to pretend the room was safe enough to stand in.

Max held her.

Hard enough to be there.

Not hard enough to trap.

“Breathe,” he said quietly.

“I am.”

“No, you are holding it.”

“I am not.”

“You are.”

A long, shaking breath left her.

Max pressed his mouth to her hair.

“There.”

Ana’s hands came up slowly.

One gripped his wrist.

The other closed around the sleeve of his shirt.

“I hate that he can do this,” she said.

“I know.”

“I hate that my body believes him.”

Max’s arm tightened.

“No.”

“It does.”

“No.”

“Max—”

“No,” he said again, more softly. “Your body believes there is danger. That part is true. It does not believe him.”

Ana went very still.

“Your body knows you were threatened,” Max said. “That is not the same as believing what he said.”

Ana’s fingers tightened around his wrist.

Her breath shook.

Once.

Then again.

“He said I should have let him fix me.”

“I know.”

“I do not need fixing.”

Max closed his eyes.

There was nothing in racing that had prepared him for that sentence.

There was nothing in his life that had prepared him for the amount of love and rage that could exist in one body without tearing it apart.

So he held her.

That was all.

He held her while her breathing went uneven. He held her while she pressed her face down against his arm, not quite hiding, not quite crying, caught in some strange middle state where grief was trying to exit through a body trained to lock every door.

He held her while Sassy woke up, stretched, and came to investigate with visible suspicion.

The cat stepped onto the bed, sniffed Ana’s elbow, then climbed onto the blanket over Max’s good thigh as if personally assigned to crisis stabilization.

Max did not move.

Ana made a sound.

This one was closer to a sob than a laugh.

“Sassy is heavy.”

“She is helping.”

“She is not.”

Sassy began to purr.

Max looked down at the cat.

“She is.”

Ana’s grip loosened by one degree.

That was enough.

For now.

“You are not a pressure point,” he said.

Ana was silent.

“You are not access,” he continued. “You are not a gate. You are not a way to Toto. You are not a way to Mercedes. You are not a thing men get to use to become important.”

Her fingers tightened.

“I love you,” he whispered.

“I know.”

He closed his eyes.

Then, after a pause, her voice came again, very small.

“I love you too.”

His throat tightened.

“I know.”

She shifted closer.

“Do you?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

***

PRIVATE CHAT — Secure channel

Andromeda 🛰️ is online

JadeQueen 👑 is online

Andromeda:Are you awake?

JadeQueen:For you? Always.

JadeQueen:That is either romantic or ominous.

Andromeda:Ominous.

JadeQueen:Oh good. My favourite.

Andromeda:I need you to check something.

JadeQueen:Define something.

Andromeda:Unknown number sent threats tonight.

JadeQueen:To you?

Andromeda:Yes.

JadeQueen:Where are you?

Andromeda:Home.

JadeQueen:Do you have security?

Andromeda:Yes.

JadeQueen:Is Max there?

Andromeda:Yes.

JadeQueen:Is your father there?

Andromeda:He was. Susie and him took Jack home. Security outside.

JadeQueen:Police?

Andromeda:Yes.

JadeQueen:Lawyers?

Andromeda:Yes.

JadeQueen:Good.

JadeQueen:Now tell me whose body I am hiding.

Andromeda:Do not be dramatic.

JadeQueen:Someone threatened you.

JadeQueen:I am being proportionate.

Andromeda:It was probably George.

JadeQueen:Probably?

Andromeda:Yes.

JadeQueen:George Russell?

Andromeda:Yes.

JadeQueen:I am going to kill him.

Andromeda:No.

JadeQueen:I am going to make it look like a tragic treadmill accident.

Andromeda:Xia.

JadeQueen:Fine. Staircase.

Andromeda:No murder.

JadeQueen:You are very controlling for someone asking me for crime-adjacent assistance.

Andromeda:I need confirmation.

JadeQueen:Send me the number.

Andromeda:[number attached]

JadeQueen:Received.

JadeQueen:Jesus.

Andromeda:What?

JadeQueen:I haven’t even checked yet. I am just reacting to the fact that George Russell has apparently decided house arrest is a lifestyle suggestion.

Andromeda:Do not assume too much.

JadeQueen:Annie.

Andromeda:I know.

JadeQueen:Do you?

Andromeda:Yes.

JadeQueen:Are you sure it is him?

Andromeda:Yes.

JadeQueen:Because?

Andromeda:Language. Baku. Seat loss. Prior fixation. Phrases.

JadeQueen:Phrases?

Andromeda:Defective. Fixing me. Gratitude. Being useful. The idea that this started because I refused to perform a role.

JadeQueen:I am going to kill him.

Andromeda:No.

JadeQueen:I am going to ruin his life.

Andromeda:Already in progress.

JadeQueen:Good.

Andromeda:I need more than linguistic certainty.

JadeQueen:You want device confirmation.

Andromeda:Yes.

Andromeda:I know you left yourself a back door when you checked him last time.

JadeQueen:That is an outrageous accusation.

Andromeda:It is also true.

JadeQueen:I prefer “emergency observation window.”

Andromeda:I need it.

JadeQueen:No.

Andromeda:Xia.

JadeQueen:No.

Andromeda:You do not know what I am asking.

JadeQueen:Yes, I do.

JadeQueen:You want access so you can check yourself.

Andromeda:Yes.

JadeQueen:No.

Andromeda:It is my threat.

JadeQueen:Exactly why no.

Andromeda:I am the most qualified person to assess the data.

JadeQueen:You are the least qualified person to assess the data emotionally.

Andromeda:That is irrelevant.

JadeQueen:It is literally the most relevant thing.

Andromeda:I need to know.

JadeQueen:I know.

Andromeda:Then give it to me.

JadeQueen:No.

Andromeda:You left it there.

JadeQueen:Yes.

Andromeda:For this exact situation.

JadeQueen:For a situation.

Andromeda:This is a situation.

JadeQueen:This is also you after receiving death threats and trying to turn a panic response into an investigation.

Andromeda:I am not panicking.

JadeQueen:That was not convincing even in text.

Andromeda:Xia.

JadeQueen:Annie.

Andromeda:I need facts.

JadeQueen:I will get you facts.

Andromeda:I need to see them.

JadeQueen:You need to sleep.

Andromeda:I will not sleep.

JadeQueen:Then you need to lie down and pretend in a way that makes Max less likely to have a cardiac event.

Andromeda:Max does not have cardiac issues.

JadeQueen:He does now.

Andromeda:Not funny.

JadeQueen:No. It isn’t.

JadeQueen:I am very angry.

JadeQueen:I am looking at my children sleeping and thinking about the fact that some entitled man sent threats to their godmother because she said no to him and ruined his fantasy career plan.

JadeQueen:I am thinking about you at seventeen explaining that people were “interested in vectors of access” like that was normal.

JadeQueen:I am thinking about how many times you have told me something horrible in the same voice you use for printer settings.

JadeQueen:So yes. I am angry.

Andromeda:I am sorry.

JadeQueen:Do not you dare apologize.

Andromeda:That was automatic.

JadeQueen:Disable the feature.

Andromeda:Working on it.

JadeQueen:Good.

Andromeda:I still need the back door.

JadeQueen:No direct access.

Andromeda:That is not an answer.

JadeQueen:It is my answer.

Andromeda:I can do it without you.

JadeQueen:I know.

Andromeda:Then why are you refusing?

JadeQueen:Because if you do it alone, Max will find you hunched over a laptop at 4 a.m. with a nosebleed, three untouched glasses of water, and the emotional expression of a haunted server rack.

Andromeda:That is specific.

JadeQueen:It has happened before.

Andromeda:Once.

JadeQueen:Twice.

Andromeda:Different circumstances.

JadeQueen:Same haunted server rack.

JadeQueen:Here is what will happen.

JadeQueen:I check first, preserve everything, and tell you whether it is George.

Andromeda:How long?

JadeQueen:Do not ask time estimates like a project manager from hell.

Andromeda:Xia.

JadeQueen:I will check now.

Andromeda:Thank you.

JadeQueen:Do not thank me yet.

Andromeda:Why?

JadeQueen:Because if it is George, I am going to say “I told you so” and then I am going to fantasize about murder in a way my therapist would describe as concerning but understandable.

Andromeda:No murder.

JadeQueen:No actual murder.

Andromeda:No hiring someone either.

JadeQueen:You know me too well.

Andromeda:I hate that men often see me as proximity.

JadeQueen:Listen to me.

JadeQueen:You are not a route to Toto. You are not a lever. You are not a gate. You are not a bug in someone else’s career plan.

JadeQueen:You are my best friend, my daughters’ godmother, the most terrifying woman I know, and the only person I trust to assemble IKEA furniture while explaining orbital mechanics.

Andromeda:IKEA furniture is not complicated.

JadeQueen:You see? Terrifying.

Andromeda:Thank you.

JadeQueen:You are welcome.

Andromeda 🛰️ is offline

Jade Queen 👑 is offline

Chat archived. 

Max was in a foul mood. Free Practice 2 had been a disaster of red flags and zero grip, and he had retreated to the quietest corner of the Red Bull Energy Station to escape the frantic engineers. The hospitality area was supposed to be empty, shut down for the evening to everyone except essential personnel.

But as Max rounded the corner toward the espresso bar, he heard a sharp, very un-heiress-like string of curses.

He stopped, leaning silently against the doorframe.

Y/N was standing in front of the massive, industrial espresso machine. She was wearing a flawless, structured white blazer, looking like she belonged on the cover of Forbes, but her posture was rigid with absolute fury. She jammed a button on the machine. Nothing happened. She hit it again, harder this time.

"Come on," Y/N hissed, her voice vibrating with a raw, desperate exhaustion that caught Max entirely off guard. "Just one cup. Do not do this to me."

The machine whirred, hissed aggressively, and spat a stream of cold, murky water all over the pristine marble counter—and directly onto the sleeve of her blazer.

Y/N froze. For a second, Max thought she was going to cry. The perfect, smiling asset that her father paraded around the grid looked completely shattered over a broken coffee machine.

Instead of crying, Y/N let out a breath, grabbed a fistful of napkins, and aggressively slammed them onto the counter. "Fine," she whispered fiercely to the machine. "Be useless. See if I care."

She kicked the base of the heavy metal counter with the toe of her designer heel—a sharp, violent thud that echoed in the empty room.

A low, involuntary chuckle escaped Max’s chest.

Y/N whipped around, her eyes wide, the mask slamming back into place so fast it gave Max whiplash. Her spine straightened, her chin lifted, and the furious, real girl vanished behind a polite, deadened smile.

"Max," she said smoothly, though he could see her pulse jumping at her throat. "I apologize. I didn't realize anyone was still here."

Max didn't smile back. He didn't like the mask. He pushed off the doorframe and walked slowly toward her, his eyes locked on hers. He didn't stop until he was entirely in her personal space, close enough to smell the vanilla perfume and the bitter scent of the spilled espresso.

He reached past her, his arm brushing her shoulder, and flipped a hidden override switch on the back of the machine. The digital screen hummed to life, glowing a warm green.

"You have to reset the boiler after the cleaning cycle," Max said, his voice a low rumble. He pulled a fresh cup, locked the portafilter in place, and hit the extraction button. A perfect, dark shot of espresso began to pour.

Y/N stared at the coffee, then slowly looked up at him. The polite smile faltered, just a fraction. "Right. Thank you."

Max picked up the cup and held it out to her. When her fingers brushed his to take it, he didn't let go right away. His blue eyes dragged over her ruined white sleeve, and then back up to her exhausted, guarded eyes.

"For what it's worth," Max murmured, his voice dropping into that blunt, intense honesty he reserved for very few people. "I liked you better when you were kicking the counter."

He finally released the cup and walked away, leaving Y/N staring after him, the first tiny crack forming in her armor.

For Oscar, the realization came a month later, beneath the glittering chandeliers of a VIP gala in Monza.

The room was suffocatingly loud, packed with team principals, celebrities, and the corporate elite. Oscar hated these events, but McLaren expected him to make an appearance. He was seated at a table near the back, quietly observing the room with a glass of sparkling water, when he noticed her.

Y/N was seated three tables away, trapped in a conversation with two tech billionaires and her father. From a distance, she looked perfect. She was nodding at the right intervals, offering polite, composed smiles, and holding a champagne flute with absolute elegance.

But Oscar was a driver who made his living noticing the micro-details that everyone else missed.

He watched the way her knuckles were entirely white where she gripped the stem of the glass. He noticed that her polite smile never once reached her eyes—they looked glassy, thousand-yard-staring through the men talking at her.

Then, Oscar saw her shift her weight slightly under the table. Her foot slipped out of her towering stiletto heel, just for a second, seeking relief on the carpeted floor. It was a tiny, desperate motion. She was miserable. She was being held hostage in plain sight.

Oscar set his water glass down. He didn't overthink it; he just acted.

He navigated through the crowded tables with quiet efficiency, approaching her father's circle just as one of the tech executives was launching into a droning monologue about market shares.

"Excuse me," Oscar interrupted smoothly, his voice polite but carrying enough authority to halt the conversation.

Her father looked annoyed, but seeing the McLaren driver, he forced a smile. "Ah, Piastri. Enjoying the evening?"

"Very much," Oscar lied effortlessly. He didn't look at her father; his dark, observant eyes dropped entirely to Y/N. "Actually, I was hoping to steal your daughter for a moment. McLaren’s aerodynamicist was just debating the drag coefficient of the new rear wing, and Y/N promised she'd settle the bet."

It was a completely absurd excuse. Y/N’s father knew it. The tech billionaires looked confused.

But Y/N looked at Oscar like he had just thrown her a life raft in the middle of a hurricane.

"Of course," Y/N said quickly. She slipped her foot seamlessly back into her heel and stood up, placing the untouched champagne on the table. "Duty calls. Gentlemen."

Oscar offered his arm, a perfectly gentlemanly gesture for the cameras, and she took it. Her grip on his forearm was tight, her fingers trembling slightly.

He led her away from the tables, bypassing the aerodynamicists entirely, and steered them out onto a quiet, dimly lit balcony overlooking the Italian gardens. The heavy glass doors shut behind them, cutting off the noise of the gala instantly.

Y/N dropped his arm, turning her back to the glass doors. She let out a long, shaky exhale, her shoulders slumping as the perfect posture dissolved.

"Aerodynamics?" Y/N asked, looking over at him.

Oscar leaned against the stone balustrade, crossing his arms comfortably. "It was either that, or tell them I needed you to explain the geopolitical history of the tire blanket ban. I went with the more believable lie."

For a second, Y/N just stared at him. And then, it happened.

A laugh slipped out of her. It wasn't the polite, breathy chuckle she gave the board members. It was a real, bright, surprised laugh that completely transformed her face. The heavy, guarded look in her eyes vanished, replaced by a brilliant, unfiltered relief.

Oscar felt the air knock out of his lungs. It was like watching a completely different person step out of the shadows.

"Thank you," Y/N breathed, a genuine smile lingering on her lips as she looked at him. "I think I owed you a rescue."

"Anytime," Oscar replied softly, his eyes tracing the new, relaxed lines of her face. He filed the sound of that laugh away in his mind, making a quiet, concrete decision right then and there.

He was going to make sure she never had to fake a smile around him again.

Once Max and Oscar had seen the girl beneath the heiress, they couldn't unsee her. And more dangerously, they couldn't stop looking for her.

As the European leg of the season dragged on, a bizarre, unspoken phenomenon began to occur in the paddock. Wherever Y/N was forced to stand for prolonged PR appearances, either a dark blue Red Bull cap or a papaya McLaren jacket would inevitably appear on the periphery.

It started subtle.

In Hungary, when a gaggle of aggressive photographers cornered Y/N near the VIP turnstiles, Oscar "accidentally" stopped to tie his shoe directly in their path, creating a bottleneck that allowed her to slip away into the Red Bull hospitality suite unnoticed.

Two weeks later in Spa, it was Max. Y/N had been forced to stand in the pouring rain on the grid while her father gave an excruciatingly long television interview. Max had finished his own media duties, but instead of retreating to the dry garage, he casually leaned against his car’s front wing, angling an oversized team umbrella just enough to shield her from the worst of the downpour. He didn't look at her. He didn't speak to her. But he stood in the freezing rain for ten solid minutes until her father finally moved on.

They were orbiting her. Separately. Silently.

But it was only a matter of time before their orbits collided.

The collision happened in the sweltering, suffocating humidity of the Singapore Grand Prix.

Y/N had been running on three hours of sleep, paraded through endless late-night sponsor dinners. By Saturday afternoon, the exhaustion was radiating off her in waves.

Max had been tracking her movements since Thursday. He had seen the dark circles under her eyes that her makeup artist couldn't quite hide, and the slight tremor in her hands when she handed her father a microphone during a press event. Max's protective instincts were practically vibrating.

After Free Practice 3, Max bypassed his debrief entirely. He grabbed a bottle of electrolyte water and walked straight out the back of the Red Bull garage, intending to pull Y/N into his driver’s room the moment she stepped out of the FIA hospitality suite.

But when he rounded the corner, she wasn't there.

Max’s eyes narrowed, scanning the crowded paddock. He spotted the trailing edge of her father's entourage heading toward the Paddock Club, but Y/N wasn't with them.

Max moved with predatory focus, checking the usual hiding spots. The terrace. The media center fire escape. Nothing.

Finally, acting on a gut instinct he couldn't entirely explain, Max crossed enemy lines. He walked straight into the McLaren hospitality center.

The papaya-clad mechanics and PR reps stared at the reigning World Champion striding into their territory, but nobody was brave enough to stop him. Max ignored them all, heading straight for the private driver rooms at the back.

He didn't bother knocking on Oscar's door. He just opened it.

The blast of icy air conditioning hit Max first. Then, he saw her.

Y/N was curled up in the corner of Oscar's small, heavily air-conditioned driver room, fast asleep. She had a McLaren team towel draped over her legs to combat the chill, and her head was resting against the plush fabric of the sofa. The tense, rigid lines of her face were completely smoothed out. She looked peaceful.

Oscar was sitting in the armchair opposite her, scrolling through data on his tablet. He didn't look up when the door opened, completely unbothered by the intrusion.

"Close the door, Max," Oscar murmured quietly, finally flicking his dark eyes up to meet Max’s. "You're letting the heat in."

Max stepped inside, letting the heavy door click shut behind him. He looked from the sleeping girl to the McLaren driver, his jaw tight. The bottle of electrolyte water in his hand suddenly felt redundant. Oscar had already placed a fresh, unopened bottle on the coffee table right next to Y/N’s phone.

"Her father is looking for her," Max said, keeping his voice to a low rumble so he wouldn't wake her.

"I know," Oscar replied calmly, setting his tablet down. "I told his assistant she got called into a meeting with Zak about the branding on the rear wing. Bought her an hour."

Max crossed his arms, staring at Oscar. The territorial fire that always burned in Max’s chest flared, urging him to grab Y/N, wake her up, and drag her back to his own territory. But as he watched Oscar—who was sitting guard with the exact same lethal, quiet devotion that Max felt—the fire shifted into something else. Recognition.

"You're tracking her," Max stated bluntly.

"So are you," Oscar countered smoothly. He leaned back in his chair, his gaze locking with Max's in a silent challenge. "I saw you block that Netflix crew from her in the pit lane yesterday."

"I saw you accidentally spill your water on that creepy tech investor who wouldn't leave her alone in Miami," Max shot back.

The two drivers stared at each other in the dim light of the room, the sleeping heiress breathing softly between them. They were apex predators in a cutthroat sport, trained to exploit weaknesses and destroy the competition. Sharing was not in their DNA.

But Y/N wasn't a championship trophy. She was a girl drowning in a gilded cage. And for the first time, Max and Oscar looked at each other and realized that neither of them had the power to pull her out alone without causing a PR explosion that would drag her down with them.

Max let out a slow, sharp exhale, the tension bleeding out of his shoulders. He walked over, setting his electrolyte water on the table right next to Oscar's.

"Her dad’s people will start swarming this building in twenty minutes," Max said, his tone shifting from adversarial to tactical. "If you take her out the back exit, I'll go out the front and start an argument with Laurent in plain sight. Every camera in the paddock will turn toward me."

Oscar’s mouth twitched into a slow, begrudging smirk. He looked at Max, the silent rivalry transforming instantly into an ironclad alliance.

"Distraction duty again, Verstappen?" Oscar asked quietly. "Careful. I might start thinking you're a team player."

"Shut up, Piastri," Max muttered, though a faint smirk pulled at the corner of his own mouth. He looked down at Y/N one last time, his eyes softening completely, before turning back to the door. "Twenty minutes. Don't let them see her."

"I won't," Oscar promised.

Max slipped out the door, the click of the lock sealing the unspoken treaty. The grid didn't know it yet, and neither did Y/N's father, but the war had just officially begun.

-

The roar of the engines had faded hours ago, replaced by the equally deafening hum of the Paddock Club. Y/N stood near the floor-to-ceiling windows, her champagne glass untouched, functioning exactly as she was trained to: as the perfect, smiling centerpiece of her family’s empire.

Her father, the CEO of the title sponsor plastered across half the grid, was currently holding court by the bar. Every time he glanced her way, Y/N knew it was an unspoken command to straighten her posture, to laugh politely at a stale joke told by a billionaire investor, to look the part of the dutiful heiress. Her heels dug into the carpet, a sharp, constant reminder of the cage she was standing in.

"If you grip that glass any tighter, it's going to shatter."

The voice was calm, pitched perfectly just under the noise of the room. Y/N didn’t have to turn around to know who it was. She allowed her shoulders to drop a fraction of an inch as Oscar stepped up beside her. He wasn't in his race suit anymore, dressed instead in his team kit that looked effortlessly comfortable compared to her suffocating silk dress.

"If it shatters, it might give me an excuse to leave," Y/N murmured, finally unclenching her jaw.

Oscar took a sip of his water, his eyes tracking the crowded room with mild detachment. He was always like this—the quiet center of a hurricane. "I could always accidentally spill this on you. Ruin the dress. Tragic wardrobe malfunction. You'd have to retreat to your hotel."

A genuine, albeit tired, smile touched Y/N’s lips. "Tempting, Piastri. But my mother would simply have a backup dress materialized within three minutes. I'm stuck here until the board members are sufficiently charmed."

Oscar shifted slightly, angling his body to subtly block the line of sight between Y/N and the group of executives her father was entertaining. It was a small, deliberate movement. An anchor dropping.

"Take five minutes," Oscar said softly, not looking at her so as not to draw attention. "Go out to the terrace. It's empty. Breathe for a second."

Y/N met his gaze briefly. His dark eyes were steady, observant. He always saw the cracks before anyone else did, noticing the exact moment she reached her limit. "Thank you," she breathed.

Slipping out the heavy glass doors onto the dimly lit terrace was like breaking the surface of the water after holding her breath for too long. The cool night air of the circuit washed over her, and Y/N let her eyes close, leaning her weight against the railing. For exactly two minutes, it was quiet.

Then, the heavy door clicked open.

"You're hiding."

Y/N’s eyes snapped open. Max Verstappen stood in the doorway, his team cap pulled low, his arms crossed over his chest. He looked entirely out of place on the VIP terrace, carrying a raw intensity that demanded space. He didn't wait for an invitation, stepping out into the cool air and letting the glass door swing shut behind him, cutting off the noise of the party completely.

"I'm not hiding," Y/N lied smoothly, straightening up out of habit. "I'm getting fresh air."

Max scoffed, a blunt, dismissive sound. He walked over, invading her personal space just enough to make the air between them feel electrified. "You're hiding, Y/N. Your dad is looking for you in there to parade you in front of the new tech sponsors."

Her stomach dropped. The mask she had just managed to peel off slammed back into place. "I should go back inside, then."

She moved to step past him, but Max caught her wrist. His grip wasn't tight, but it was solid. Grounding. He looked down at her, his blue eyes sharp and unyielding, stripping away the polished heiress persona in a second. Max knew pressure. He knew what it felt like to have a parent’s heavy expectations dictating every move, turning a passion into a prison.

"You don't have to go back in right now," Max said, his voice dropping low, losing the abrasive edge it usually held for the press.

"Max, I can't just disappear."

"Yes, you can." He let go of her wrist, instead stepping into her line of sight to the door, effectively shielding her from anyone who might look out. "I've got the key to my driver's room. The couch is terrible, but it's soundproof. No cameras. No sponsors. Just ten minutes of absolute silence. You look like you're going to pass out if you smile one more time."

Y/N looked between Max’s fierce, protective stance and the glass door leading back to the flashing lights and suffocating expectations. She thought of Oscar, standing guard near the bar, giving her the quiet excuse to leave, and Max, standing in front of her, offering a literal escape route.

"Ten minutes," Y/N whispered, her voice cracking slightly under the weight of her own exhaustion.

Max’s expression softened, just for a fraction of a second. "Ten minutes," he agreed, gesturing toward the back stairwell. "Come on."

The descent from the Paddock Club to the ground floor was a blur of concrete stairs and service hallways. Max moved with practiced efficiency, taking the routes designed for drivers trying to dodge the media pen. He stayed half a step ahead of Y/N, his broad shoulders cutting a path through the lingering crew members until they reached the Red Bull motorhome.

When Max finally pushed open the door to his driver’s room and locked it behind them, the absolute silence of the space hit Y/N like a physical weight.

There was no clinking of crystal glasses, no camera shutters, no forced laughter. Just the low, steady hum of the air conditioning. Y/N exhaled a breath it felt like she had been holding since Thursday’s press conferences. She kicked off her heels without asking, her bare feet sinking into the utilitarian carpet as she collapsed onto the small, stiff sofa.

Max watched her from the center of the room. He didn't offer platitudes or ask if she was okay, because they both knew the answer. Instead, he reached into his duffel bag, pulled out a thick, oversized team hoodie, and tossed it to her.

"Put that on," Max ordered gruffly. "You're shivering."

"It's just the adrenaline leaving my system," Y/N murmured, though she gratefully pulled the heavy fabric over her head. The contrast of the dark blue cotton over her custom designer silk dress was ridiculous, but it smelled like motor oil, clean laundry, and him. It felt like armor.

Max grabbed a bottle of water from the mini-fridge and handed it to her before leaning against the edge of his massage table, crossing his arms. His blue eyes traced the exhaustion mapping her features.

"He’s suffocating you, Y/N." The bluntness was classic Max. No sugarcoating, no PR-approved phrasing.

Y/N stared at the water bottle in her hands. "It's the board, Max. Not just my father. If I don't play the game, they'll restructure the company and push me out entirely. I was born to do this."

"You weren't born to be a prop," Max shot back, his jaw tightening. "I know what it looks like when someone is pushing you until you break. If you let them, they will take everything until there is nothing of you left."

Before Y/N could process the raw, heavy truth in his voice, a sharp knock rapped against the door.

Max’s head snapped toward the sound, his posture instantly rigid. "I told my trainer I wasn't to be bothered," he muttered, stalking toward the door. He yanked it open just a fraction, ready to snap at whoever was on the other side.

Instead of a Red Bull staff member, Oscar Piastri stood in the hallway, looking entirely unfazed by Max’s lethal glare.

Oscar had his hands tucked casually into the pockets of his jeans. "Didn't think you'd be giving paddock tours on a Friday night, mate," he said, his voice mild and unbothered.

Max narrowed his eyes, instinctively shifting his weight to block Oscar’s view into the room. "What do you want, Piastri?"

"To return this." Oscar held up a small, glittering designer clutch. "She left it on the terrace. Figured you wouldn't want her mother’s PR assistant finding it and tracking her down."

Max hesitated, and in that brief second, Oscar effortlessly pushed the door open a few inches wider, his dark eyes instantly finding Y/N huddled on the couch in the oversized Red Bull hoodie. A flicker of something territorial flashed across Oscar's usually placid expression, but it was gone before it could fully register, replaced by quiet relief.

"How did you know we were here?" Max demanded, his voice low and defensive.

"I saw you both take the service stairs," Oscar replied calmly, finally looking back at Max. "And it's a good thing I did. Her dad cornered me by the bar three minutes later asking if I'd seen her."

Y/N’s head shot up, a spike of panic piercing through the calm she had just found. "What did you say?"

Oscar stepped fully into the room, gently pushing the door shut behind him until it clicked in the lock. He walked over, setting the clutch on the small table next to her.

"I told him you looked incredibly pale, complained of dizzy spells, and that I practically forced you to go to the FIA medical center for hydration," Oscar said smoothly. He looked down at her, his expression softening entirely. "It’s a nightmare to get clearance to go in there if you aren't team personnel. Your dad isn't going to try."

Max let out a short, incredulous breath, staring at the McLaren driver. "The medical center? That buys her maybe thirty minutes before they start making calls."

Oscar turned to face Max, the height difference negligible, the contrast in their energy stark. Max was all fire and defensive tension; Oscar was ice-cold strategy.

"Exactly," Oscar said, his tone perfectly even. "So she gets thirty minutes of peace, Max. Not ten."

The tension in the small room thickened, heavy and electric. Max and Oscar stared at each other, a silent, assessing standoff between two apex predators who suddenly realized they were guarding the same territory. Neither stepped back. Neither looked away.

Y/N pulled her knees to her chest under the oversized hoodie, watching the two drivers. For the first time all weekend, she didn't feel like a pawn on a chessboard. She felt safe.

The silence in the room stretched until it was wire-taut. Max’s jaw worked, his eyes locked on Oscar with the kind of predatory focus he usually reserved for turn one on a Sunday. Oscar merely held the gaze, his posture relaxed, though the slight tilt of his chin betrayed a stubbornness that matched Max’s own.

"You can stop sizing each other up," Y/N murmured from the couch, her voice muffled slightly by the collar of Max’s hoodie. "I don't have the energy to break up a fight."

The tension snapped. Max broke eye contact first, letting out a sharp, frustrated breath as he resumed pacing the narrow strip of floor between the massage table and the wall. Oscar let out a quiet exhale, his shoulders dropping as he moved to sit on the edge of the small coffee table, placing him just inches from Y/N's knees.

"Not fighting," Oscar said softly, his eyes scanning her face. "Just figuring out logistics. You have about twenty-two minutes left before the medical center excuse expires and your mother’s assistant starts tracking your phone."

Max stopped pacing. "Turn it off."

"Max, I can't just—"

"Turn it off, Y/N," Max repeated, stepping closer. The raw command in his voice wasn't aimed at her in anger, but in fierce, unyielding protection. "If they can't reach you, they can't control you. Just for tonight."

Y/N hesitated, her fingers trembling slightly as she reached for her phone resting inside the glittering clutch. The screen was already lit up with half a dozen missed calls. Before she could overthink the consequences, Oscar’s hand covered hers. His skin was warm, his grip steadying.

"I'll take the battery hit for you," Oscar offered casually. He took the phone from her shaking fingers, held down the power button, and tossed the lifeless device onto the counter. "Oops. Must have died. Tragic."

A short, genuine laugh punched out of Y/N’s chest, the sound surprising all three of them. Max’s rigid posture relaxed just a fraction at the sound of it. He stepped into the space beside Oscar, leaning against the edge of the coffee table. The two drivers were suddenly a united front, a barricade of muscle and team kit standing between her and the world outside the door.

"Okay, her phone is dead," Max said, all business now, his strategic mind taking over. "But she can't go back to her family’s hotel. Her dad will be waiting in the lobby with a PR brief for tomorrow."

"I have a room booked under my trainer's name," Oscar said smoothly, not looking up from where his thumb was absently tracing a soothing pattern against Y/N’s ankle, right where the strap of her heels had dug violently into her skin. "Different hotel. Totally off the grid from the title sponsors."

Max narrowed his eyes, processing the offer. He didn't like the idea of Oscar taking her away, but he couldn't deny the logic. Max's own hotel was heavily guarded, but also heavily monitored by media. "How do you get her out of the paddock? If she walks out in that dress, even with my hoodie on, someone will recognize her."

"I can take my rental car around to the service gate behind the Red Bull hospitality," Oscar suggested. "It bypasses the main turnstiles."

"No," Max countered instantly. "The service gate is swarming with Netflix crews right now. You take her through the McLaren garage. It's Friday night, half your mechanics are already at the pub. I'll take my Honda out the front gate and create a bottleneck at the media pen. They’ll all swarm my car looking for a quote about qualifying, and you drive her out the back while they're distracted."

Oscar looked up at Max, a slow, begrudging smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth. "Using yourself as bait, Verstappen? That's terribly noble of you."

"Shut up, Piastri," Max muttered, though there was no real venom in it. He looked down at Y/N, his blue eyes softening as they swept over her exhausted frame. "Does that work for you? You stay at Oscar’s shadow-room tonight. Tomorrow, we figure out the rest."

Y/N looked between them. Max, who was willing to throw himself to the media wolves just to buy her a clear exit. And Oscar, who was currently rubbing the ache out of her feet while quietly organizing a safe haven. The sheer weight of their combined care was terrifying, entirely foreign to a girl who was only ever valued for what she could provide.

"Why are you both doing this?" she whispered, her voice dangerously thick with unshed tears. "If my father finds out either of you helped me disappear, he could threaten your sponsorships. He’s ruthless."

Max reached out, his calloused fingers brushing a stray lock of hair behind her ear. The touch was impossibly gentle for a man who lived his life at two hundred miles an hour. "Let him try," Max said, his voice a low, dangerous rumble. "I don't care about the sponsors, Y/N."

Oscar’s hand slipped from her ankle, his fingers coming to rest lightly over her knee, anchoring her to the present. "Neither do I," Oscar added, his voice a quiet vow in the sterile room. "We care about you. Now, let's get you out of this cage."

The execution of the plan was ruthlessly efficient, a stark reminder that Y/N was currently in the hands of two men who made split-second, high-stakes decisions for a living.

Max handed her a spare Red Bull cap, pulling the brim down low over her eyes. He lingered for a fraction of a second, his hands resting heavy and warm on her shoulders.

"Keep your head down. Don't look at the cameras if there are any left," Max instructed, his thumb brushing against her collarbone in a fleeting, grounding touch. He looked over her head to Oscar. "Text me when she's behind a locked door."

"Drive safe, mate," Oscar replied smoothly, picking up his car keys. "Try not to run over any journalists."

Max gave a dark, amused scoff before slipping out the door. Two minutes later, Y/N and Oscar followed.

The walk through the back corridors of the paddock was a masterclass in stealth. Oscar moved with a quiet, unhurried confidence, instinctively positioning himself between Y/N and any wandering mechanics. They slipped through the darkened McLaren garage, the sleek, papaya-colored cars sleeping under their covers, entirely devoid of the glamorous chaos they represented in the daylight.

When they reached Oscar’s nondescript rental SUV in the back lot, he opened the passenger door for her, making sure she was completely shielded before shutting it silently.

As Oscar pulled out onto the perimeter road, heading for the service exit, Y/N caught a glimpse of the main gates through the trees. It was a circus of flashing lights and swarming bodies, entirely centered around Max’s Honda. Max had parked at a ridiculous angle, blocking half the exit, and was currently leaning against his hood, casually giving a Netflix crew the most monotonous, drawn-out answers about tire degradation conceivable.

"He really does have a flair for the dramatic," Oscar murmured from the driver's seat, a hint of genuine amusement in his voice.

"He's going to get fined for blocking the exit," Y/N said, a weak smile breaking through her exhaustion.

"Red Bull will pay it. Worth every penny." Oscar merged onto the dark, quiet highway, the chaotic glow of the circuit finally fading in the rearview mirror. "You can put the seat back. We've got a twenty-minute drive."

The silence in the car wasn't heavy like the silence in the VIP suite; it was expansive. Safe. Y/N leaned her head against the cool glass of the window, the steady hum of the tires against the asphalt lulling her into a state of hazy relief. By the time Oscar navigated into the underground parking garage of a modest, off-the-grid hotel, her eyelids were heavy.

Oscar handled the logistics flawlessly. They bypassed the lobby entirely, taking the service elevator straight to the top floor. He unlocked the door to a standard, unassuming suite—no crystal chandeliers, no sprawling terrace, just a quiet room with a large bed, a sofa, and heavy blackout curtains.

"Sanctuary," Oscar announced quietly, tossing the keycard onto the counter. "I'm ordering room service. What do you want?"

"Just tea," Y/N murmured, hovering awkwardly in the center of the room. The adrenaline had completely vanished, leaving behind an ache in her bones that felt impossibly deep. She reached up to pull the heavy hoodie over her head, intending to give it back, but realized underneath she was still trapped in the suffocating, corset-boned silk dress her mother had forced her into.

She reached around to her back, her fingers fumbling blindly with the hidden zipper. It was stuck, the delicate fabric caught in the tiny metal teeth. A frustrated, choked sound escaped her throat, a sudden wave of irrational tears prickling her eyes. It was just a zipper, but it felt like the last chain holding her to the cage.

"Hey. Stop. You're going to tear it, and then your mother will definitely execute us."

Oscar was there instantly. He gently swatted her hands away, stepping in close behind her. Y/N dropped her arms, her head falling forward in defeat.

"It's stuck," she whispered, her voice dangerously fragile. "I can't get it off."

"I've got it. Deep breath," Oscar said softly.

His knuckles brushed lightly against her spine as he worked the fabric free. There was no hesitation, no awkwardness—just the steady, methodical patience of a man who knew how to untangle a mess. With a quiet click, the zipper gave way, sliding smoothly down her back.

The corset loosened, and Y/N finally, truly breathed.

"Thank you," she breathed out, stepping forward and catching the dress before it slipped off her shoulders entirely.

"Bathroom is through there. Take your time. There's one of my clean t-shirts on the counter." Oscar stepped back, giving her space immediately. He picked up Max’s discarded hoodie from the armchair and held it out to her. "Keep this. It's colder in here than it is at the track."

When Y/N emerged from the bathroom twenty minutes later, the transformation was complete. The heiress was gone. Her face was scrubbed clean of the heavy, flawless makeup, her hair was tied up in a messy knot, and she was drowning in Oscar’s soft grey t-shirt and Max’s oversized blue hoodie.

Oscar was sitting on the floor, leaning against the base of the sofa, a pot of chamomile tea resting on the coffee table beside him. He looked up, his dark eyes tracking over her bare, scrubbed face and the drowning layers of their team gear. The corner of his mouth ticked upward into a soft, private smile.

"Better?" he asked.

Y/N walked over, sinking onto the floor right next to him instead of taking the couch. She pulled her knees to her chest, her shoulder brushing against his. "So much better."

Oscar poured her a cup of tea, sliding it toward her. Just then, his phone buzzed on the table. He glanced at the screen, and the soft smile widened.

"Max?" Y/N guessed, wrapping her hands around the warm mug.

"Yeah. He says the media finally let him leave. He wants to know if you're asleep yet." Oscar picked up the phone, his thumb hovering over the keyboard. He looked at her, his expression turning serious, yet incredibly warm. "He also wants to know if he should bring breakfast tomorrow before we figure out how to handle your family."

Y/N stared at the steaming tea. Tomorrow, the war with her family’s PR machine would begin. Tomorrow, the consequences of her disappearance would hit the paddock. But tonight, she was sitting on the floor of a shadow-room, wrapped in the protective layers of two men who were fully prepared to burn that machine to the ground for her.

"Tell him yes," Y/N said softly, leaning her head against Oscar’s shoulder. "Tell him to come over."

Oscar’s arm slipped naturally around her waist, anchoring her against his side as he typed out the reply. "Done."

-

The knock on the door came at 6:15 AM, a sharp, rhythmic rap that dragged Y/N out of a deep, dreamless sleep.

She blinked against the dim light of the hotel room. She was tangled in the sheets of the massive bed, still drowning in Oscar’s t-shirt and Max’s hoodie. The sofa was empty, but a neatly folded blanket sat on one end.

The door clicked open, and Y/N heard the low, gravelly sound of Max’s voice, followed immediately by Oscar’s quiet murmur. She pushed herself up, padding barefoot into the small living area just as Max set a cardboard tray of coffees and a white paper bag on the kitchen counter.

Max was in street clothes—dark jeans and a fitted black t-shirt, a Red Bull cap pulled low over his messy hair. He looked exhausted, the shadows under his eyes speaking of a restless night, but the moment he saw her, his entire posture shifted. His shoulders dropped, and his blue eyes swept over her, lingering for a heavy, satisfied second on the sight of her wearing his oversized team hoodie.

"You look better," Max stated. It wasn't a question. He picked up a cup of coffee and walked it over to her, pressing the warm cardboard into her hands. "Oat milk latte. Two sugars. Right?"

Y/N stared at the cup, her heart doing a strange, painful stutter. "How did you know my coffee order?"

"I pay attention," Max said simply, leaning against the back of the sofa. He didn't elaborate, but he didn't have to. The idea of Max Verstappen—ruthless, hyper-focused World Champion—quietly noting down her coffee preferences during crowded hospitality meetings was enough to make her breath catch.

Oscar emerged from the bathroom, fully dressed in his McLaren kit for the day, his hair slightly damp. He walked over to the counter, pulled a pastry from the bag, and tossed it onto a napkin before grabbing his own coffee. "Morning. How's the escapee?"

"Caffeinated, now," Y/N said, offering a small, fragile smile. She took a sip of the coffee. It was perfect.

But the domestic peace shattered exactly ten seconds later.

Oscar’s phone, resting face-up on the counter, lit up with a barrage of notifications. The buzzing was violent, relentless. Max’s phone in his pocket started vibrating simultaneously.

Oscar set his coffee down, his brow furrowing as he unlocked his screen. The quiet, relaxed aura around him evaporated instantly, replaced by a cold, sharp stillness.

"What is it?" Y/N asked, the coffee suddenly turning to ash in her mouth.

Oscar didn't answer. He just turned the phone around so she could see the screen. It was an alert from a major motorsport publication, but it had nothing to do with racing.

BREAKING: F1 Paddock Royalty to Wed. [Family Company] Heiress Y/N Engaged to Tech Billionaire Richard Vance in Mega-Merger.

Below the headline was a perfectly curated, PR-approved statement from her father, expressing his "overwhelming joy" at the union of their two families. There was a photo of her attached—one taken weeks ago, photoshopped to perfection, standing next to a man who looked at her like she was a shiny new acquisition for his portfolio.

The air in the room vanished.

"No," Y/N choked out, taking a step back. The mug trembled in her hands, coffee sloshing over the brim onto her fingers. "No, we hadn't—I never agreed. I told them no."

Max snatched the phone out of Oscar’s hand, his eyes scanning the article. A muscle feathered in his jaw, tight and dangerous. "He released it to the press to force your hand," Max realized, his voice a low, lethal snarl. "Because you disappeared last night. He's trying to trap you in the spotlight so you have to come back."

"If I deny it publicly, they'll pull my shares. They'll ruin my reputation, leak stories about my mental health, whatever it takes to protect the stock price," Y/N whispered, panic clawing at her throat. She looked between the two drivers, the reality of her gilded cage slamming shut around her. "You have to go."

Max’s head snapped up. "What?"

"You have Free Practice 3 in two hours, and Qualifying after that. If my father finds out I'm with you—if the media links you to this—he will drag your teams into a PR nightmare. He sponsors half the grid!" Y/N was rambling now, moving toward the bedroom to find her discarded clothes. "I have to go back. I have to play the part, or he'll destroy—"

"Stop."

Oscar moved faster than she expected. He caught her by the shoulders, his grip firm and entirely grounding, halting her frantic retreat.

"Breathe, Y/N," Oscar commanded softly, his dark eyes locking onto hers, anchoring her to the floor. "We aren't leaving. And you aren't going back there to smile for cameras next to a man you despise."

"Oscar, you don't understand how ruthless they are—"

"I don't care," Max interrupted, his voice cracking like a whip. He stalked over, invading her space, his chest practically brushing her back as he boxed her in with Oscar. "Let him try to ruin me. I drive cars fast, Y/N. I don't give a shit about corporate politics or your father's money. You are not marrying him."

The sheer ferocity in Max’s voice sent a shiver down her spine. He wasn't just protective; he was possessive, a raw, burning fire fighting the ice in her veins.

"We have time," Oscar said calmly, his thumbs rubbing soothing circles into her shoulders. "It's Saturday. The paddock is focused on Qualifying. You stay here today. Do not turn your phone on. Do not look at the news."

"And what happens tomorrow?" Y/N asked, a tear finally slipping hot and fast down her cheek. "I can't hide forever."

Max reached out, his rough thumb catching the tear before it could drop. The gentleness of the gesture was entirely at odds with the storm brewing in his eyes.

"Tomorrow, we win," Max said, his gaze flicking briefly to Oscar, a silent, ironclad agreement passing between the two rivals. "We handle the track today. You rest. And tonight, we figure out how to blow up your father’s empire."

The hours stretching between morning and evening were agonizingly slow. Y/N paced the length of the hotel suite, the heavy silence of the room pressing in on her. She had kept the television off for most of the day, terrified of seeing her own face plastered across the news networks alongside a man she loathed.

But when the clock struck three, she couldn't help herself. She found the remote and switched on the feed for Qualifying.

The broadcast immediately cut to the Red Bull garage. And there, standing behind the engineers, looking immaculate and furiously impatient, was her father. The commentators were already buzzing about the "wedding of the decade," casually mentioning that the bride-to-be was entirely absent from the paddock today due to a "minor illness."

Y/N felt physically sick. She watched as Max strapped into his car, his visor snapping down, hiding his eyes.

When the session started, it was brutally clear that Max was driving with a lethal, barely contained rage. He didn't just clip the apexes; he punished them. His RB21 looked like it was glued to the track, defying physics, setting purple sectors that made the commentators gasp.

Oscar, on the other hand, drove with terrifying, surgical precision. Where Max was a sledgehammer, Oscar was a scalpel. He carved through the circuit, unfazed by the traffic, entirely immune to the chaos unfolding in the garages.

They locked out the front row. Max P1. Oscar P2.

When Max climbed out of his car in parc fermé, the trackside reporter immediately shoved a microphone in his face. Y/N held her breath.

"Max, incredible lap! Your title sponsor's CEO is in the garage today celebrating a massive family milestone—any words on the big engagement?"

Max ripped his balaclava off, his chest heaving, his blue eyes instantly locking onto the camera lens. It felt as though he was looking straight through the screen, directly into the hotel room.

"I don't care about PR stunts," Max said, his voice cold and abrasive. "I'm here to race. The people who matter know where I stand." He shoved past the reporter without waiting for a follow-up, leaving a stunned silence in his wake.

A few meters away, Oscar was approached with a similar question. He smiled, a tight, polite expression that didn't reach his eyes. "I think the only commitments that matter this weekend are the ones made on the track. Excuse me."

Y/N let out a shaky breath, collapsing back onto the sofa. They were daring her father to retaliate. They were drawing the fire away from her and onto themselves.

It was nearly 8:00 PM when the hotel door finally clicked open.

The heavy, metallic smell of adrenaline, sweat, and champagne immediately filled the small suite. Max and Oscar stepped inside, looking utterly exhausted.

Y/N was waiting for them at the small dining table, an open hotel notepad in front of her. She had spent the last four hours tearing apart her family’s corporate structure in her head. The panic from the morning had burned away, leaving behind a cold, sharp clarity.

Max dropped his helmet on the floor and crossed the room in three massive strides. He didn't say a word, just pulled her up from the chair and wrapped his arms tightly around her. The embrace was crushing, possessive, and exactly what she needed. Y/N buried her face in his shoulder, gripping the fabric of his race suit.

"We saw him in the paddock," Max rumbled against her hair. "He looked like he wanted to murder someone."

"Let him," Oscar said quietly, walking over. He didn't join the hug, but his hand came up to rest on the back of Y/N’s neck, his thumb stroking the sensitive skin right at her hairline. The dual contact—Max’s overwhelming heat and Oscar’s steadying touch—anchored her completely.

Y/N pulled back just enough to look at both of them. "You two are going to get fired. Or fined. Or both. Did you hear your own interviews?"

"I meant every word," Max said stubbornly, his hands dropping to her waist, keeping her close.

"McLaren pays my fines," Oscar added with a dry smirk, his hand sliding from her neck to rest on her shoulder. He looked down at the notepad on the table, his eyes narrowing slightly at the frantic, scribbled diagrams. "What's this?"

Y/N took a deep breath, stepping back to gesture at the paper. "It's my way out. You said we were going to blow up his empire tonight. I figured out how."

Max leaned against the table, crossing his arms, all his attention zeroed in on her. "I'm listening."

"My father controls the board because he holds a 40% majority," Y/N explained, her voice steadying as the plan took shape out loud. "I have 12% in a trust that fully vested on my last birthday. He thinks I’m too afraid of the family name to ever use it against him. But if I vote my shares with the minority stakeholders—who hate this tech merger, by the way—we can block the acquisition. The engagement becomes completely useless to him."

Oscar picked up the notepad, studying her frantic math. "You have the voting power to override the CEO."

"Yes," Y/N said. "But to do it, I have to go public. I can't just quietly break the engagement. I have to humiliate him in front of the exact people he’s trying to impress. I have to call a press conference and detonate the whole thing."

Max stared at her, his blue eyes darkening with a mixture of immense pride and something far more dangerous. He reached out, tracing the line of her jaw with his knuckles. "You’re going to war with them."

"I am," Y/N whispered, leaning into his touch. "But I don't know how to get a microphone tomorrow without his security shutting it down."

Oscar set the notepad down. He looked at Max, the same silent, strategic communication passing between them that had happened the night before in the Red Bull driver's room.

"They won't shut it down if you're holding the microphone in the FIA media pen," Oscar said slowly, a brilliant, ruthless plan forming in his eyes.

"Only drivers and team principals are allowed in the pen," Y/N pointed out.

Max let out a low, dark chuckle. He reached out, grabbing Oscar by the shoulder in a rare display of complete camaraderie. "Not if she walks in on the arm of the race winner. The FIA won't dare drag her out on live television if she's standing between P1 and P2."

Y/N's breath caught. "You want to smuggle me into the post-race press conference?"

"We are going to walk you through the front door," Oscar corrected softly. He stepped closer, closing the small triangle between the three of them. His dark eyes were fierce, stripping away his usual calm facade to reveal the iron beneath. "You wear the team gear. You walk in with us. And you burn his absolute house down."

Sunday morning dawned with the heavy, electric tension that only race day could bring.

The hotel suite was quiet, save for the hum of the air conditioning. Y/N stood by the window, watching the distant grandstands filling up with a sea of fans. She had swapped the oversized hoodies for something completely different: a sharp, tailored black blazer and matching trousers she had requested Oscar’s trainer smuggle out of her apartment. It was armor. She wasn't going into the paddock as a lost heiress in a silk dress; she was going in as a majority shareholder.

A warm hand settled on the small of her back, the thumb tracing the line of her spine through the blazer.

"Nervous?" Oscar’s voice was a low, soothing hum near her ear. He was wearing the team's jersey and blue jeans.

"Terrified," Y/N admitted, leaning back slightly against his chest. "If I miscalculate this, my father will freeze my assets and have me escorted out by security before I even open my mouth."

"He won't get close enough to try," Max said, walking into the living area. He was tossing an FIA VIP All-Access lanyard between his hands. It wasn't one of her father's heavily branded corporate passes; it was a personal guest pass. Max Verstappen - Guest 1.

Max stepped up to her, slipping the lanyard over her head. He didn't let go of the thick fabric strap right away, using it to pull her just a fraction closer. His blue eyes traced her sharp, commanding outfit, a slow, predatory smile spreading across his face.

"You look dangerous," Max murmured approvingly.

"I feel like I'm about to jump out of a plane without a parachute," Y/N breathed, her hands resting lightly on his chest.

Oscar stepped to her other side, his hand sliding down her arm to briefly intertwine his fingers with hers. "You aren't jumping alone. My trainer is going to bring you to the paddock entrance with ten laps to go. You wait in the FIA hospitality suite—it’s neutral ground, your dad's people can't get in there. When the checkered flag drops, we meet you at the entrance to the media pen."

Max leaned down, pressing a hard, lingering kiss to her forehead. "We'll see you at the finish line."

Watching the race from the sterile quiet of the FIA hospitality suite was torture.

Y/N stared at the television monitors, her heart hammering against her ribs. The commentators were shouting themselves hoarse. Max and Oscar had pulled away from the rest of the grid by lap twenty, turning the Grand Prix into a two-man war of attrition. They traded fastest laps, their cars dancing on the absolute edge of grip. It was a terrifying, beautiful display of synchronized aggression.

They weren't just driving to win. They were driving to make a statement.

On lap 70, the checkered flag waved. Max crossed the line first, Oscar a mere six-tenths of a second behind him.

Y/N didn't wait to watch the cool-down lap. She stood up, her pulse deafening in her ears, and walked out the door.

The corridor leading to the media pen was chaotic, thick with mechanics, PR reps, and journalists preparing for the top-three interviews. Y/N stayed back in the shadows, pulling the brim of Max's spare Red Bull cap low over her eyes. She watched the monitors as Max and Oscar completed the podium ceremony. They barely sprayed the champagne, their faces set in grim, singular focus before they abandoned the podium entirely.

Five minutes later, the double doors at the end of the hall banged open.

Max and Oscar strode through, still in their sweat-soaked race suits, helmets dangling from their hands. The energy radiating off them was lethal. The crowd of journalists naturally parted, intimidated by the sheer intensity of the 1-2 finishers walking side-by-side.

Max’s eyes scanned the corridor, snapping to Y/N instantly. He didn't smile, but his jaw unclenched. Oscar met her gaze a second later, a subtle nod of his head signaling the start.

Y/N stepped out of the shadows.

The moment she joined them, the air in the corridor seemed to ignite. Murmurs ripped through the crowd. Y/N stepped perfectly into the space between the two drivers. Max immediately placed a heavy, grounding hand on her lower back, while Oscar stepped half a pace ahead, boxing her in from the flashing cameras.

They walked into the media pen as a united, impenetrable front.

The trackside reporter, microphone in hand, gaped at them. "Max, Oscar—congratulations. And... Y/N, we didn't expect to see you here today, especially after yesterday's incredible engagement announcement—"

"Stop," Max ordered, his voice echoing off the temporary walls. The entire pen went dead silent.

Before the reporter could recover, a furious shout broke through the crowd. "Y/N!"

Her father pushed his way to the front of the barricade, his face purple with rage. He was flanked by two massive corporate security guards. "What do you think you are doing? Get over here immediately. This is a PR disaster!"

Y/N froze, the ingrained terror of her father's voice paralyzing her lungs. But Max didn't flinch. He stepped directly in front of her, his broad shoulders completely obscuring her from her father’s line of sight.

"Take another step toward her," Max challenged, his voice dangerously soft, "and we’ll see how fast paddock security tackles a title sponsor."

"She is my daughter and the future wife of—"

"Actually," Y/N said, her voice cutting through the thick tension.

She stepped out from behind Max. Her hands were shaking, but she forced her chin up. Oscar moved subtly to her side, his arm brushing hers, a silent reminder that she was anchored.

Y/N reached out and pulled the live microphone from the stunned reporter’s hand. She looked directly into the primary broadcast camera, broadcasting to millions of viewers worldwide.

"There is no engagement," Y/N stated, her voice ringing out clear and cold. "The announcement yesterday was fabricated by my father and the board of directors to force a corporate merger without my consent."

Her father lunged forward against the barricade. "Cut the feed! Cut the damn feed!" he screamed at the cameramen. Nobody moved.

"Furthermore," Y/N continued, her eyes shifting to meet her father’s furious gaze, "as a vested 12% shareholder of the company, I am officially aligning my voting rights with the minority stakeholders. The merger with Vance Tech is blocked. The acquisition is dead."

The media pen erupted. Dozens of journalists started shouting questions, camera flashes exploding in a blinding strobe effect.

Her father stared at her, utterly ruined, the realization setting in that the daughter he had treated as a prop had just publicly dismantled his life's work in under sixty seconds.

Y/N didn't wait for the questions. She handed the microphone back to the reporter, her hands finally steady. She turned back to Max and Oscar, the crushing weight of twenty-four years of expectations completely gone from her shoulders.

Max’s eyes were practically glowing with pride. He didn't care about the cameras, the journalists, or the screaming CEO behind the barricade. He reached out, grabbing the lapels of her blazer, and pulled her in, kissing her hard and breathless in front of the entire Formula 1 world.

When Max finally pulled back, Oscar was waiting. He smiled—a brilliant, genuine, unfiltered smile—and took her hand, lacing his fingers tightly through hers.

"Ready to go home?" Oscar asked quietly, ignoring the absolute pandemonium erupting around them.

"Yeah," Y/N breathed, squeezing his hand. "Take me home."

-

The air in the glass-walled London boardroom was sterile, cold, and thick with open hostility.

It was month four of the corporate war, and Y/N was exhausted. She sat at the center of the massive mahogany table, a mountain of legal documents in front of her. For the past three hours, her father and his loyalist board members had been systematically trying to dismantle her coalition of minority shareholders through intimidation, legal loopholes, and sheer volume.

"You are acting on emotion, Y/N," her father said, his voice laced with that familiar, patronizing edge designed to make her feel like a child. He leaned forward, bracing his hands on the table. "You are tanking the stock price with this rebellion. The Vance Tech merger is the only logical path forward. If you force this vote today, you will bankrupt the very legacy you claim to be protecting."

A few of the older board members murmured in agreement, their eyes darting nervously between Y/N and the furious CEO.

Y/N kept her face perfectly neutral, but under the table, her hands were trembling. Her father was good at this. He was twisting the narrative, making the minority shareholders doubt their alliance with her. She had the votes on paper, but if he managed to flip just two of them in this room, she would lose everything.

She opened her mouth to counter his financial projections, but before she could speak, the heavy glass doors of the boardroom swung open.

The security guard at the door sputtered, trying to step in the way. "Sirs, you can't go in there, this is a closed—"

"Move," a low, gravelly voice commanded.

The entire room went dead silent as Max Verstappen and Oscar Piastri walked in.

They weren't in team gear. Max wore a tailored black button-down, sleeves rolled up over his forearms, looking every inch a man accustomed to commanding a room. Oscar was in a sharp, dark navy suit, devoid of a tie, radiating an icy, untouchable calm.

"What is the meaning of this?" Y/N’s father demanded, his face turning an alarming shade of purple. He pointed a shaking finger at them. "Security! Remove them immediately. This is a private executive board meeting!"

Max didn't even look at her father. He walked straight past the billionaire executives, pulled out the empty leather chair directly to Y/N’s right, and sat down. He slouched back comfortably, crossing his arms over his chest, and finally leveled a dark, predatory glare at the CEO.

"Try it," Max challenged softly, his voice echoing in the quiet room.

The security guard nervously hovered at the door, took one look at Max’s lethal expression, and quietly stepped backward into the hallway, letting the door click shut.

Oscar, meanwhile, walked to Y/N’s left. He didn't sit. He stood just behind her chair, a silent, immovable sentinel. He reached across the table, picked up the crystal pitcher of ice water, and poured a fresh glass, setting it gently near Y/N’s right hand.

"Sorry we're late," Oscar murmured to her, completely ignoring the fifteen stunned executives staring at him. "Traffic on the M4."

Y/N let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. The trembling in her hands stopped instantly. The crushing, suffocating pressure of the room completely evaporated, absorbed by the two men who thrived under pressure on a global stage.

Her father slammed his hand on the table. "I will not have my boardroom turned into a circus by two racing drivers! Y/N, tell your... distractions to leave, or I will have the police escort them out."

Y/N picked up the glass of water Oscar had poured. She took a slow sip, enjoying the absolute, horrified silence of the room. When she set the glass down, the heiress was gone. The Chairperson had arrived.

"They are my guests," Y/N said, her voice ringing out clear, cold, and dripping with authority. "And as the majority voting bloc of this company, I decide who sits in this room."

She looked around the table, locking eyes with the wavering minority shareholders. With Max sitting beside her like a loaded weapon and Oscar standing behind her like a shield, the power dynamic in the room entirely inverted. Her father suddenly just looked like an angry, desperate old man.

"Let's be clear about the Vance Tech merger," Y/N continued, pulling a sleek black folder from her stack of documents and tossing it to the center of the table. "That merger wasn't designed to save the company; it was designed to liquidate our R&D department to cover my father's personal offshore debts. The proof is on page four."

The boardroom erupted into chaos. Executives lunged for the folder, papers tearing as the minority shareholders finally saw the unredacted financials her team had spent months digging up.

Her father stared at her, the color draining from his face. "You... you stole confidential files."

"I audited my own company," Y/N corrected coldly. She didn't break eye contact with him. "Call the vote."

Ten minutes later, it was over.

The vote was a landslide. The merger was killed, and a secondary motion to remove the CEO for gross financial misconduct was passed with a terrifying swiftness.

As the executives scrambled out of the room to call their lawyers and PR teams, her father stood frozen at the head of the table. He looked from Y/N, to Oscar, and finally to Max. He opened his mouth to speak, to hurl one last threat, but Max simply leaned forward, resting his forearms on the mahogany table.

"I think your meeting is over," Max stated, his tone devoid of any emotion, which somehow made it infinitely more terrifying.

Her father swallowed hard, turned on his heel, and walked out.

When the glass doors finally clicked shut behind the last executive, leaving the three of them alone in the massive room, the adrenaline suddenly vanished, leaving Y/N completely hollowed out. She dropped her face into her hands, letting out a long, shaky breath.

"It's done," she whispered into the quiet room. "It's actually done."

Max was out of his chair in a second. He crouched down next to her, gently prying her hands away from her face. His thumbs brushed over her cheekbones, his fierce, blue eyes searching her face to make sure she wasn't breaking.

"You destroyed them," Max said, a fiercely proud smile finally breaking through his serious expression. "You didn't even flinch."

Oscar stepped around the chair, resting a hand softly on top of Y/N’s head, threading his fingers through her hair. "You were terrifying. I think the CFO actually cried."

Y/N let out a wet, exhausted laugh, leaning her head against Max’s shoulder while Oscar’s hand anchored her from above. She looked between the two of them, the men who had flown halfway across Europe on a Tuesday between race weekends just to sit silently in a room so she wouldn't have to face her demons alone.

"Thank you," Y/N breathed, wrapping one hand into the fabric of Max's shirt and reaching up with the other to grip Oscar's wrist. "For showing up."

"Always," Oscar promised quietly.

Max pressed a kiss to her temple, pulling her up from the chair. "Come on, Chairperson. Let's get out of London. I know a place in Monaco that delivers terrible takeout."

-

The fallout from the media pen was apocalyptic, but for the first time in her life, Y/N didn’t care.

Walking out of the paddock that Sunday, flanked by Max and Oscar, felt like walking out of a burning building. They didn’t look back. Her father’s PR machine scrambled to do damage control, the board of directors convened in emergency sessions, and the global media lost their collective minds over the love triangle that had just hijacked the Formula 1 World Championship.

But behind the locked doors of Max’s Monaco apartment, the three of them simply shut off their phones, ordered terrible takeout, and finally breathed.

The corporate war took six brutal months. Y/N leveraged her shares, rallied the minority stakeholders, and ruthlessly ousted her father from the CEO position. She didn't destroy the company; she took it over. She restructured the board, tore up the toxic sponsor mandates, and rebuilt the empire on her own terms. Max and Oscar were her unwavering anchors through every vicious legal battle and grueling boardroom standoff. When she was too exhausted to fight, Max gave her his fire. When she was too overwhelmed to think, Oscar gave her his ice.

They didn't conform to anyone's expectations. They just existed, perfectly balanced, fiercely protective of the sanctuary they had built together.

One Year Later

The roar of the engines vibrating through the grid was deafening, a physical force that rattled the ribcage. The Mediterranean sun beat down on the asphalt, and the paddock was a chaotic sea of VIPs, mechanics, and flashing cameras.

It was the exact same environment that had once been Y/N’s gilded cage. Now, it was just her playground.

Y/N stood at the back of the Red Bull garage, a clipboard tucked under her arm. She wasn't wearing a suffocating designer silk dress or agonizing heels. She wore a sharp, tailored black jumpsuit, comfortable sneakers, and draped casually over her shoulders was a bright papaya McLaren team jacket. Resting against her collarbone, catching the light, was a thick gold chain carrying a small, diamond-encrusted lion pendant—a gift Max had secured around her neck before they left the apartment that morning.

She was the youngest acting Chairperson in her company’s history, the lead sponsor for half the grid, and the most untouchable woman in motorsport.

"You're supposed to be pretending to be impartial, you know."

Y/N looked up from her notes. Oscar was leaning against the engineering bulkhead, his race suit tied around his waist, an easy, fond smirk playing on his lips.

"I am entirely impartial," Y/N replied, stepping forward and adjusting the collar of the McLaren jacket she had stolen from his driver’s room an hour ago.

"Right. That's why you're standing in the Red Bull garage wearing my clothes," Oscar teased quietly. He reached out, his fingers brushing a stray lock of hair behind her ear. His touch was as grounding as ever, a quiet harbor in the middle of the grid's madness. "How were the sponsor meetings?"

"Boring. But short," Y/N smiled, leaning into his hand. "Nobody argues with me anymore. It’s wonderfully refreshing."

Before Oscar could reply, a heavy presence stepped up behind Y/N. A familiar, calloused hand wrapped around her waist, pulling her flush against a firm chest clad in dark blue fireproofs.

"She's wearing your jacket because it's cold in the paddock," Max muttered, resting his chin briefly on top of Y/N's head as he glared playfully at the McLaren driver. "But she's standing in my garage because I qualify faster."

Oscar let out a dry, genuine laugh. "Keep telling yourself that, mate. Let's see who's faster into turn one."

Max grinned, a feral, competitive spark lighting up his blue eyes. He turned his attention down to Y/N, his expression instantly softening into something impossibly warm and exclusively hers. He pressed a kiss to the side of her head, entirely unbothered by the Netflix cameras lingering twenty feet away. The media had spent months trying to dissect their dynamic, trying to figure out who was the "real" partner, before finally giving up. The truth was too undeniable to twist: they were a unit. A closed circuit.

"Five minutes to track clearance," Max murmured, his thumb stroking her hip. "Will you be on the pit wall?"

"For the first half," Y/N promised, turning her head to press a quick kiss to his jaw. "Then I'm walking over to McLaren for the second half. Try not to run each other off the road while I'm in transit, please."

"No promises," Oscar and Max said in unison.

They shared a look—the same silent, ironclad understanding that had forged their alliance a year ago in a sterile driver’s room. They were rivals on the asphalt, ruthless and unyielding, but the moment they stepped out of the cars, they belonged to the same girl.

Max squeezed her waist one last time before pulling his balaclava over his head and stepping out toward the car. Oscar gave her a soft, lingering smile, his knuckles brushing against her cheek.

"See you at the podium," Oscar promised quietly, turning to head back down the pit lane to his own garage.

Y/N stood alone at the edge of the garage as the cars fired up, the deafening scream of the engines drowning out the paddock chatter. The cameras flashed, capturing her standing exactly where she wanted to be, wearing the colors of the two men she loved, entirely unbothered by the noise.

She looked out at the glittering Monaco harbor, taking a deep, unrestricted breath.

The cage was gone. She held the keys now.

-

The Monaco apartment was usually just a high-end storage unit for their luggage between race weekends. But on a rare, rainy Tuesday in October, it was a sanctuary.

Outside, the Mediterranean was swallowed by a heavy, grey storm, rain lashing against the floor-to-ceiling windows. Inside, the sleek, obscenely expensive kitchen was currently the site of a logistical nightmare.

Y/N had made a fatal error: she had suggested they cook dinner instead of ordering in.

"I'm just saying, it’s rice," Max grumbled, leaning heavily over the marble island. He was holding a wooden spoon like it was a steering wheel, staring aggressively into a simmering steel pan. "If I turn the heat up, it cooks faster. That is basic science."

"It's risotto, Max, not a qualifying lap," Oscar corrected smoothly from the other side of the island.

Oscar was wearing a dark grey apron over his t-shirt, completely unbothered by the kitchen chaos. He was currently mincing garlic with terrifying, surgical precision, the knife rocking back and forth in a perfect, rhythmic cadence. "If you turn the heat up, you burn the arborio, ruin the starch release, and we end up eating crunchy garlic paste."

"You have been adding broth for twenty minutes," Max argued, running a frustrated hand through his messy hair. He abandoned the stove, walking over to where Y/N was perched on the edge of the kitchen counter.

Max wedged himself directly between her knees, wrapping his arms around her waist and resting his chin heavily on her chest with a dramatic groan. "He is torturing me on purpose."

Y/N laughed, resting one hand on the back of Max’s neck, her fingers tangling in the soft hair at his nape. With her other hand, she took a sip of her red wine. "Oscar is following the recipe. You are trying to bully the rice into submitting to your will. They require different strategies."

"My strategy is faster," Max muttered into her collarbone, his breath warm against her skin. He didn't move, entirely content to use her as a human shield against culinary responsibility.

Oscar paused his chopping, picking up a small spoonful of the simmering risotto. He walked around the island, bypassing Max entirely, and held the wooden spoon up to Y/N’s lips.

"Taste test," Oscar murmured, his dark eyes locking onto hers, completely ignoring the World Champion currently clinging to her waist.

Y/N leaned forward and tasted it. The rich, savory warmth of parmesan and white wine hit her tongue perfectly. She closed her eyes, letting out a soft hum of approval. "That’s actually incredible."

"See?" Oscar said mildly, reaching out with his free hand to wipe a microscopic drop of broth from the corner of her mouth with his thumb. "Patience yields results."

Max turned his head just enough to glare at the McLaren driver. "Give me that."

Oscar obliged, holding the spoon out. Max took a reluctant taste, chewing slowly. His eyes narrowed as he realized it was, in fact, perfect.

"Fine," Max conceded begrudgingly. "But I’m taking credit for the stirring. The stirring was crucial."

"You stirred it like you were trying to dig a hole through the bottom of the pan," Oscar pointed out drily, turning back to the stove to turn off the heat. "But sure. Team effort."

The three of them ended up abandoning the formal dining table entirely. Instead, they dragged a mountain of throw pillows and thick blankets onto the rug in the living room, sitting on the floor with their bowls of risotto, the rain hammering against the glass walls of the apartment.

Y/N sat cross-legged, leaning sideways against Oscar’s shoulder. Max was stretched out on his back, his head resting squarely in Y/N’s lap, perfectly content to let her feed him a bite from her bowl every few minutes while he stared up at the ceiling.

"We leave for Austin on Monday," Max noted quietly, the tension of the impending race week creeping slowly into his voice. The final stretch of the season was always brutal.

Y/N trailed her fingers lightly across Max’s forehead, smoothing out the tiny crease forming between his brows. "Monday is a long time from now. Tonight, we just exist here."

Oscar shifted slightly, wrapping his arm around Y/N’s back and pulling her closer to his side, effectively anchoring both her and Max to the present moment. He rested his chin on the top of her head.

"No press, no sponsors, no track limits," Oscar murmured into her hair, his voice a low, steady rumble that vibrated against her shoulder. "Just us."

Max turned his face slightly, pressing a soft, lingering kiss to the inside of Y/N’s wrist where it rested near his jaw. He closed his eyes, leaning fully into the quiet sanctuary they had built.

"Just us," Max echoed softly.

-

The flight from Monaco to Austin was nine hours of pressurized cabin air and shifting time zones. By the time they unlocked the door to their secluded rental property in the Texas hills, the clock read 10:00 PM local time, but their bodies were stubbornly protesting that it was 5:00 AM.

The house was dark, quiet, and smelled faintly of cedar and dry Texas air.

"I am completely dead," Max announced, his voice a gravelly, sand-papered rasp. He didn't even drop his heavy duffel bag; he just unclipped it and let it fall straight onto the hardwood floor of the entryway.

He moved like a zombie toward the sprawling master bedroom, collapsing face-down across the massive king-sized bed without even removing his sneakers.

Oscar, carrying Y/N’s smaller rolling suitcase along with his own, walked into the kitchen with the slow, methodical stride of someone operating on autopilot. He set the luggage down, walked over to the fridge, and opened it. The light illuminated the exhaustion etched deep into the shadows under his eyes.

"The team stocked it," Oscar muttered, his usual sharp cadence slowed down by the jet lag. "There’s milk, eggs, and... three different types of locally brewed IPA that Max will definitely try to drink before FP1."

Y/N walked up behind him, her limbs feeling like lead weights. She didn't say anything, she just leaned her forehead directly against the center of Oscar’s back, letting her arms loop loosely around his waist.

Oscar didn't move. He just let out a long, slow exhale, his hands resting on the edge of the refrigerator door as he leaned back into her weight, anchoring her. "We should sleep," he murmured into the cold air of the fridge.

"Max is already unconscious," Y/N mumbled against the fabric of his shirt. "I think he’s wearing his shoes."

Oscar let out a quiet, breathless chuckle. He turned around within the circle of her arms, closing the fridge door and plunging the kitchen back into the soft, ambient glow of the outdoor landscape lights. He reached down, his hands cupping the back of her thighs, and effortlessly lifted her up to sit on the edge of the kitchen counter.

Y/N wrapped her legs around his waist out of habit, her hands sliding up to grip his shoulders.

Oscar stepped in close, burying his face in the crook of her neck. He didn't say anything for a long time, just breathed her in, his hands sliding up her back to hold her tight against him. In the quiet, dark kitchen, away from the paddock turnstiles and the corporate contracts, the silence was expansive.

"Come here," a low, demanding rumble echoed from the bedroom doorway.

They both looked over. Max was leaning against the doorframe, looking utterly disheveled. His hair was standing up in three different directions, his eyes were half-lidded with sleep, and he had managed to kick his shoes off, but he was still wearing his dark jeans and a rumpled t-shirt.

"You're both vibrating," Max muttered, his bluntness amplified by his exhaustion. He walked over, his heavy steps silent on the rug, and wedged himself into the space right next to Oscar, his large hands immediately reaching out to grip Y/N’s hips. "Stop thinking about the data. Stop thinking about the board. Come to bed."

Y/N smiled, reaching out to tangle her fingers in Max’s chaotic hair, smoothing it down. "We're coming, Max."

Ten minutes later, the lights in the Texas villa were completely out.

The bed was a massive, tangled sea of white sheets and heavy blankets. Y/N was stuck directly in the middle. Max had claimed her left side, one of his heavy, calloused legs thrown completely over hers, his arm wrapped possessively around her waist as if making sure she couldn't escape into the night. His breathing was already deep and even, a heavy, rhythmic anchor.

Oscar was on her right, pulled in close enough that his chest was pressed against her shoulder. He wasn't as heavy as Max, but he was immovable. His hand was slid beneath the small of her back, his fingers tracing slow, abstract shapes against her skin through her t-shirt, a quiet, soothing pattern that systematically turned off the remaining static in her brain.

Y/N looked up at the ceiling, listening to the synchronized breathing of the two men holding her captive in the dark.

Tomorrow, the Texas heat would hit. Tomorrow, the Austin circuit would swarm with hundreds of thousands of fans, flashing cameras, and the relentless pressure of the championship fight. Max and Oscar would become rivals again, fighting for inches at two hundred miles an hour.

But tonight, in the quiet dark of the hill country, they were just three people who had successfully stolen their lives back from the world.

Y/N closed her eyes, turning her face into Oscar’s shoulder while Max’s grip tightened imperceptibly around her waist, and finally drifted off to sleep.

Thursday media day at the Circuit of the Americas was always a special kind of chaos.

The Texas sun beat down relentlessly on the asphalt, turning the paddock into a sweltering oven. The air was thick with humidity, the smell of barbecue from the hospitality suites, and the electric buzz of American fans who brought a completely different, wilder energy to the sport.

Y/N navigated the crowded paddock with effortless authority. She was dressed for the brutal heat in a tailored, lightweight cream linen vest and matching trousers, looking every inch the untouchable Chairperson of a global conglomerate. But the sharp corporate edge was softened by the details: she was wearing Max’s favorite pair of dark aviators, and strapped to her wrist was Oscar’s spare Richard Mille watch, the oversized face sliding down her forearm.

She had just wrapped up a highly successful meeting with the circuit promoters and was making her way back toward the center of the paddock when a rogue Drive to Survive camera crew intercepted her path.

"Madame Chairperson!" the producer called out, motioning for the boom mic operator to step in. "A quick question for the fans? The championship fight is coming down to the wire between Red Bull and McLaren. Who exactly are you rooting for this weekend?"

It was a trap of a question, designed to manufacture drama. A year ago, a microphone in her face would have sent her into a spiral of anxiety, terrified of saying the wrong thing and invoking her father's wrath.

Today, Y/N simply stopped, lowered the dark aviators down the bridge of her nose, and offered a cool, entirely unbothered smile.

"I am rooting for an excellent return on investment for my shareholders," Y/N replied smoothly, not missing a beat. "And as my company sponsors both teams, I think I'm guaranteed a win either way. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a strategy briefing to attend."

She slipped her sunglasses back up and stepped around the crew, leaving them scrambling for a follow-up.

A low, familiar chuckle sounded from the shaded awning of the Red Bull hospitality suite to her left.

Max was leaning against the barrier, dressed in his dark blue shorts and a Red Bull polo. He had a white towel draped around his neck against the heat, and he was watching her with that dark, intensely proud expression that always made her pulse skip a beat.

"Very diplomatic, Madame Chairperson

"I try," Y/N smiled, stepping into the shade.

Before she could say another word, Max reached out and unapologetically dropped a massive, woven cowboy hat onto her head. It sank down, completely messing up her carefully styled hair and shielding half her face.

Y/N pushed the brim up, glaring playfully at the World Champion. "Really, Max?"

"It suits you," Max grinned, a feral, boyish spark in his eyes. He stepped into her space, entirely ignoring the cameras clicking a few yards away. He wrapped a heavy hand around the back of her neck, his thumb stroking her skin just beneath the collar of her linen vest, and leaned in to press a lingering, unapologetic kiss to her mouth.

It was still surreal to the paddock—the ruthlessly private Max Verstappen openly displaying affection in the middle of a race weekend. But he didn't care. He had almost lost her to a corporate cage, and he was never going to pretend she wasn't his again.

"You're going to get sweat on her suit, mate," a calm, dry voice interrupted.

Max pulled back just a fraction, keeping his hand firmly on the back of Y/N’s neck, and looked over her shoulder.

Oscar was strolling up the paddock path, looking entirely unbothered by the Texas heat in his papaya kit. He was holding two iced coffees, the condensation dripping down the plastic cups. He walked directly into the Red Bull awning, entirely ignoring the confused looks of the Red Bull PR team, and handed one of the cups to Y/N.

"Thank you," Y/N breathed, wrapping her hands around the freezing plastic. She took a long sip, the caffeine and ice immediately reviving her.

Oscar reached out and adjusted the ridiculous cowboy hat on her head, tilting it back so he could actually see her eyes. "Good meeting?"

"Excellent," Y/N said, leaning her shoulder casually against his chest. "I terrified three different marketing executives."

"That's my girl," Oscar murmured softly, his dark eyes flashing with quiet pride. He looked at Max, the easy camaraderie settling over them. "You ready for the press conference? They put us in the same group today. They're going to try and make us trash-talk each other."

Max scoffed, crossing his arms over his chest, his competitive fire instantly flaring to life. "I don't need to trash-talk you, Piastri. I'll just beat you into turn one on Sunday."

"Right. Because that worked out so well for you in Singapore," Oscar fired back smoothly, taking a sip of his iced coffee.

"That was a tire degradation issue!" Max argued immediately, his voice rising in volume.

Y/N stood between them, sipping her iced coffee in the sweltering Texas heat, listening to the two most lethal drivers on the grid bicker about brake bias and apex lines. The cameras outside the awning were desperately trying to capture the "hostility" between the championship rivals, completely missing the fact that under the shade, Oscar’s knee was casually resting against Max’s leg, and Max’s hand was still resting protectively on the back of Y/N’s neck.

They were going to go to war on the asphalt on Sunday. But the moment the checkered flag dropped, they would both come back to the exact same place.

-

Three Years Later 

The F1 calendar had grown to a grueling twenty-six races, making the deep winter shutdown the most sacred time of the year.

Outside the glass walls of their secluded Alpine chalet, a heavy snowstorm was burying the mountains in total whiteout conditions. Inside, the fire was roaring, the only sound accompanying the soft crackle of burning cedar and the howling wind.

Y/N was curled up on the massive velvet sofa, swathed in a thick cashmere blanket. She was three years into her tenure as Chairperson, having doubled the company’s valuation and cemented herself as the most terrifyingly effective negotiator in motorsport. But here, miles above sea level with zero cell reception, she was completely at peace.

She turned a page in her book, blindly reaching out with her left hand to grab her mug of hot tea.

Instead of ceramic, her fingers brushed against warm skin.

Y/N looked up. Max was kneeling beside the coffee table, having silently intercepted her tea. He set the mug down, but didn't let go of her hand. His blue eyes were piercing, completely stripped of the competitive fire that usually defined him, leaving behind something impossibly raw and devoted.

A floorboard creaked softly to her right. Y/N turned her head to see Oscar standing just behind the sofa. He walked around to join Max, moving with that quiet, unhurried grace. He knelt on her other side, his knee brushing against Max’s in the tight space. Oscar reached out, his warm hands entirely covering her right hand where it rested on her lap.

The air in the room suddenly shifted. It wasn't heavy or suffocating—it was electric.

"What are you two doing?" Y/N asked softly, her heart giving a sudden, violent kick against her ribs.

Max and Oscar shared a look. It was that same silent, ironclad communication they had used in the Red Bull driver’s room years ago, the exact same wavelength that allowed them to dismantle boardrooms and coordinate on track.

Oscar turned his dark, steady eyes back to her. He reached into the pocket of his dark wool sweater and pulled out a small, midnight-blue velvet box.

"We had a logistical debate," Oscar started, his voice a low, grounding rumble that immediately anchored her racing pulse. A soft, self-deprecating smile touched his lips. "Max wanted to do this on the podium at Yas Marina. I told him the FIA would fine us for delaying the broadcast, and that you would probably murder us for doing it on live television."

"It would have made a great photo," Max muttered stubbornly, though his thumb was stroking a soothing, repetitive circle into the back of Y/N’s left hand. He looked up at her, the playful irritation vanishing. "But he was right. You’ve spent your whole life being a spectacle for other people. This isn't for them."

Oscar clicked the velvet box open.

Resting inside the black silk were not one, but two rings, brilliantly designed to interlock. One band was set with a flawless, fiercely brilliant emerald-cut diamond, flanked by sharp, geometric platinum edges—Max. The other was a smooth, elegant band of crushed diamonds set in deep white gold, quietly catching the light from every angle without demanding it—Oscar.

Separated, they were stunning. Snapped together, they formed a perfect, seamless whole.

Y/N let out a shattered breath, her eyes darting between the rings and the two men kneeling in front of her.

"We don't do things the way the rest of the world does," Max said, his voice dropping into that blunt, absolute certainty he only used when he was talking about her. His grip on her hand tightened. "We don't share you. We just belong to you. And I am entirely done pretending there is any universe where I wake up without you."

"We built a sanctuary," Oscar added quietly, lifting her right hand to press a soft, lingering kiss to her knuckles. He looked at her, his expression radiating that deep, unshakable calm that had saved her life more times than she could count. "We want to make it permanent. The three of us. A closed circuit."

Tears spilled over Y/N’s lashes, hot and fast, completely ruining the quiet composure she had maintained for three years. She didn't have to choose between the fire and the ice. She never had.

"Yes," Y/N choked out, pulling both of them forward by their collars. "God, yes. Give me the rings."

Max let out a ragged breath that sounded suspiciously like a laugh, leaning up to catch her lips in a deep, bruising kiss that tasted like pure relief. Oscar’s hands tangled in her hair as he kissed her next, slow and deliberate, a quiet vow sealed in the warmth of the firelight.

Two Months Later

The Formula 1 circus had returned, the desert sun beating down on the first official media day of the new season.

The media pen was swarming, microphones shoved aggressively toward team principals and drivers. Y/N stood near the entrance of the FIA hospitality suite, reviewing a sponsorship contract on her tablet. She was wearing a sharp, tailored black suit, completely unbothered by the chaos around her.

As she lifted her hand to adjust her sunglasses, the desert sun caught the metal on her left ring finger.

A photographer’s lens flashed. Then another. Within thirty seconds, the murmur rippling through the paddock turned into a deafening roar.

The trackside reporter abandoned his interview with a midfield rookie and practically sprinted toward her. "Madame Chairperson! Y/N! The rings on your finger—are congratulations in order? Can you tell us who proposed?"

Y/N paused. She looked down at the heavy, interlocking diamonds resting perfectly on her finger. She then looked across the paddock.

Standing outside the Red Bull garage, Max was watching her, leaning against the barricade with a ferociously proud smirk on his face. Fifty yards down the pit lane, Oscar was standing outside McLaren, a dark, incredibly smug smile playing on his lips as he held her gaze.

Y/N looked back at the reporter, offering a cool, entirely untouchable smile.

"Yes, congratulations are in order," Y/N said smoothly, adjusting the cuff of her blazer. "And to answer your question: they both did."

She didn't wait for the reporter to pick his jaw up off the floor. She turned on her heel and walked down the pit lane, leaving the entire Formula 1 world to completely lose its mind, while she went to find her fiancés.

© 2025-2026 lap90. All rights reserved. Unauthorized duplication, distribution, or modification of this content is strictly prohibited.

💌 tag list: @mysthicwhispers @anamiad00msday @st4r-girl-official @kartuke @gridsandstories @ohwhoisyou-rubyjane @pedriglazer @viper-0800 @clocouettelife @leviathan0000 @roseannih @rosietoesf1 @thisdoesntexsist-cherry @elizamoe133 @nichmeddar @galaxygurlll @ojijhij @naenaen @josephinel83 @linnygirl09 @axelstillalive @star73807-blog @meyla123x @vinylphwoar @artyyjia @meritxellao @anaylen01 @martygraciesversion381 @supernatural-harrypotter7 @chair-things @moonlitelaine @hades-favourite-daughter @justaf1girl @liv1209 @celiaisacaterpillar @yellow14m @maebejustmaebe @sainz0fthetimes @waitingatthegreenlight @ilocuras24 @beathreat @biancathecool @thepolyamorywriter @aerangi @recklessyears @natqrvlvr @scenesofobx @sassypostpatrol @dutchlionforev @emmaxdelicate @ophirei @goldi-1-graysons-version @queen-of-disasterrrrr

🧡 tag list oscar: @teamnovalak @aturnof-thepage

Requested: Yes/ Anon

Word count: 5097

Author’s note: Hey guys, this one deals with some heavy feelings, but i hope you love the ending. I also had some problems with the formatting as I had to use my phone as my pc broke. Enjoy xx

Masterlist

The kitchen table in the house where you grew up had a slight wobble in the left leg, a defect that your father had tried to fix multiple times with folded pieces of cardboard tucked underneath the worn wood. That table was the center of everything, the place where you did your homework under the dim glow of a single overhead bulb, the place where your family ate meals that were carefully planned around grocery store flyers and coupons, and the place where your parents sat late at night after they thought you were asleep. You remembered the distinct sound of the calculator buttons clicking in the quiet house, the soft, worried murmurs of your mother as she went over the monthly utilities, and the heavy sigh your father always let out when the numbers did not balance the way he hoped they would. You did not grow up poor in the sense that you had no roof over your head or no food on your plate, but you grew up knowing the exact weight of a dollar. You knew that every new pair of shoes for the school year meant sacrifices elsewhere, that the heating was to be kept low until the winter cold became completely unbearable, and that vacations were rare, special occurrences that happened perhaps twice in your entire childhood, consisting of long drives to a modest seaside cabin where your mother packed all the meals in a cooler to avoid the expense of restaurants. Every opportunity you ever had was something that had to be earned with fierce determination, and you learned very early on to look at the world through a lens of cautious reservation, understanding that financial security was a fragile glass structure that could shatter with a single unexpected medical bill or a car breakdown.

Then the pandemic hit, turning the entire world upside down and trapping everyone inside their own four walls. Out of a mixture of sheer boredom, anxiety, and a need to find some sort of creative outlet while the world outside felt like it was ending, you started posting videos online. You began sharing little glimpses of your daily routine, your affordable skincare hacks, your attempts at baking with whatever ingredients were left in the pantry, and your honest, down to earth commentary on how strange it was to live through a global crisis. To your absolute shock, people started watching. Your follower count grew from a few hundred to several thousand, then to tens of thousands, and by the time the initial lockdowns began to lift, you had built a massive, loyal audience that looked to you for authenticity in a sea of curated perfection. The brand deals followed, starting as small exchanges of product for a post, and eventually transforming into contracts with numbers that made your head spin. The first time a major cosmetic company deposited a five figure sum into your bank account, you sat on your bedroom floor and cried for an hour, unable to comprehend that you had just earned more money in a single transaction than your father made in several months of grueling labor. Your life changed rapidly over the following years, you were able to move into a beautiful apartment of your own, you bought a reliable car that did not make terrifying noises every time you turned the key, and most importantly, you were able to hand your parents a check that completely cleared the remaining mortgage on their home, effectively lifting the heavy blanket of financial anxiety that had hung over their shoulders for decades. It was a beautiful, life altering shift, and you were incredibly grateful for the platform you had built, but despite the sudden influx of wealth, the deeply ingrained habits of your childhood never truly left you. You still checked the price per ounce at the grocery store, you still felt a sharp twinge of guilt whenever you bought something expensive without spending days deliberating over it, and you still viewed your financial success as a temporary blessing that could vanish just as quickly as it had arrived.

Then you met Lando. Your path crossed with his at a high profile charity event in London that your talent management agency had secured an invitation for, a glittering affair filled with actors, musicians, and professional athletes. You had felt entirely out of place in your rented designer dress, hovering near the catering tables and sipping a glass of champagne while trying to look like you belonged in a room where the artwork on the walls cost more than your childhood home. Lando had approached you with an easy, boyish smile, entirely unbothered by the formal atmosphere, and his genuine, down to earth demeanor had immediately put you at ease. He did not know who you were in the digital space, and you only had a passing knowledge of formula one, which created a refreshingly blank canvas for the two of you to talk. You laughed at his terrible jokes, he listened with genuine interest as you talked about your work, and by the end of the evening, he had asked for your number with a nervousness that you found incredibly endearing. Your relationship blossomed quickly over the following months, characterized by late night video calls across different time zones, sweet text messages before his races, and quiet dates in secluded restaurants whenever he was back in England. Lando was kind, attentive, and incredibly affectionate, making you feel cherished in a way you had never experienced before, and for the first few months, you were so wrapped up in the magic of falling in love that it was easy to overlook the vast, yawning chasm that existed between your backgrounds.

As the relationship progressed and you were introduced to his wider social circle, the reality of his world began to seep into your consciousness. Lando had grown up in an incredibly wealthy family, a fact that was not a secret, but seeing the manifestation of that generational privilege up close was an entirely different experience. To Lando and his friends, money was not a tool for survival or a source of constant negotiation, it was an invisible, infinite resource that simply existed to facilitate their desires. They spoke a different financial language, one where private jets were referred to as casually as taking a public bus, where luxury watches were collected like trading cards, and where the cost of a single dinner could easily fund a family vacation in your old neighborhood. In the beginning, you did your best to navigate these social gatherings by adopting a mask of polite indifference, smiling and nodding along whenever the conversation turned to topics that made your stomach twist into tight knots. You listened to his driver friends complain about the tax laws in various European principalities, you watched them debate whether to purchase a second or third luxury vehicle because they were bored of the current color scheme, and you sat quietly while their partners discussed the difficulties of coordinating schedules with their private chefs.

Every time these topics arose, you felt a familiar, uncomfortable sensation blooming in your chest, a mixture of alienation and a lingering sense of guilt. You would look at Lando, seeing his animated face as he chatted with his friends, and you would tell yourself that you were being overly sensitive, that this was simply his reality, and that he had never known anything else. He was not being malicious, he was not trying to brag, he was simply speaking about his life with the same casual ease that you might use to discuss the weather. You tried to convince yourself that because your own financial situation had improved so dramatically due to your career, you had no right to feel uncomfortable, but the truth was that your newfound influencer wealth was a drop in the ocean compared to the multi million dollar contracts and generational assets that defined the lives of the people around you. You were a guest in their world, a spectator looking through a gilded window, and no matter how much money you had in your bank account now, you still carried the mindset of the girl who knew exactly how much a gallon of milk cost.

The true breaking point arrived during the summer break, a two week period where the formula one calendar paused and Lando eagerly planned a getaway with a group of his closest friends. He had invited you along, his eyes shining with excitement as he described the massive luxury yacht they had chartered to sail around the coast of Ibiza and Mallorca. You had agreed, wanting to share these experiences with him and wishing to be the supportive, enthusiastic partner he deserved, but the moment you stepped onto the pristine, gleaming deck of the vessel, an overwhelming sense of dread began to settle deep within your bones. The yacht was a floating mansion, staffed by a crew of immaculate workers who anticipated your every need before you could even articulate it, and the sheer, unadulterated opulence of the environment felt suffocating.

On the third afternoon of the trip, the sun was blazing high in the cloudless Mediterranean sky, casting a brilliant, diamond-like glitter across the deep blue water. The group was gathered on the spacious aft deck, lounging on oversized, plush white cushions while a private bartender mixed drinks at the outdoor bar. Lando was sitting next to you, his arm slung casually over the back of your outdoor sofa, his fingers tracing absentminded patterns against your bare shoulder while he chatted with a couple of his fellow drivers and their friends. The conversation had started out light, revolving around funny track incidents and upcoming races, but as the afternoon wore on and the alcohol flowed, it shifted toward their off season plans and real estate investments.

“I am honestly so bored of my place in Monaco,” one of the drivers said, swirling the ice in his glass with a heavy sigh, “the view is nice, but the layout is just so restrictive, and the building management is being a total nightmare about the renovations I want to do to the private garage.”

“You should just buy that villa in the hills above Nice,” another friend chimed in, tossing a grape into his mouth, “the one with the infinity pool that looks out over the bay, it is only about twelve million, and the privacy there is unmatched, plus you would have enough space for the simulator simulator setup you have been wanting.”

“Twelve million is a bit steep for a place I will only use three months out of the year,” the first driver replied, chuckling softly, “but then again, I lost twice that much on a bad crypto investment last year, so I suppose it is all relative, it is practically pocket change if you think about the appreciation value of the land.”

Lando laughed, nodding his head in agreement, “yeah, the Nice property is insane, I looked at it briefly before I settled on my current place, you should definitely just pull the trigger on it, mate, life is too short to deal with annoying building managers who won't let you park your cars properly.”

You sat completely frozen beneath Lando’s hand, your breath catching in your throat as the words washed over you. Twelve million dollars described as pocket change, an entire fortune lost on a bad investment dismissed with a casual laugh, a multi million dollar villa viewed as a minor, impulsive purchase to escape a minor inconvenience. The sheer carelessness of the conversation felt like a physical blow to your chest, sending a rush of cold reality through your veins. You looked down at your hands, remembering how your mother’s fingers used to tremble when she opened the envelopes containing the winter heating bills, remembering the palpable relief in your father’s voice when he found a twenty dollar bill in the pocket of an old winter coat, and remembering the years of constant, low humming anxiety that had shaped your family’s entire existence. To these men, the wealth that could save a thousand families from ruin was just a casual topic of conversation to pass the time on a sunny afternoon.

A profound, suffocating sense of alienation settled over you, a realization that no matter how much Lando loved you, and no matter how hard you tried to fit into his world, you would never truly belong here. You were living a lie, pretending that this level of excess was normal, pretending that you could just erase the first twenty years of your life and adopt the effortless carelessness of the ultra rich. You felt a sudden, desperate need to escape the deck, to get away from the sound of their voices and the glittering expanse of the sea that suddenly felt like a beautiful, golden cage.

“Hey,” you whispered, leaning closer to Lando so your voice would not carry across the deck, “I am feeling a bit wiped out from the sun, I think I am going to head down to the cabin and take a nap for a little while.”

Lando turned to look at you, his eyes blinking with instant concern, his fingers moving to press against your forehead to check your temperature, “are you okay, babe, do you need me to come down with you, or get the crew to bring you some water and medicine.”

“No, no, I am fine,” you forced a small, tight smile onto your face, praying that your voice would not shake, “just too much sun, I think, you stay here and enjoy yourself with the guys, I just need a couple of hours of quiet.”

“Okay,” he murmured, kissing your cheek softly, “text me if you need anything at all, okay, sleep well.”

You nodded, slipping away from the lounge area as quickly and quietly as possible, descending the polished wooden stairs into the lower levels of the yacht. The moment you closed the heavy door of the master cabin behind you, the silence of the room enveloped you, and you leaned your back against the wood, letting out a long, ragged breath that felt dangerously close to a sob. You did not cry, but a heavy, numbing weight settled deep into your stomach, a quiet internal shift that changed everything.

Over the remaining days of the yacht trip, and continuing into the weeks that followed when you both returned to your respective routines, that internal shift began to manifest in your behavior. Unconsciously at first, and then with deliberate intent, you began to exclude yourself from Lando’s world. Whenever he invited you to join him for dinner with his friends, you found an excuse to decline, claiming you had a tight deadline for a brand campaign, or that you were feeling under the weather, or that you needed to visit your parents. When he asked you to come to the next race weekend, offering to arrange a private jet to fly you out to the circuit, you gently refused, telling him that your schedule was too chaotic and that you could not afford to take the days away from your content creation work.

You stopped participating in the group chats with the other partners, you stopped liking the lavish photos of clubs and exclusive parties, and you retreated back into the comfort of your own life, the life you had built with your own hands, which felt safe, manageable, and grounded in a reality you actually understood. You still loved Lando deeply, your heart still ached with affection whenever he texted you, and your quiet one on one moments together were still filled with warmth, but whenever his world threatened to intrude upon your space, you pulled away, erecting a invisible, sturdy wall between yourself and his lifestyle.

Lando, however, was far from oblivious. At first, he accepted your excuses with his usual understanding nature, knowing how hard you worked to maintain your career and respecting your independence. But as the days bled into weeks, and your refusal to join him in any social capacity became a consistent, undeniable pattern, his initial understanding transformed into deep confusion and a growing sense of anxiety. He noticed that you no longer asked about his friends, that you looked uncomfortable whenever he mentioned a luxury purchase, and that you seemed to physically withdraw into yourself whenever the topic of money or high society lifestyle arose. He began to wonder if he had done something to upset you, if you were losing feelings for him, or if the relationship was slowly drifting apart without him understanding why.

The tension finally culminated on a quiet Tuesday evening in your apartment. Lando had just returned from a grueling simulator session at the McLaren technology centre, and he had come straight to your place, looking tired but determined. You had cooked a simple dinner of pasta, a comforting meal that reminded you of home, and the two of you had eaten in relative silence, the atmosphere thick with an unspoken weight that had been building for a long time. After dinner, as you were standing by the sink rinsing the dishes, Lando walked up behind you, but instead of wrapping his arms around your waist as he usually did, he leaned against the counter, his expression fraught with worry.

“Y/N,” he said softly, his voice cutting through the quiet sound of running water, “can we please talk, I feel like you have been a million miles away for the last month, and I am really struggling to figure out what is going on.”

You turned off the faucet, wiping your hands on a kitchen towel with slow, deliberate movements to buy yourself a few seconds to compose your thoughts. You looked at him, seeing the genuine confusion and vulnerability in his blue eyes, and your heart broke for causing him this distress, but you knew you could not keep hiding behind excuses forever.

“I am right here, Lando,” you said quietly, though the words felt hollow even to your own ears.

“No, you are not,” Lando countered, stepping a bit closer, his brow furrowed with intense worry, “you haven't come to a single race in weeks, you always find an excuse to avoid dinner with the guys, and whenever I talk about anything related to my life outside of just the two of us, you shut down, it feels like you are actively trying to push me away, or push yourself out of my life, did I do something wrong, did I hurt you, please just tell me.”

You looked at his worried face, and the wall you had built so carefully over the past weeks began to crack under the sheer weight of your hidden emotions. You walked over to the small dining table, sitting down on one of the chairs and staring at the wood, your fingers tracing the edge of the table.

“You didn't do anything wrong, Lando,” you said, your voice barely above a whisper, “it is not you, it is just, it is the world you live in, and the realization of how completely different it is from where I come from.”

Lando followed you, sitting down in the chair opposite you, his hands reaching across the table to cover yours, his palms warm and comforting, “what do you mean, different, I know we didn't grow up in the exact same way, but we are together now, your life is great, you have built an amazing career, why does the past matter so much right now.”

You let out a soft, sad laugh, shaking your head as you looked at his hands over yours, “Lando, you say we didn't grow up in the exact same way, but that is the understatement of the century, you grew up in a world where money was never a question, where it was an absolute certainty, I grew up in a house where every single penny was counted, where my parents stayed up late crying because they didn't know if they could afford the electricity bill and the groceries in the same month.”

Lando blinked, his expression shifting from confusion to a deep, earnest desire to understand, “I know that, Y/N, you told me about your childhood, and I admire you so much for how hard you worked to help your family, but that is in the past, you don't have to worry about those things anymore, you are safe now, we are good.”

“But that is the thing, Lando, I don't feel safe,” you said, a sudden tear escaping your eye and rolling down your cheek, which you quickly brushed away with your shoulder, “that mindset doesn't just disappear because my bank account changed, it is built into my DNA, it is how I see the world, and during that yacht trip, when we were all sitting on the deck and your friends were casually talking about a twelve million dollar villa like it was pocket change, and laughing about losing millions on a bad investment, something inside me just snapped.”

Lando went entirely still, his eyes widening slightly as the memory of that afternoon registered in his mind, “they were just talking, Y/N, they didn't mean anything by it, it is just how they talk, they are drivers, they make a lot of money.”

“I know they didn't mean anything by it, and that is exactly what terrified me,” you explained, your voice trembling with the raw honesty of the admission, “to them, and to you, that conversation was completely normal, it was just casual banter, but to me, it felt like an alternate reality that I don't belong in, it made me realize how vast the gap between us actually is, no matter how much money I make from my social media work, I will never view millions of dollars as pocket change, I will never be able to sit around a yacht and listen to people be that completely disconnected from the reality of how the rest of the world lives without feeling sick to my stomach.”

Lando sat in silence for a long moment, his chest rising and falling with heavy breaths as he processed your words. He looked down at your joined hands, his fingers tightening around yours as if he was afraid that if he let go, you would disappear entirely. He had never had to think about these things, he had never known the suffocating weight of financial anxiety, and he had never realized that his casual everyday reality could feel like a hostile environment to the person he loved most.

“So,” Lando said, his voice thick with a sudden, raw vulnerability, “because of that, because of where I come from and how my friends talk, you are just going to exclude yourself from my life, you are just going to break up with me because I was born into privilege.”

“I don't want to break up with you, Lando,” you cried out, the honesty tearing from your throat as more tears began to flow freely down your face, “I love you so much, it hurts, but every time I am around your friends, or every time you talk about buying another luxury thing without a second thought, I feel this intense wave of guilt and alienation, I feel like a fraud standing next to you, and I started pulling away because it was easier to protect myself and my own peace of mind than to keep pretending that I fit into a world where I feel completely invisible and out of place.”

Lando pulled his hands back, running them through his curly hair with a frustrated, pained groan, his eyes bright with unshed tears of his own, “but you aren't invisible to me, Y/N, I don't care about any of that stuff when I look at you, I don't see a bank account or a background, I just see you, the girl who makes me laugh until my stomach hurts, the girl who supports me when I have a terrible race, the girl I want to come home to every single day, why does the rest of it have to matter so much if we love each other.”

“Because love doesn't exist in a vacuum, Lando,” you said softly, reaching across the table to gently touch his wrist, wanting to comfort him even as you tried to make him understand, “your lifestyle is a massive part of who you are, the private jets, the yachts, the high society events, the wealthy friends, that is your everyday reality, and if I am going to be your partner, I am supposed to be a part of that reality, but right now, that reality makes me feel like I am suffocating, and I don't know how to bridge that gap without losing myself and forgetting where I came from.”

Lando looked at your hand on his wrist, the anger and frustration draining out of him, leaving only a profound, grounded sadness. He realized, for the first time in his life, the sheer weight of his privilege, not as a benefit, but as a barrier that was actively separating him from the woman he loved. He had spent his entire life surrounded by people who viewed wealth the same way he did, and he had never stopped to consider how deeply intimidating and exclusionary that environment could be to someone who had fought for every single thing they had.

“I am sorry,” Lando whispered, his voice cracking slightly as he looked up to meet your eyes, “I am so sorry, Y/N, I have been completely stupid and blind, I was so caught up in having you there with me that I never stopped to think about how all of that wealth and talk sounded to you, I never thought about how it would make you feel based on everything you and your family went through.”

“You don't have to apologize for your life, Lando,” you said quietly, your heart swelling with a mixture of sorrow and deep affection for his genuine remorse.

“Yes, I do,” Lando insisted, shifting his chair closer to yours so he could wrap his arms around you, pulling you against his chest, burying his face in your hair, “I don't need to apologize for being lucky, maybe, but I do need to apologize for not paying attention to you, for not protecting you from things that make you uncomfortable, if my friends are being arrogant or insensitive, I should have shut it down, or I should have realized why you wanted to go down to the cabin, I just thought you were tired, I feel like a terrible boyfriend for letting you carry all this anxiety by yourself for weeks.”

You held onto him tightly, the familiar scent of his cologne enveloping you, providing a sense of comfort that you had desperately missed. The warmth of his body and the sincerity in his voice began to melt the icy core of alienation that had settled in your chest over the past month.

“You are not a terrible boyfriend,” you murmured against his shoulder, “you just didn't know.”

“Well, I know now,” Lando said, pulling back slightly so he could look down into your face, his hands gently wiping the tear tracks from your cheeks with his thumbs, “and I am not going to let this world push you away from me, if you don't want to fly on private jets, we will take commercial flights, I don't care, if you don't want to go to exclusive clubs or fancy dinners with people who only talk about money, we won't go, we can stay home and eat pasta on your couch, or we can hang out with people who actually talk about real things, I love my friends, but they can be idiots sometimes, and I am not going to let their lack of perspective ruin what we have.”

You looked at him, seeing the fierce determination in his eyes, the absolute certainty with which he was willing to adjust his world just to make you feel safe within it. It was a beautiful, overwhelming realization that he valued you far more than the effortless luxury of his lifestyle.

“Lando, you can't just completely change how you live your life for me,” you said, a small, genuine smile finally breaking through your tears, “you love racing, you love your lifestyle, and I would never want to take that away from you or make you feel guilty for what you have earned.”

“I am not changing who I am, Y/N, I am just changing how we navigate things together,” Lando said, his voice soft but incredibly firm, “we are a team, right, and if one person on the team is struggling or feeling out of place, you don't just ignore it and keep running, you adapt, I want you in my life, and that means building a space where you feel completely comfortable, respected, and safe, we can find a balance, I promise you, we can do things on your terms whenever it gets too much.”

You sat there in his embrace, the heavy, suffocating anxiety that had plagued you for weeks finally lifting, dissipating into the quiet air of your apartment. You realized that the gap between your worlds did not have to be a permanent barrier, it was simply an obstacle that required communication, empathy, and a mutual willingness to understand each other’s realities. He could not fully understand the anxiety of your past, and you could not fully adopt the carelessness of his present, but in the space between, where it was just the two of you, you could create a reality that belonged entirely to you.

“Okay,” you whispered, leaning up to press your lips against his, a sweet, lingering kiss that tasted of salt from your tears but carried the profound relief of a new beginning, “we can find a balance.”

Lando smiled against your lips, his arms tightening around you as he pulled you back down onto the couch, holding you close as the evening shadows lengthened across the room. The future would still require navigation, there would still be moments where the contrast of your lives would catch you off guard, but as you lay there with your head resting against his chest, listening to the steady, reassuring beat of his heart, you knew that you were no longer navigating it alone. You were safe, you were loved, and you were exactly where you belonged.

There is already a small crowd accumulating in the cramped North Shore dive bar when you, Samira Mohan, and Mel King breeze through the door. It’s unseasonably warm, the late winter fading to a tease of early spring you know the city won’t be able to sustain for long. You bring the temperate air in with you, a stray gust catching the hems of your dress, and it takes you all a moment to right yourselves.

Over the last month of immersing yourself among the crew of PTMC, you have learned that this is a favorite haunt of theirs – relatively close to the hospital, casual, homey in the way that these small, unpretentious establishments tend to be. You’ve been here twice before, once with Dana at the end of your first week on the job and once with a larger group to celebrate the nurse practitioner Donnie’s birthday. This time, the celebrant is Samira.

“Over here!”

A voice cuts through the sound of nineties rock blaring through the speakers, and you glance up to find Alpha resident Trinity Santos flagging you down from a booth near the back of the bar. She has a cocktail in hand already – tequila soda with lime, if you remember correctly from the last outing – and her dark hair hangs in limp waves around her cheeks, crimped in that specific way that tells you she has just taken it out of a ponytail.

Clustered around the booth with her are the rest of the day crew who have just finished their shifts – Dennis, Cassie, Princess, Victoria, all looking a bit haggard though in good enough spirits. Victoria has dark circles under her eyes, and Princess’s signature braids are starting to frizz along her hairline. Even still, the cries of “happy birthday!” are loud and earnest, and you can sense the happiness and embarrassment rolling off of Samira in waves as she smiles back.

The three of you make your way through the press of other patrons, squeezing your way down the narrow stretch between the bar and the booths along the wall. The others spill out to greet you, and although you know the celebration isn’t for you, you can’t help but respond with the same warmth and fondness. Working shoulder to shoulder with this team has brought you closer to them than you would have expected, certainly more than you’ve experienced while on other travel contracts. Though you might only count a few as true friends, the camaraderie between you all is undeniable. You’re happy to spend your precious free time in their company, particularly if it means getting out of Dana and Benji’s house for the night.

Not that you aren’t grateful for their hospitality; of course, you are, and you love them both dearly. But something about living in their home, sharing their meals, and sleeping in their youngest daughter’s old bedroom has you feeling a bit like a teenager again. You need a night to breathe.

“Hey, Cassie,” you say with an easy smile as the older Alpha pulls you into a friendly embrace. There are bright red patches of skin at the base of her pale neck, evidence of the irritation left behind by the hospital’s scent blocker patches. Without the dulling effects of the medicated cotton and hospital antiseptic, she smells like late October in your nostrils – fallen leaves and baking spices. It’s comforting, maternal, and lived-in.

“Thank god,” she groans into your hair. “I feel like I’ve been babysitting.”

You snort a laugh as, around you, a chorus of protests fill the air.

“Fuck off, you love us,” Trinity says, giving Cassie a playful shove. The young resident’s eyes shine tellingly in the dim light of the bar, and you’re suddenly certain that the drink in her hand is not the first one she has imbibed this evening.

“How on earth did you get here before us? Didn’t you all work today?” you ask with a frown.

Trinity shrugs. “Maybe we’re just that good.” You arch an eyebrow at her, hitting her with a pointed stare, and she smirks. “Nah,” she says with a wave of her hand. “Honestly, we got lucky today. And everyone was super motivated to get the hell out of there. Aaaand speaking of, there she is, the birthday queen herself!”

You turn just in time to see Samira shrugging off her jacket and tossing it into the booth. The dress she’s wearing is truly befitting the milestone of her thirtieth birthday – a deep plummy-purple silk thing that hugs the curve of her waist, its plunging neckline showing off the freshly-healed mating bite where her neck meets her shoulder. Her long legs are clad in sheer black stockings, the heels on her feet sure to bring her to at least eye level with her mate when he arrives.

“Goddamn. Look at you!” Trinity sounds physically pained as she takes in the senior resident’s apparel. You can hardly blame her for the reaction; it’s certainly a far cry from the nondescript black and gray scrubs you typically see each other in. “C’mon, give us a twirl.”

Samira hides her face in her hands for a moment, embarrassed by the attention, but you can tell there’s a part of her that is pleased, too. Obligingly she gives a little turn, spinning on the smooth soles of her heels, and you join the others in whistling and cheering her on.

“Jesus Christ,” Trinity sighs. “Abbot is one lucky bastard.”

The evidence of her interest is blatant, a wave of enticing sweetness scenting the air, the fragrance making you laugh while Dennis Whitaker grimaces. “Okay, okay, we get it, Dr. Mohan’s hot. Lay off the pheromones,” the young Omega scolds. His pale cheeks are tinged pink.

Patting him soothingly on the back, you, too, shed your jacket and adjust the ruffles on your skirt as you settle in. There’s something so freeing about getting to look like yourself for once, to not have to make yourself bland and sexless for the sake of the workplace. If you’re honest, most of your time outside of scrubs is spent in your pajamas, so the flirty little number you have on tonight is a particular treat.

Feeling flush with warmth, you announce to the table, “First round’s on me!” And then softer, to Samira, you add, “What can I get for you, birthday girl?”

“Whatever you’re having,” she replies, shrugging noncommittally. “I’m not picky.”

You blink at her. “It’s your birthday. Whatever you want, it’s yours.”

“I know.” She slides into the booth with a mischievous smile. “And for my birthday, I would very much like to not have to make any decisions.”

Barking a laugh, you give her a mock salute. Samira is a girl after your own heart – exhausted, a bit strung out, and ready to be pampered. “Of course. I can do that. Now, what about for the rest of you?”

Robby can’t remember the last time he joined the crew for a night out. It has to have been more than a year, maybe two. It isn’t as though he hasn’t been invited; on the contrary, Whitaker makes it a point to ask every time. Santos, too, on occasion. He keeps a handful of excuses in his back pocket for when the question arises – he has other plans, he’s promised a neighbor he’ll let their dog out, just let him wrap up this one patient and he’ll meet them there, he swears.

Lately, he can never quite muster the energy it would take to laugh through a few beers and play a round of darts. He can’t imagine sitting around a high-top or crowding himself into a booth and talking for hours. These days, every bit of himself goes to the hospital, every scrap of enthusiasm and identity siphoned from him by the ceaseless pace, the endless demand. Outside of those walls, he is hollow, devoid of substance.

Which is why, when Jack had asked him to come to Mohan’s birthday celebration, Robby had been quick to decline. It sounded like precisely the sort of gathering he preferred to avoid, and that wasn’t even taking into account the…strained relationship between himself and his senior resident. Admittedly, he has been trying to mend fences there, but he knows he has a long way to go to get back to a place where her hackles don’t immediately go up when he enters the room. Would she even want him there, he wonders? Somehow, he doubts it.

Jack, however, assure him that she does – once when he first invites him and then again when Robby had attempted to back out of their plans not half an hour ago. The older Alpha still has his reservations, but he chooses to trust his friend. After all, if anyone were to know what Samira Mohan wants, it would be her mate.

The bar is crowded when they arrive. There are a few faces Robby doesn’t recognize, a few pockets of neighborhood regulars not associated with PTMC, but the majority of the people he spots from the doorway are part of his team. A gaggle of night shift congregated by the bar, a table full of nurses he barely recognizes out of their scrubs, and there, nearly to the back of the bar, a cluster of day shift, half draped across the nearest booth, half hanging out into the narrow aisle, uproarious laughter spilling through the bar almost loud enough to drown out the music.

Just as he expects, Jack spots Samira immediately – holding court with her day shift colleagues, arm looped through one of Mel King’s, leaning into her shoulder companionably. He doesn’t bother to excuse himself from Robby’s side, simply locks eyes with her through the crowd and makes a beeline through the throng of bodies to meet her.

The crowd parts for him effortlessly, the space deferring to him without question or thought, and Robby shakes his head ruefully. Jack has always worn his Alpha status with such grace.

He gets to the collection of day-shifters before Robby does, and it takes him all of about two seconds to extend a hand and coax Samira out of the booth. The older attending can’t quite hear what the two say to each other, though the tone of their voices is warm and intimate, and it’s impossible to mistake the joy pouring out of each of them as Jack takes her into his arms.

It’s been years since his best friend has looked at another person like that, with deep wrinkles around his eyes and an even deeper softness in his smile. The loss of his first mate, his wife, had nearly killed him, and Robby had done his best to help him pick up the pieces in the aftermath. Looking at him now, watching him pull Mohan in for a deep kiss in front of the entire bar, is like looking at a different person in all the best ways.

Though Robby would be lying if he said he didn’t feel a twinge of jealousy at the whole display. Jack had somehow managed to find a great love not once, but twice. Two other halves of his soul, two marks of devotion scored into the meat of his neck. For something that he had never really thought he might want, the other Alpha certainly did make it look appealing.

The kiss drags on for a handful of seconds too long, and the crowd responds appropriately – cat calls and wolf whistles, a stray crumpled straw wrapper tossed and landed perfectly in Jack’s salt-and-pepper hair. By the time he finally lets Mohan go, the senior resident is laughing and hiding her face in his neck, and Robby has taken to busying himself reviewing the chalkboard beer menu hanging behind the bar.

“Oh! Dr. Robby!”

He blinks, turning to find Mohan running a nervous hand over her now-disheveled curls, an embarrassed half-smile quirking the corners of her lips.

“I didn’t think you were going to make it,” she continues, and goddamn it, Jack was right. She looks a bit confused but undeniably pleased to see him. Her big, dark eyes give her away. She looks like someone has given her a gift she’s afraid she’s not allowed to accept, and Robby’s chest aches.

Glancing down at the scuffed, sticky floor, he replies haltingly, “My, uh. My schedule opened up. And I didn’t want to miss telling you happy birthday, so.” He tucks his hands into the pockets of his jeans, meets her gaze through his eyebrows. “Happy birthday, Dr. Mohan.”

He watches as she blinks at him, taken aback. “Thank you.” Her voice is soft and painfully earnest and tinged disbelief. He hates that something as simple as a birthday wish from him is so unexpected, but he has no one but himself to blame for that. So he bears it with a toothless smile and tries not to let loose a sigh of relief when she adds, “I’m happy you’re here.”

“Me, too.” Clearing his throat, Robby shifts on his feet and redirects his attention to the rest of the table. There’s a collection of empty beer bottles and cocktail glasses scattered across its surface, as well as a round of shots that he suddenly feels thankful he missed. It’s been a long time since his tired body could tolerate that kind of night out. Still, he offers, “Let me know when you all are ready for another, next round’s on me.”

At that, Trinity Santos lets out a triumphant sound and bangs both of her palms down onto the surface of the table, shaking glasses and sending bottles rolling. “That’s what I’m talking about – drinks on Dr. Robby!”

The lingering crowd bursts into laughter, and feeling lighter than he has in a long time, Robby can’t help but join them.

You are two amaretto sours deep by the time the attendings make their conspicuous entrance.

It would be impossible not to notice their approach, two broad-shouldered, graying men with the same competent swagger, the same quiet authority in the way they cut through the crowd. It’s a rarity to see either of them outside of the hospital, even rarer to see them in anything other than scrubs, and there are just enough drinks in your system for the sight to send heat rushing to your cheeks. Dr. Abbot, of course, has eyes only for Samira (as he should). But Dr. Robby…

Booze humming in your bloodstream, syrupy sugar and tart lemon juice coating your tongue, you watch the way the older Alpha’s ears flush pink at the group’s attention. You watch the way his eyes crinkle when he smiles, the way his dark, silver-threaded hair fluffs and ruffles as he passes a large hand over his head in self-consciousness. In the month you’ve been working in his ED, you can count on one hand the number of times you’ve heard him laugh like this, and it never fails to make your chest tighten.

It’s honestly frustrating how intriguing you find him. Even after that first stilted, off-putting introduction, there’s a pull to him, a gravity that you can’t quite shake.

It’s all innocuous, all professional, but you can’t deny that over the last month, you have spent more time on Dr. Robby’s patients than anyone else’s. You take every opportunity to work cases at his side in the trauma bays, standing elbow-to-elbow with Jesse and Kim and the other seasoned nursing staff, all the while learning his methods, his preferred instruments, the shorthand of his commands. You’ve started to be able to anticipate his orders before he gives them, and you tell yourself that it’s all in the name of the job. You assure yourself that you’re doing the same things you’ve always done, that you’re simply living up to the central tenet of travel nursing – get good, and do it fast. It’s not a lie. But it’s not the whole truth, either.

Even now, even in a crowd of your peers, free from the confines of the sterile hospital walls, you can feel the tug of his presence in your gut. It’s like he’s got a homing beacon in the pocket of his classic Levi’s, and the receiver is tucked behind your navel. He mingles with your colleagues, floating from table to table, and it does not matter how invested you are in your conversation with Princess about Love is Blind or how interested you are in Cassie’s story about her last family vacation. A part of you is always focused on him.

And fuck, but he looks good. Not that he wasn’t handsome in his scrubs, but there’s something intimate about seeing his familiar figure in this new context. The bulk of his well-loved canvas coat, the softness of the navy-blue flannel he wears beneath it, the way the buttons of that flannel pull slightly against the breadth of his chest and the gentle curve of his belly. His jeans are effortless and perfectly-fitted, and you are embarrassed to acknowledge that you recognize the brown boots on his feet from the days when he rides his motorcycle to work. He looks rugged. Strong. Stupidly masculine in a way that speaks to the basest part of your psyche.

You’re such a goddamn cliché – the younger, subordinate Omega squirming in her seat over the older Alpha in a position of power. You’d be mortified if you weren’t so…distracted.

You make it about another 15 minutes before you find yourself slipping from the booth and retreating to the bar. You’re going to need another drink if you’re going to survive the rest of the night without making a fool of yourself at the feet of the chief attending. Perhaps something a bit stronger than amaretto this time…

Flagging down a bartender, you order a whiskey ginger. You busy yourself studying the countless dusty neon signs that cling to the walls while you wait, nodding along to the thump of the music in the background. Trinity had insisted that once it got late enough, the music would switch to something funkier, something with more of a groove, and the far end of the bar would become a makeshift dance floor. You could hardly remember the last time you had gone dancing…

Beside you, someone clears their throat and leans against the bar.

You startle at the sound, but the surprise quickly morphs into a dizzying flush of pleasure as the scent hits you. Clean, masculine soap floating over woodsy base notes of oakmoss and black tea leaves. Unfiltered, unblocked, completely lacking the sanitized, antiseptic qualities you associate with the hospital. Just…him.

Swallowing thickly against the sudden surge of nerves, you flash the older man a weak smile and a wave. “Hey, Dr. Robby.”

Robby’s gaze flicks to yours, and he returns your smile with one of his own. It deepens the creases at the corners of his eyes in a way that you find senselessly charming. “Hey,” he replies, voice warm and rasping, almost too soft to hear over the music. Thoughtlessly, you shift closer to catch it better.

“I was told not to expect you here tonight.” The words leave your lips of their own accord, your tone light and open while still carrying a hint of accusation. This was meant to be a fun night out celebrating one of your new friends. The disruption of his presence was never meant to be a factor.

Thankfully, he merely laughs at the suggestion, as though the idea pleases him. “Oh?”

The sparkle in his dark eyes is contagious, and you fight a grin in spite of yourself. “Way to prove everybody wrong.”

“Well, I’d hate to think I was getting predictable in my old age,” he quips, rapping his knuckles against the sticky lacquered surface of the bar. “It’s good for the kids. Keeps them on their toes.”

His words settle low and heavy in your abdomen, and you pray to whatever higher power might exist that he can’t sense how he’s affected you. It’s honestly humiliating the way your stomach tightens, the way you have to press your thighs together against the pulsing there. You’ve always had a preference for older men, but this might be the first time an explicit reference to one’s age has gotten you wet.  

Clearing your throat, you make a big show out of rolling your eyes and make a desperate play for humor instead of arousal. “Oh, come on,” you groan lightheartedly. “You’re not that old.”

At that, Dr. Robby merely scoffs. “Tell that to my back. And my knees.”

You are saved from having to craft a response by the return of the bartender. He drops a thin, flimsy cocktail napkin onto the bar top and slides your whiskey ginger across its surface before redirecting his attention to Robby.

“What can I get you, man?”

The attending orders several drinks, a combination of shots, beers, and a single tequila soda that you know is going directly to Trinity Santos. It seems he’s made good on his offer of a round for the table. The bartender listens with a mildly-concerned arched brow but doesn’t question it. Instead, he simply nods along as he absorbs the long list. Giving Robby a short nod, he returns to the backbar and starts pulling glasses out from beneath the counter.

You take a sip of your drink as the lull in conversation lingers. It’s precisely what you wanted, sharper and smokier than the sweetness you had started the evening with, stinging your throat on the way down in a way that feels more grounding than uncomfortable. It sharpens you, pulls you out of the Alpha scent-induced haze that had you wanting to press closer, to bury your face in the weathered skin of this man’s neck and just breathe.

“So how’ve you been settling in?”

The second sip of whiskey catches strangely in your throat, and you smother a cough in the crook of your arm.

Well. Perhaps you’re not all the way out of the haze just yet.

Gathering yourself, you put on a smile and offer him a carefully unaffected shrug. “You tell me.”

“Well, of course, your work is exceptional,” Robby says easily. “Only took you what, a week? Two? To figure out the rhythm of the department?”

This time, the heat that blooms across your neck and chest has nothing to do with pheromones. “I’ve been doing this for a while,” you demure, brushing off the compliment. “It gets easier over time.”

He accepts the response with a gracious nod, but corrects, “I meant more…interpersonally.”

Quirking your brow, you blink back at him in surprise.

“I just…the ED is a team sport. Sometimes it takes new players a bit to find their footing,” he stammers in explanation. It must be a trick of the neon lights that has his cheeks turning red under your stunned gaze.

Either way, you warm at the sight. Stirring your drink with its little black cocktail straw, you swallow and reply, “If I’m being honest, I’ve felt more welcomed in the Pitt than anywhere else since I left Philly.”

You watch as Robby’s eyes soften, your words hitting him someplace quiet and vulnerable.

“Dana helps, of course,” you’re quick to add. “I’ve known her my whole life – she’s basically family. But really, this team seems to be…especially accepting of new players.”

Now, it is his turn to shift uncomfortably on his feet, to shutter a bit at the earnestness of your praise. “It’s a teaching hospital. We’re pretty used to people coming and going.”

“Still. It’s appreciated.” You pick up your drink, raising it in his direction in a casual toast. “Compliments to the team captain.”

Robby scoffs a soft laugh, and now you’re certain he’s blushing. Satisfaction swells in your chest. He will be able to smell it on you, surely, but you’re not certain how much you care anymore. You made him smile. Made him laugh. In spite of the amount of time you’ve spent at his side over the last month, you think you can count on one hand the number of times you’ve witnessed both of those gifts in a single interaction.

Thankfully, the bartender returns before you can let it go to your head, before you can start formulating increasingly more ridiculous things you might say or do to elicit such a response from the older Alpha again. The number of drinks deposited onto the bar top feels truly absurd, entirely too many for one person to carry, but Robby does not balk. Instead, he thanks the bartender and begins gathering them into his hands.

“Need help with those?” you ask, eyebrows raised as you watch him artfully arrange the glasses so that he can carry four in each hand.

“No thanks, I’ve got it,” he replies. “Think I’d better get these to the parched masses.”

Fuck, his hands are huge. It’s not the first time you’ve noticed – as he rubs hand sanitizer into his skin, as he scratches his beard while deep in thought, as he snaps extra-large nitrile gloves on and off while breezing through trauma bay doors. It’s distracting every time, and this display only adds to the Robby-shaped fantasy fodder stored carefully away in the back of your mind. Wide palms, long, thick fingers… He manages everything in one single pass.  

Throat suddenly dry, you take another drink of your whiskey ginger before responding. “Probably for the best. Trinity might mutiny otherwise.”

The noise the attending makes in response is gruff and warm and full of good humor, not laughter but something with more substance, low in his throat. It makes you feel hot under your dress. Makes you feel…reckless.

“Catch you on the dance floor later?” The question is out of your mouth before you can swallow it back, and you’re not sure you’ve ever wanted to disappear more than you do right now as the older man glances up from the drinks in his hands. He bites down on his bottom lip, smothering a smile, and shakes his head.

“Ohhh no, I don’t think so.” Though clearly taken aback, his refusal is tinged with laughter, and you are suddenly grateful for the cold press of your drink against your palm. You’re in real danger of overheating under his sparkling gaze.

“That’s a shame,” you manage to reply. “I’d have saved you a dance.”

You can’t bear to stick around long enough to allow him to respond. Instead, you duck around him and make a beeline for the table where most of the nursing staff have congregated. With any luck, he won’t follow you there, and you’ll be able to slam the rest of your drink in peace.

Robby may have turned down your invitation, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t allowed to watch.

At least, that’s what he tells himself as he lingers against the bar, twirling a half-empty IPA bottle in his fingers while trying (and failing) to be discrete in the way his eyes follow you. It’s late now, the drinks and the atmosphere settling heavy and loose in everyone’s system, and if he were a stronger man, he would have made his excuses and gone home by now. He would have clapped Jack on the shoulder, bid Mohan one final “happy birthday,” and disappeared into the night.

But he can’t remember the last time he felt strong. These days, he mostly feels tired. And old. And desperately lonely.

But you? Since the day Dana brought you into his ED, you’ve been…a revelation.

You’re a goddamn ray of sunshine. Bright and warm and giving, a smile on your face for every patient, a helping hand at the ready for every colleague. Whip-smart, quick on your feet, experienced enough to not require much oversight yet always eager to learn something new. Clear-eyed, unafraid, kind down to your bones... He could go on.

He’s only known you a month; it’s embarrassing how much time he could fill extolling your virtues.

And now, as of tonight, he has even more to add to the ever-growing list. A far cry from your typical gray scrubs and well-worn Brooks sneakers, the ruffled, body-hugging dress you’ve got on leaves little to the imagination. There’s something achingly feminine about the way it clings so softly to the swell of your breasts, the nip of your waist, the full plush of your ass. It’s frothy and sweet with just enough sex appeal to keep it from looking too girlish. Even still, watching you sway through the crowd, head thrown back in laughter, pulling Samira into your lithe arms as you move to the beat, Robby feels like a dirty old man. But he can’t seem to make himself look away.

He’d gotten a whiff of your scent earlier. It was warm and light and musky, almost sparkling, amber and champagne and white florals. It’s taken residence under his skin, clouding his thoughts with gauzy, half-formed images of tenderness that make his chest ache. You smell like tangled sheets and satin pillowcases. Soft sweaters and bare feet and cups of coffee in the sunshine on his back patio. The fucking farmer’s market on Sundays.

Sweet. Painful. Like pressing too hard on a bruise left by a lover.

“Still with me, brother?”

Robby blinks, clears his throat, and turns to find Jack watching him with raised eyebrows and that little quirk of his mouth he does when he’s got something to say but is choosing not to. Shaking his head, the older Alpha smiles ruefully. “‘Course. Continue.”

Everything is beautiful.

The music is loud in your ears, throbbing in your chest, fusing with your bones. Whiskey in your veins, floaty and warm, you feel like all the sharp angles and edges of you have blurred and softened. Surrounded on all sides by your new friends, you bleed into each other like watercolors on a wet canvas. Samira spins with you, her dark curls wild against her cheeks, her mate’s leather jacket draped around her shoulders. Nearby, Mel holds hands with Trinity, jumping more than dancing but still managing to keep perfect time with the song. Victoria and Dennis both look like they’ve never been on a dance floor in their lives, but they’re grinning so big and singing at the top of their lungs, dripping sweat and spilling the sweet, intoxicating scent of Omega joy from every pore.

You’re cocooned here – bodies pressed close, eyes half shut, hips swaying, fingers catching on Dr. Abbot’s coat, on Mel’s loose blonde hair, on the silver chain resting on Dennis’s chest. And still, the back of your neck burns.

Dr. Robby is watching you. You can feel it like a brand on your skin, and you savor the heat. It’s wrong. God, it’s so wrong, for too many reasons to count. He’s got almost 20 years on you. He’s the chief of the ED. You hardly know him. And you cannot forget that you’re temporary here, already a third of the way through your contract. When it ends, there will be another, and who knows where you will find yourself next?

But those thoughts are too heavy, too real for this moment. In this moment, with the music and the booze and the dress and all your beautiful friends, you feel beautiful, too. You feel sexy. You feel desired in a way that’s more exciting than intimidating. And you’re perfectly content to allow this gruff, mysterious, older Alpha to watch you dance for as long as he likes. Perhaps you’ll even put on a bit of a show for him…

One song fades into the next, then again, and before long, you’ve utterly lost track of time. You’re sweaty and fuzzy and so happy, so lost in the music and the moment that you don’t notice the approaching stranger until he is close enough to snake his hands around your hips and pull you into him.

You flinch, loose body stiffening instantly. An Alpha. A face you’ve never seen before towering over you, red-rimmed, heavy-lidded eyes finding yours in the darkness. He’s young, maybe two or three years your junior, with a square, clean-shaven jaw and shoulder-length blonde hair he wears pushed back from his face. And holy shit, he reeks – like smoke and ash and sickly, cloying flowers, an exotic greenhouse someone doused in vodka and lit on fire. There’s arousal there, too, the scent distinctly Alpha. It invades your nostrils as he presses your hips into his pelvis, using his grip on your body to grind you against him.

“I like your moves, Omega,” he says, leaning down and speaking directly into your ear. His breath is boozy and hot on the skin of your neck, and you recoil at the feel of it brushing over your scent glands.

Stomach soured, palms firm against his wiry chest, you shove him hard. “Hey! Back off!”

But this stranger is wasted, and he’s got almost a foot of height on you, and in his single-minded lust, he’s stronger than you expect.

“C’mon, baby, don’t be like that,” he groans with a laugh, as though your disgust and your refusal are no more than an inconvenience to him. His fingers dig hard into the soft flesh of your hips, blunt nails scraping the filmy fabric of your dress. “Could smell you all the way on the other side of the dance floor. I know how bad you need this.”

Your stomach drops, and you let out an involuntary whine as you scramble ineffectually against his hold. A young, strong, cocksure Alpha has caught the scent of an aroused, unmarked Omega. It’s the stuff public safety announcements are made of. You’re in danger.

“Get your hands off me!” you cry. And with that, chaos breaks out on the dance floor.

Samira’s dark eyes flash with fury as she fearlessly charges into the strange Alpha’s space and wraps both her hands around one of his elbows. You can tell she’s throwing her whole bodyweight into trying to yank his paws off of you, but the man doesn’t budge.

Dennis tucks Victoria under his arm and shepherds her off the dance floor, and you feel a swell of gratefulness for his quick thinking; Victoria is so young, even more vulnerable here than you are.

From a few feet away, you hear a growl of “oh, fuck no”, and out of the crowd, you can smell Trinity approaching before you see her – the bright green notes of the mint and lime in her scent sour and sharpen with rage as she bullies her way through the press of bodies to get to you. There’s a brief, instinctual surge of relief the moment you lock eyes with her – the only thing this man might listen to right now is another Alpha – but the feeling is short-lived. Trinity is fierce and scrappy and famously protective, as virile as any other of her designation, but the stranger currently grinding a growing erection into your stomach is so tall –

“Let. Her. Go.”

Barked in a low, gravelly voice, the Command drowns out the beat of the music and sends ripples through the crowd of dancers – gasps, shudders, a groan through gritted teeth as Trinity Santos halts in her tracks. Even without being directed at her, the will of a more senior Alpha is too strong for her to resist. The sound of it makes your knees tremble with a wave of fear and bone-deep gratitude. You twist in the stranger’s grip and crane your neck to find the source of the words that have taken such swift control of the scene.

It does not take you long. There, standing almost directly behind you, tall and square-shouldered and stinking of rage, is –

“Dr. Robby.”

His name leaves your lips like a plea, and you watch as his frown deepens. You’ve never seen him like this – he’s radiating dominance and territorialism, his scent darker, thicker, every inch of softness you’ve ever observed in him evaporated into the night air. He looks…formidable. Strong and broad, still not quite as tall as the young Alpha holding you but infinitely more daunting. The threads of silver in his hair and the dense patch of it in his beard practically glow in the neon lights, and you feel certain that when you think back on this moment, you will remember him as a barrel-chested old wolf standing undaunted in the face of an enemy upstart.

“I said, let her go,” he repeats, taking a step forward.

The stranger scoffs and turns you around in his grip, this time tugging hard enough to make you stumble as he pulls you back into him. “She’s unmarked, man,” he says as he grabs a fistful of your hair and tugs your head to the side, exposing your bare neck.

He touches you like the mere fact that no bite mark scores your flesh entitles him to your body; the thought alone disgusts you. You yelp in pain, and you swear you can feel the vibration of Robby’s growl as it thunders through the air.

“I don’t give a shit,” the attending snaps. “She doesn’t want your hands on her.”

“She doesn’t know what she wants.” The blonde man grinds against your ass, and you swallow a wave of nausea. “I smelled her first. Get your own bitch!”

That seems to be the final straw. Closing the distance between you in two long-legged strides, Robby’s hand darts out and clutches onto the back of the younger man’s neck.

“I would think very carefully about what you do next,” he snarls, almost too soft for you to hear over the music. “I’ve been putting pups like you in their place for longer than you’ve been alive, and I swear, if you hurt her, I will let every other Alpha in this room take their turn with you before I kick your ass from here to Philadelphia.”

The acrid, burnt-rubber scent of fury pouring from the young Alpha is enough to make your eyes water and your throat swell, but there’s something else there now, too. Fear. Intimidation. Submission. His hands tighten against you even further.

“Now,” Robby says. “Let her go. And then get the fuck out of here.”

For a moment, you don’t breathe. The challenge hangs in the air as Robby maintains his grip on the other man’s scruff, holding him fast and certain in what is quite possibly the most aggressive, provoking move one Alpha could pull on another. Had he attempted to hold you like that, you feel certain you would have turned into a pile of goo, limp and pliant and utterly boneless as you dangled from his fingers. Instead, this Alpha merely whimpers and shudders against your back.

There is a beat where he continues to cling to you, the hold suddenly feeling less possessive and more stubborn, but in the end, the younger man cannot resist following the attending’s orders. It’s sudden when he finally drops you, and without this stranger’s hands keeping you upright, your legs give out beneath you.

Robby is there in less than a heartbeat – releasing the scruff hold on the younger man, catching you in his strong arms before you can slump to the floor. The former staggers backward and lets out a weak, unconvincing sneer.

“Whatever, man. She’s a fucking tease, anyway.”

Out of the darkness, Dr. Abbot appears then, his face like a storm cloud as he inserts himself between a furious Robby and this overconfident pup. Wrapping his thick fingers around the younger man’s upper arm, he growls, “Time to go, buddy.”

Without another word, Abbot drags the man toward the door. You think you see him pass his fingers over the back of Samira’s hand on his way by, but truthfully, you weren’t certain. You’ve started to shake in Robby’s arms, the edges of your vision have begun to blur, and you feel as though you could collapse again at any moment.

Around you, the dance floor abruptly surges back to life.

Everyone within the radius of Robby’s Command seems to descend on you at once, strangers and friends alike all rushing to check on the distraught Omega. The sounds of their voices, the touch of their hands, all of it feels oddly deadened and far away – as though they are talking to you through the wall of a quarantine bubble.

“Okay, everybody, back off – give her some space!”

You spot Mel’s wide, worried eyes. Trinity’s furious frown. There’s a Beta night shift nurse – Olive, maybe? – checking on the other Omegas in the crowd. Thankfully, the ones you can see look relatively unscathed…

And that is all you register before Dr. Robby is shucking his big brown coat, wrapping it around you, and ushering you away from the dance floor.

“D-Dr. Robby – ”

“Shh,” he soothes, his hands gentle but firm on your shoulders as he steers you toward the rear exit, the thick metal door labeled “Employees Only”. “I’m just taking you someplace quiet.”

As he guides you through the door, you find that all of the unseasonable warmth you had enjoyed earlier has dissipated with the setting of the sun. The late winter night is damp and bracingly cold as you step out into the back alley, but the relief you feel almost makes up for the sudden chill. Out here, the fresh air smells faintly of wet concrete and the nearby Allegheny River, and you find yourself gulping lungfuls of it to try to banish the ash-rubber-flower scent of the man whose bruises now decorate your skin.

“Okay, here we go,” Robby coaxes as he directs you away from the door. He is a steadying presence, his touch light but constant. When he encourages you to lean back and brace yourself against the brick exterior of the bar, you obey without a thought. “Better, right?”

“Yes.” Your response sounds tremulous to your own ears – dazed, weak, and far away…

“Look at me.”

Your eyes snap open. You didn’t realize you had closed them.

Robby’s gaze meets yours. Hands on your shoulders, brows gathered at the center in concern, you notice he has bent down in front of you so he can look you in the eye. This close, he’s all you can see, and he’s even more handsome than you thought. You’re fascinated by the wrinkles around his eyes, his long, dark lashes, the sharp, commanding line of his nose…

“Hey. I’ve got you. You’re safe now,” he says. The comforting words are muffled and distant. It’s like he’s talking to you through a pair of tin cans and some string from a block away. “Deep breaths, okay? Breathe with me. In.” He sucks a dramatic breath through his nose, nostrils flaring, and you do your best to imitate him. “Out.” His breath smells like the IPA he had been drinking as he exhales through his mouth. You breathe out, too, and he smiles faintly. “Good girl. Again. In. Out.”

You comply easily, breathing in rhythm, in and out, sinking into the cold, textured brick of the wall behind you. It takes a few rounds of this, your bleary eyes locked on his as he helps you regulate, but after a while, your heartrate slows, and your vision begins to sharpen.

He must be able to see the clarity come back to your expression because he asks, “Better?”

Jaw tight, you nod. “Mm hm.”

The confirmation, however, does not seem to do much to comfort him. Instead of the smile you expect, his frown deepens, and he runs his palms over your arms briskly, like he’s trying to warm you up. “You’re shaking,” he observes.

Oh. You are, aren’t you? You take another deep breath, the scent of your assailant blessedly faded now, and make a conscious effort to relax your rigid muscles. You start with your jaw, then down to your neck, your shoulders, your back, but every inch of you is wound so tightly, as though still braced for unwanted touch, that you make little progress. You may no longer be on the edge of hyperventilating, but still, your body clearly has not caught up with the sudden absence of threat.

“I’m s-sorry,” you reply. “I c-can’t stop.”

Robby shakes his head, brushing off the apology, and you watch as he examines you with a critical, almost clinical gaze. You weren’t injured – not really, not in any lasting sort of way. The man didn’t bite you (thank god) or even scent you. It had been scary, terrifying even, but more in the threat of it than the actual reality.

The more you sit with it, the more you recognize this feeling. The dread, the thoughtless, nauseating panic so intimately, biologically tied to your nature as an Omega that it feels doubly wounding, doubly personal. It’s been more than a year since you last felt this way. It’s the reason why you left your ex, why you packed your bags and fled Philadelphia, leaving behind a life you loved for the chance to get away from this.

You see it in his eyes the moment he recognizes it. Omega distress. A primal defense mechanism designed to encourage community protection and care when an Omega is in danger. Of course, as an Alpha and as a medical professional, it’s something you’re certain he’s seen before. Perfectly treatable, but prolonged distress could result in neurological damage, and it’s not as though most Omegas carry the necessary hormone treatments on their person –

Under his breath, Robby curses. “Fuck. Okay.”

You might be the one bracing your weight against the building right now, but Robby has never felt more backed into a wall.

Of course, it had to be you. So pretty, so sweet, so frightened – shaking in your high heels, drowning in his coat, pouring the choked, sour fragrance of your distress into the night air. Your eyes are wide and glassy, shining with tears that refuse to fall, and you’ve got your elegant hands balled up in little fists so tight your knuckles have gone pale. He can still smell hints of that bastard pup on your skin, and even the faint reminder is enough to have his hackles standing on end.

He comforts himself with the knowledge that if he does what he knows he must, if he manages to work up the courage to take that step, at least that scent will finally disappear.

And of course, it had to be him. After all of his efforts to maintain professional distance, after all of the scoldings he’s given himself about keeping you at arm’s length, of course it would be him in this impossible scenario. He knows what you need – would know it even if he weren’t an Emergency Medicine physician, but in his line of work, he can’t count the number of times he’s treated this exact condition. But you are not a patient in his ED, and this alleyway behind a dive bar is not PTMC. There are no synthetic hormones he can inject you with here. There is only…him.

Well. Not only him. There are at least three other Alphas inside that bar, two of which are unmated and could do the job just as well. But the idea of letting anyone else anywhere near you right now makes something ruinous and feral clamor inside his chest. For the first time since his adolescence, Michael Robinavitch truly feels the depths of the raging beast that lingers at the edges of his subconscious.

In this moment, if anyone but him were to touch you, he thinks he might rip their throat out with his teeth.

“Fuck. Okay.” Robby squeezes your shoulders and tucks his thumbs into the collar of his jacket. Your eyelids flag instinctually at the touch. “Hey, right here, look right here.”

You obey, but that sense of presence and awareness he had detected just moments ago has already begun to fade. Your skin is burning up under his touch, and shit, you still haven’t stopped shaking. Your nervous system is fully strung out, on high alert, and your body is struggling to keep up.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he assures you. “I’m right here with you. Just keep your eyes on me.”

“Robby.” His name leaves your lips on the back of a whine. Gritting his teeth, Robby swallows against an answering purr that threatens to rumble from his throat.

“I know, Omega.”

God, he’s going to have to do it, isn’t he? He’s going to have to –

Drawing a deep breath to steady himself, he asks, “Do you trust me?”

Your responding nod is immediate, the delicate skin of your neck brushing against his thumbs. “Yes. I trust you.”

Combined with your big, wet eyes and your pouting, open mouth, your words hit deep and sound like praise. They make him want to preen, to roll over at your feet and show you his soft belly.

You trust him. He is a good Alpha. His Omega trusts him.

No.

He slams the door on that fantasy before it can take hold.

Not his Omega. An Omega. Never his.

Shoving that painful conclusion to the back of his mind, Robby nods and ducks his chin, making deep, direct eye contact with you once more. “Okay then. You’ll feel my touch on your hands and on the insides of your wrists.”

He keeps his words calm and clinical, like he’s talking a skittish patient through a painful and unfamiliar procedure. But there’s nothing clinical about what he’s about to do to you. In fact, if he were to do this with a real patient, he would be lucky to get off with a written warning from the Ethics Committee. But here, he has no choice. Here, it’s the kindest thing an Alpha like him can do given the current circumstances.

So he does it. He scents you.

Moving slowly so as not to spook you, Robby wraps his fingers around one of your graceful wrists and brings the thin, vulnerable skin covering your secondary scent glands to press against the weathered base of his neck.

It’s admittedly a bit unconventional – scenting someone on the wrist instead of the neck – but the rational, practical part of him hopes it might soften the staggering intimacy of the gesture. You might be an Omega in distress, but you are still his colleague, still someone he has to see every day in the Pitt. You’re still a member of his pack that he is responsible for protecting – and that includes from himself. If he were to put any part of himself on your neck right now, would that make him just as bad as that impudent pup on the dance floor, smelling your arousal and thinking it an invitation?

Robby allows a handful of seconds for his scent to permeate yours, for the hormones to mingle and for your body to recognize his, and then your eyelids are drooping, and your knees are turning watery, and for the second time tonight, he finds himself propping you up as you sway on your feet.

“I gotcha,” he murmurs, wrapping his arms around you, cradling you to his chest.

You fold into him easily, every rigid muscle going pliant beneath his hands as you nuzzle into his flannel. Your answering sound – somewhere between a contented hum and moan – vibrates through his collarbones to his sternum.

Goosebumps break out across his skin as the sensation of it zips along his nerve endings to burrow at the base of his spine. Fuck. The most primal parts of him love that sound. That sound means happy Omega, comfortable Omega, safe Omega.

He did that. No one else.

“Thank you,” you sigh, dazed but grateful. Your fingers dig into the fabric of his flannel shirt as you pull yourself upright. Your pupils are blown wide, and if he thought you had smelled appealing before, you are downright edible now.

Clearing his throat, grasping the remaining strings of his restraint, he replies, “Anytime.”

The warmth and softness of your skin. The rich, earthy sweetness of your arousal. All of it buoyed by his own scent.

You smell held. Protected.

Fuck. You smell good together…

You must think so, too, because in less than a heartbeat, you lean back into his space, tuck your face into his open shirt collar, and begin nosing around in search of his scent glands. Robby can feel the heat of your breath on his skin, the delicate, ticklish sensation of your fluttering eyelashes against his throat, the dampness of your lips –

“Jesus, Robby, you smell amazing.” The breathlessness of your exclamation goes straight to his cock.

Twitching in his jeans, eyes falling shut, he shakes his head in weak protest. He knew this would happen, knew the consequences before he ever touched you. Scenting might be the most effective treatment for Omega distress ever studied, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have physiological and socioemotional side effects. Scenting is deeply personal – the sort of thing a partner does, the sort of thing a lover does.

He definitely feels like your lover right now.  

“Michael,” he groans thoughtlessly, and for the span of a breath, you pause.

“What?”

If there was ever a time to pull back, it would be now. As he holds you to his chest, Robby feels a bit like he does when he goes up to the roof of the hospital and stares down at the city below – the thrill and the terror of the knowledge that the smallest move now would send him plummeting, and there would be no coming back from it. There would only be the cold, unforgiving embrace of the pavement below. It tempts him now just as it does on the roof.

You’re so…good. And so vulnerable. And something inside him is fundamentally broken. What if he breaks you, too?

“Robby?”

Wordlessly, his hands grip the well-loved canvas of his coat, the one he is certain will carry the scent of you for weeks now that it’s been wrapped around your shoulders. Fuck, Robby is so weak. All it takes is the pretty little travel nurse showing a little skin and carrying his scent, and all of the very legitimate reasons why this is a terrible idea go out the window.

Gritting his teeth, resting his cheek against the crown of your head, he murmurs, “Michael. My name is Michael.” 

You’re floating.

The irrational, involuntary panic is gone. The dread has retreated. The instinctual clench of every muscle and tendon has softened. Instead, it has all been replaced with ease. Peace. An unshakeable sense of safety. It’s chemical, what this man has given you, and you can’t deny the way you’ve hungered for such a feeling.

Of course, the sweet, molten warmth that has taken residence low in your abdomen doesn’t hurt the situation, either. You’re just like any other red-blooded Omega; there have been a variety of Alphas (and a few Betas) throughout your life whose scents and touch have triggered a…primitive response. But Dr. Robby had had you dampening your panties even before scenting you. And now –

No. Not Dr. Robby, you correct yourself. Michael.

Michael, with the competent, seasoned authority in baked into his every move. Michael, with the soft, expressive eyes and the painfully charming smile. Michael, with the scent that makes you lightheaded and flustered every time you detect it.

Michael, with the hardening cock pressed against your belly as he allows you to wrap yourself eagerly around him. Something deep inside you trembles at the feel of it, and you are suddenly reminded of how long it’s been since you’ve been properly fucked.

Michael would fuck you properly. You know it in your gut, can feel it in every gentle-but-firm touch of his big, calloused hands. An Alpha his age? He has to have been around the block a few times. With his intelligence, his sense of humor, and his looks, there is no way he hasn’t learned a thing or two about how to please a woman. Just the thought of it is enough to have you biting back a whimper.

Your ex – who you try so hard not to think of if you can help it – was a Beta with an inferiority complex. David had been so insecure in his own designation and so envious of every Alpha he met that he had molded his entire personality around trying to emulate them. Early on in your relationship, you had found it intriguing. It was subversive in a way that you had admired; to flout the expectations and predispositions of one’s designation like that was no small thing. You had always loved a man with convictions, and David certainly had that going for him.  

Plus, the sex with him had been pretty good; what he lacked in certain anatomy, he made up for in his willingness to experiment. But it had been over a year since you saw him last. And you couldn’t deny that no matter how hard he tried, he had never quite managed to replicate the specific, inimitable satisfaction of taking a knot.

You bet Michael’s knot is big.

With a trembling breath, you pull away from the older man’s chest just far enough to be able to meet his eyes. He looks wrecked as he stares down at you – freckled cheeks flushed pink, graying hair disheveled, brown eyes nearly black with arousal. In the dim light of the alley, his sharp, white teeth glisten. He looks like he wants to eat you. Fuck, you wish he would.

“Kid?”

Inhaling a sharp breath, Michael abruptly yanks himself away, putting inches and then feet between you as Dr. Abbot and Dana emerge from the bar. The sharp, sudden distance steals the air from your lungs, and you bite back a whimper of protest as you steady yourself against the wall and pray your godmother did not just see you about to offer yourself up on a silver platter to the Chief of Emergency Medicine at her hospital.

You blink rapidly and try to clear the warm, intimate blur from your vision as you take her in – blonde hair loose on her shoulders, face pale and free of makeup, winter jacket zipped up to her chin. She’s wearing a pair of heather gray sweatpants you know she would never normally be seen out of the house in, and you recognize the boots on her feet as the ones she keeps in the garage that she only wears when gardening.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Dana hisses, a frown of distaste wiping away the concern etched into her tired face. “It stinks out here. I got here as soon as I could. You okay, honey?” 

Behind her, Dr. Abbot keeps his distance, hands clasped behind his back in a loose parade rest. Of course, he would call her. She’s the emergency contact you listed on your employment contract, your host while you’re in town. And what had happened tonight on the dance floor with that other Alpha was certainly an emergency.

However, from the way he is staring down Michael, expression unreadable, you wonder whether that was his only motivation.

Swallowing against an unexpected lump in your throat, you nod and offer Dana a close-lipped smile. “I’m okay, promise. M-Dr. Robby had my back.”

With his scent still in your nostrils, his jacket around your shoulders, and the gusset of your underwear uncomfortably soaked, calling this man Dr. Robby feels nothing short of bizarre.

Dana, thankfully, does not seem to catch your near slip, but Dr. Abbot does. You watch as a faint smirk twists his lips, and although you can’t hear it from where you stand, the little puff of warm air that escapes him tells you that you’ve made him laugh.

“I’m sure,” he mutters under his breath.

Closing the distance between you, you are helpless to protest as Dana peels the oversized canvas jacket from your body and hands it back to Michael. Her hands are cold but so gentle as she coaxes you away from the support of the brick wall at your back. “C’mon, missy. Let’s get you home.”

Before you can think better of it, you shake your head in refusal. “No, I’m okay, really. I can go back in, I just need another minute.”

Your godmother arches her brows at you, and the expression is so familiar, you feel certain that if she had her reading glasses on her person, she would have met your gaze over the rim of them.

“Listen,” she says softly, and that tone, too, is familiar. It’s the one she uses with patients, the one that tells them that she sees them, that she cares, but she also isn’t afraid to do whatever is in their best interests whether they like it or not. “It might not have hit you yet, but we both know that you’re gonna be falling asleep on your feet in a few minutes. The comedown from a distress episode is nothing to joke about, you understand? Now c’mon – I’m parked by the curb out front. Let me take you home.”

She’s not wrong; you know it from experience, both personal and professional. But the idea of leaving, the idea of being any further than a few feet away from Michael – Dr. Robby – right now feels unbearable. It’s as though he’s invaded your body on a cellular level, his scent on your skin a chemical signal that you belong at his side. The peace he had so graciously granted you starts to waver and wane as you try and fail to catch his eye. Surely, he feels it, too. Surely, he will advocate for you to stay. With him.

Instead, Robby’s wide shoulders stiffen, and he very pointedly does not meet your probing gaze as he crosses his arms over his chest and says, “Dana’s right. You should let yourself rest.”

If you were in your right mind, if you had been capable of paying attention to the microexpressions in his voice in that moment, you would have noticed that the words sound as though they have been ripped from his throat. There’s a tension in his jaw that would tell you that it hurts him to deny you. But instead, all you feel is a cold wave of rejection that is enough to snuff out the heat in your belly and make your chest ache.

“But – ”

“It’ll be all right.” Finally, he glances at you out of the corner of his eye. “Trust me.”

Do you trust me? he had asked. Of course, you do. You have trusted him since the day you met him, have only grown to trust him more as you’ve worked alongside him, as you’ve gotten to know him. Especially after tonight, after everything he has just done to protect you, you can’t imagine not trusting him.

“Okay.”

The word is all Dana needs to pull you away from the wall and start ushering you toward the door. “Okay. Let’s go grab your coat, it’s freezing out here.”

This time, you allow her to guide you along without protest. Just as she is about to beckon you through the threshold, however, you pause and turn to Dr. Abbot. “Tell Samira happy birthday for me again, and that I’m sorry I caused a scene at her party.”

The expression on the older man’s face is one of fond affection as he replies, “Wasn’t your fault, honey. But I’ll tell her.”

And then you’re stepping back into the neon light of the bar, and no matter how loudly your body screams at you to turn around, you keep your eyes locked on the back of Dana’s head and let the door fall shut behind you.

Every step you take is a leaden weight in Robby’s stomach. It goes against every one of his instincts to let you out of his sight knowing how vulnerable you still are. He supposes the knowledge that you carry his scent should help; if any other Alpha were to even consider approaching you for the next 24 hours, you might as well be wearing a shirt that reads “Property of Michael Robinavitch.” But it’s not enough.

You should be where he can see you. Where he can touch you. For your safety.

For his sanity.

Releasing a long, trembling breath, he rubs his hands over his face. Fuck. What a mess.

The sound of someone clearing their throat breaks through Robby’s mental pity party, and he opens his eyes to find Jack Abbot standing with his arms crossed over his chest and a pointed expression on his face.

He feels a bit like a child, like he’s been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

Hackles bristling, Robby snaps, “If you’ve got something to say, now’s the time.”

He’s expecting a scolding. A lecture about the impropriety of his actions, about the potential complications at the hospital if the events of tonight were to get back to the administration. At the very least, he’s expecting a ribbing – something about how Robby had gotten on Jack’s case about the exact same things when he had first learned of his friend’s burgeoning relationship with Samira Mohan, and wasn’t that the pot calling the kettle black?

Instead, as Jack sweeps his knowing gaze from the top of Robby’s head to the tips of his boots, he offers the older Alpha a wry smile.

“Don’t worry, brother,” he says, slapping Robby on the shoulder fraternally. “You’ll see her on Monday.”

Credits: Dividers -@saradika-graphics, Chapter Beta Reader -@kedsandtubesocks

Taglist: @kedsandtubesocks @sawymredfox @livslifeonline @rosharanfiction @skylardenae @pocket-of-possibilities @bergamote-catsandbooks @peepawispunk @80ssong @ohheyitssj @vicky066 @windsweptarmadillo @sharkerino @dugiioh @tatertot118 @pickles-the-jackalope @delusionalcvnt @thegift0fgabb @inkededucatednnerdy @princessesareforsuckers @natbat666

BB-series astromechs weren't built for miracles, and yours was screaming at you, panicked whistles cutting through the noise of engines failing and your control panel blaring.

"I know," you said, to the droid, to yourself. "I know, I know — "

The planet’s surface was coming up fast. You kept fiddling with all the emergency switches, but nothing did anything, even the emergency ejection switch did nothing. You could feel the seat shifting slightly, but the ejection rocket didn’t launch.

You found yourself thinking that you still owed Poe thirty credits from your last game of sabacc, and cursing about not paying it back earlier.

The control panel went dark with a whine, cutting off most of the power you had left. You kept trying, despite knowing the crash would come, despite the plane’s speakers crackled with warnings with the last power they had. Pull up, pull up, pull up.

Then the treetops.

And everything went dark after that.

—

Beep. Beep. Beep.

You knew the sound even before opening your eyes. Med bay.

Somehow, you had survived.

You opened your eyes slowly, the bright lights made you groan and closed them immediately.

The moment the sound left your lips, a shadow leaned over you, and you heard your name being called.

“…Poe.”

He let out a breath. “You’re awake.”

“Mm,” you got out, before turning your head slightly, forcing your eyes open again. Poe blocking the bright light made keeping them open bearable. “How long was I out?”

“…about a week. We saw you going down, and rushed to rescue you. The trees had softened the landing, but you still had hit your head pretty bad.”

“…did my BB survive?” you asked quietly.

Poe smiled softly. “As I said, the trees softened the landing.”

“Good.”

Silence descended for a moment. Poe sat back down on his chair beside your bed, wringing his hands for a moment. “Listen— I… I’ve been meaning to tell you something.”

“Hmm?”

“When we found you… it was bad. It was really bad, I thought— I kept thinking about stuff I had never—” he paused, closing his eyes for a moment. “I realized… I should have said something a long ago. To you.”

“Poe—”

“No, let me finish,” he interrupted you. “We have been friends for years. And I just can’t keep pretending— I thought I would, because I don’t want to lose you, but after seeing you go down, a trail of smoke trailing behind your X-Wing… I just kept thinking I should have said it. So I’ll say it now. I love you.”

The silence that followed was louder than you had ever heard before. You stared at him. Poe Dameron was in love with you. The man you’d been love with for almost a year was in love with you.

“You’ve sat here for a week?” you mumbled, before you smiled and reached to grab his hand. “Have you slept?”

He looked surprised at your reaction, but took your hand anyway. “…some.”

“Eaten?”

“Finn made me eat a few times.”

You grinned now, pulling him up by his hand. “Come here.”

He stood, still a bit confused, and you pulled him down and met his lips with yours. He froze at first, but then slowly kissed you back, and you smiled into it, before pushing him back slightly. “I think it goes without saying, but I love you too.”

He blinked, his mouth slightly open, before he mirrored your smile, leaning back down to kiss you again, but you held him off. “I swear I’m not saying this to get out of my debt, I still owe you those thirty credits.”

He laughed, shaking his head. “I know.”

Right on cue, the door slid open. Max walked in, wearing his usual team kit, a cap pulled low over his eyes. He didn't look angry or unwelcoming, he just looked incredibly focused.

He glanced at Mekies, who gave him a brief nod, and then Max turned his full attention to you. He grabbed a bottle of water and walked over, pulling out a chair across from yours and sitting down.

"So," Max started, his voice casual. "It's official then."

"It's official," you replied, your voice steady despite the nerves humming under your skin.

Max nodded, a small smiles breaking through his face. "Good. Honestly, when we heard what went down, I told Laurent we should call you immediately. Your races this year? You were driving the wheels off that car, even when it looked completely un-driveable."

"Look, our car isn't easy," Max explained honestly. "It's fast, but it's really twitchy, especially in the corners. It takes some getting used to. But I think you're going to fit it really well."

Max stood up and held out his hand, his grip firm and welcoming.

"We're going to be a strong team. Let's go out there, work hard, and show them what they threw away."

Text Messages: Toto Wolff & Stephanie Wolff

Toto:You will have additional security assigned tonight.

Stephanie:That is an interesting greeting.

Toto:This is not optional.

Stephanie:How charming.

Toto: Someone has made credible threats connected to the family. Security will contact you shortly.

Stephanie:Connected to the family.

Toto:Yes.

Stephanie:Which family would that be, Toto? Our children or Anastasia?

Toto:This conversation is about security.

Stephanie:So this is about her.

Toto:This is about credible threats.

Stephanie:Of course. Anastasia has another crisis, and everyone else is expected to rearrange their lives.

Toto:You, Benedict, and Rosa will receive additional protection as a precaution.

Stephanie:My children do not need to be dragged into Anastasia’s drama.

Toto:Benedict and Rosa are my children too.

Stephanie:Funny. You remember that when it gives you a reason to issue orders.

Toto:Security will contact you.

Stephanie:No.

Toto:That was not a request.

Stephanie:And I am not one of your employees.

Toto:No. You are the mother of two of my children. That is the only reason I am even doing this.

Stephanie:Excuse me?

Toto:You heard me.

Stephanie:You arrogant bastard.

Toto:Security arrangements only.

Stephanie:Do not speak to me like I am some inconvenience.

Toto:Then stop behaving like the safety of Benedict and Rosa is an inconvenience because the threat began with Anastasia.

Stephanie:Everything begins with Anastasia, apparently.

Stephanie:Anastasia is upset, so the house must reorganise itself. Anastasia is strange, so everyone must adapt. Anastasia is wounded, so everyone else must be careful. Anastasia wants distance, Anastasia wants exceptions, Anastasia wants silence, Anastasia wants security.

Toto:Enough.

Stephanie:No, Toto. Not enough. Never enough. You never let anyone say it. You never let anyone admit what she did to this family.

Toto:She was eight years old.

Stephanie:She was not eight forever.

Toto:She was a child you resented because you lacked the courage to resent me.

Stephanie:How dare you.

Stephanie:After everything I tolerated?

Toto:You tolerated nothing. You punished a child for existing in a situation I created.

Stephanie:She was never a child in the way normal children are children. She watched everyone. Judged everyone. Like she was above us.

Toto:She watched because she did not feel safe.

Stephanie:And whose fault was that meant to be?

Stephanie:Certainly not hers, I assume. Nothing ever is.

Stephanie:Let me guess. She read something online, panicked, and now everyone needs bodyguards because poor Anastasia cannot cope with the consequences of being publicly attached to famous men.

Toto:Someone sent my daughter death threats.

Do not text me again tonight unless it concerns the security arrangements.

Stephanie:No. You do not get to hide behind that. If this is serious enough to put men outside my home, then I deserve to know whether this is real or another Anastasia overreaction.

Toto:If you call threats to her life and threats of sexual violence an overreaction again, I will stop this conversation and speak only through counsel.

Stephanie:Sexual violence?

Toto:Yes.

Stephanie:From whom?

Toto:That information is not for you.

Stephanie:But I am expected to accept security without knowing anything.

Toto:You are expected to protect Benedict and Rosa.

Stephanie:Do not use the children to control me.

Toto:I am protecting you because you are their mother. That is the only reason you are in this notification chain at all.

Stephanie:You really are vicious when she is involved.

Toto:No. I was too weak when she was involved. I am correcting that.

Stephanie:Oh, how noble. Is this the part where you rewrite history and pretend everything was my fault?

Toto:No.

Stephanie:At least you admit it.

Toto:It was my fault too.

Toto:I should have protected her from you.

Stephanie:From me?

Toto:Yes.

Stephanie:You are unbelievable.

Toto:I am not debating the past with you tonight.

Stephanie:You brought it up.

Toto:You attacked Anastasia.

Stephanie:I said what everyone was too afraid to say.

Toto:No. You said what you have always wanted to say when you thought there would be no consequence.

Stephanie:There is always consequence with her. Always. You made sure of that.

Toto:Security arrangements only.

Stephanie:Stop saying that.

Toto:Then stop trying to use this moment to hurt her.

Stephanie:She is not even reading this.

Toto:No. She is not reading it. That is why I am ending it here.

Stephanie:Convenient.

Toto:Send yours and Rosa’s schedules for the next seventy-two hours. School, activities, transport, drivers, household staff, regular visitors.

Stephanie:You want my household staff list?

Toto:Yes.

Stephanie:Absolutely not.

Toto:Then security coverage will be arranged using the information available, and if there is a gap caused by your refusal, that will be documented.

Stephanie:Do not threaten me.

Toto:I am informing you.

Stephanie:You think documentation scares me?

Toto:No. I think risk to your children does.

Stephanie:Is Rosa specifically at risk?

Toto:There is no specific threat naming Rosa.

Stephanie:Benedict?

Toto:No.

Stephanie:Then why?

Toto:Because the person who made the threats is unstable, has referenced family logic, and may identify people connected to me or Anastasia as pressure points.

Stephanie:Anastasia is not connected to Rosa in any meaningful way.

Toto:She is her sister.

Stephanie:Half-sister.

Toto:Her sister.

Stephanie:Rosa does not see it that way.

Toto:That is your failure and mine.

Stephanie:Do not blame me for Rosa having boundaries.

Toto:Resentment is not a boundary.

Stephanie:You have no idea what Rosa feels.

Toto:I know she has been given permission to make Anastasia the villain of a story she did not write.

Stephanie:You are so blind.

Toto:Security arrangements only.

Stephanie:There it is again.

Toto:Yes.

Stephanie:You are impossible.

Toto:Schedules.

Stephanie:Fine.

Toto:Within twenty minutes.

Stephanie:You are not my employer.

Toto:No. I am the father of Benedict and Rosa. I am acting to protect them because a credible threat may extend to the family. If you continue to obstruct that, I will escalate through the appropriate legal channels.

Stephanie:You would do that?

Toto:Yes.

Stephanie:Over Anastasia.

Toto:Over my children’s safety.

Stephanie:You always know how to phrase things.

Toto:So do you. That is the problem.

Stephanie:Rosa will ask why this is happening.

Toto:Tell her there is a temporary family security concern and i am handling it.

Stephanie:She will ask whether Anastasia caused it.

Toto:Then tell her no.

Stephanie:And if I don’t believe that?

Toto:Then keep your belief away from our daughter.

Stephanie:Our daughter. How touching.

Toto:Stephanie.

Stephanie:What?

Toto:If you tell Rosa that Anastasia caused a man’s threats against her, you will be lying to her. If you imply that Anastasia is to blame, I will not tolerate that.

Stephanie:You will not tolerate.

Toto:Correct.

Stephanie:There he is. The real Toto. Not the guilty father, not the reformed man. Just control.

Toto:Schedules. Twenty minutes.

Stephanie:You really have nothing else to say?

Toto:Not to you.

Stephanie:I will send them.

Toto:Good.

Stephanie:But if you put visible security at Rosa’s school and embarrass her—

Toto:Discreet perimeter and routes. No visible intervention unless necessary.

Stephanie:Does Anastasia know you are doing all this?

Toto:Yes.

Stephanie:She must enjoy it.

Stephanie:All of you running around because she is scared. It must feel very validating.

Toto:You are speaking about a woman who received threats to her life tonight.

Stephanie:A woman now, is she?

Stephanie:How convenient.

Toto:This conversation is over.

Stephanie:Of course it is.

Toto:Send the schedules to the security contact within twenty minutes. Further communication regarding this matter will go through the security team unless it directly concerns Benedict or Rosa.

Stephanie:You always choose her.

Toto:I should have chosen her when she was ten.

***

Text Messages: Toto Wolff & Rosa Wolff

Toto:Rosa, this is important. There is a temporary family security concern. You will have additional security around your movements for the next few days.

Rosa:Seriously?

Toto:Yes.

Rosa:That’s the first thing you text me in months?

Toto:This is not a normal situation.

Rosa:No hi? No how are you? Just security?

Toto:There has been a credible threat connected to the family.

Rosa:Connected to the family.

Toto:Yes.

Rosa:Let me guess.

Rosa:Ana.

Toto:This conversation is about your safety.

Rosa:No, it’s about Ana. It is always about Ana.

Toto:You are receiving security because you are my daughter.

Rosa:Am I?

Rosa:Because you haven’t acted like it lately.

Toto:Rosa.

Rosa:No. Don’t “Rosa” me.

Rosa:You disappear for months, you cut me off, nobody tells me anything, and then suddenly I’m important because Ana has another crisis?

Toto:I did not cut you off. I changed your financial arrangements.

Rosa:Oh my God.

Rosa:Do you hear yourself?

Rosa:“Changed my financial arrangements.”

Rosa:You mean you put me on a trust like I’m a child who can’t be trusted.

Toto:You are on the same trust structure as Ana and Benedict. That was the point. Equal structure. Clear boundaries. No discretionary transfers being used as pressure from either side.

Rosa:That sounds like something Ana would say.

Toto:Ana had nothing to do with the decision.

Rosa:Sure.

Toto:It was my decision.

Rosa:Because of Ana.

Toto:Because of your behaviour.

Rosa:There it is.

Rosa:At least you finally said it.

Toto:You were cruel to your sister.

Rosa:Half-sister.

Toto:She is your sister.

Rosa:She doesn’t act like it.

Toto:How should she act?

Rosa:Like she wants anything to do with us?

Rosa:Like she remembers there were already people here before she arrived and everyone reorganised their lives around her? She comes into our lives, everyone has to tiptoe around her, everyone has to learn her rules, everyone has to pretend she’s not being rude because she’s “overwhelmed” or “processing” or whatever word you all use, and somehow I am the problem?

Toto:Rosa, I am not going to debate Anastasia with you tonight.

Rosa:Of course not. Nobody ever debates Ana. Ana is just right because Ana is clever and damaged and special.

Toto:Stop.

Rosa:Why? Did I say the wrong magic word?

Toto:Do not speak about her like that.

Rosa:Why? She can speak about everyone else however she wants.

Toto:No, she cannot.

Rosa:Yes, she can! She does it in that flat voice and everyone acts like it’s honesty.

Toto:Ana’s directness can hurt. That is true.

Rosa:Wow. Did you just admit she isn’t perfect?

Toto:She is not perfect.

Rosa:Could have fooled me.

Toto:But that does not justify cruelty.

Rosa:You know what is also cruel?

Toto:What?

Rosa:Never telling me anything. Everyone else gets information. Benedict knows things. Ana obviously knows everything because everyone tells Ana everything. But I find things out last.

Toto:You are told what you need to know.

Rosa:Like I’m a child.

Toto:No.

Rosa:Yes.

Rosa:You don’t trust me with anything.

Toto:Rosa, when you found out Susie was adopting Ana, you went to an Instagram gossip page and complained anonymously in their inbox.

Rosa:What?

Toto:You heard me.

Rosa:I didn’t.

Toto:Rosa.

Rosa:You don’t know that was me.

Toto:Yes, I do.

Rosa:How?

Toto:Do you really want the technical answer?

Rosa:That is creepy.

Toto:No. Creepy was my daughter’s private family matter appearing in the inbox of an gossip account before she had even decided whether she wanted anyone outside the family to know.

Rosa:It was anonymous.

Toto:It was still you.

Rosa:I was upset!

Toto:I know.

Rosa:Nobody had told me properly.

Toto:We would have told you before anything became public. 

Rosa:You would have told me like it was already decided.

Toto:It was already decided. Ana is an adult and  Susie is an adult. It was not a committee decision.

Rosa:So I’m untrustworthy now.

Toto:You have broken trust.

Rosa:Because of one comment?

Toto:Because of repeated choices.

Rosa:You act like I sold family secrets.

Toto:You took a private family matter to a gossip page because you wanted strangers to agree with your hurt feelings.

Rosa:Anonymous.

Toto:Public.

Toto:That is why you are not getting details tonight.

Rosa:Because you think I’ll post about it?

Toto:Because I cannot risk it.

Rosa:I wouldn’t.

Toto:I hope that is true.

Rosa:You hope.

Toto:Yes.

Rosa:Wow.

Toto:I am not saying this to punish you. I am saying it because you keep asking why you are not told everything.

Rosa:And your answer is because I’m awful.

Toto:My answer is because information requires trust, and trust has to be rebuilt.

Toto:Security will contact you. Answer the call. Provide your schedule for the next seventy-two hours. School, activities, transport, friends’ houses, anything outside your usual routine.

Rosa:You think I’m going to be attacked?

Toto:I do not have a specific threat against you.

Rosa:Then why?

Toto:Because a dangerous person has threatened one member of the family. Until we know more, precautions are being extended.

Rosa:“One member of the family.”

Toto:Yes.

Rosa:You mean Ana.

Toto:Yes.

Rosa:What happened?

Toto:She received serious threats. Police and security are involved.

Rosa:What kind of threats?

Toto:Serious ones.

Rosa:That is not an answer.

Toto:It is the answer you are getting.

Rosa:Because you don’t trust me.

Toto:I do not trust you with Ana’s private information right now.

Rosa:Because of the Instagram comment.

Toto:Because of that, and because you are currently blaming her for a threat made against her.

Rosa:I didn’t blame her.

Toto:You said it is always about Ana.

Rosa:Because it is.

Toto:She was threatened.

Rosa:I know.

Toto:Do you?

Rosa:I said I know.

Toto:Then do not turn it into evidence that she is taking something from you.

Rosa:Benedict doesn’t talk to me anymore. He doesn’t answer my texts.

Rosa:He speaks to you. He speaks to Susie. He probably speaks to Ana now because everyone has to be on Team Ana.

Toto:Benedict makes his own choices.

Rosa:You could tell him to talk to me.

Toto:I could.

Rosa:But you won’t.

Toto:No. Benedict is allowed to have boundaries.

Rosa:Oh, boundaries.

Rosa:Funny how when Ana avoids us, it’s boundaries. When Benedict avoids me, it’s boundaries. When I don’t want to be around her, it’s resentment.

Toto:Not wanting to be around someone can be a boundary. Blaming them for every consequence in the family is resentment.

Rosa:You don’t understand.

Toto:Then explain it.

Rosa:Benedict used to be mine. Not like that. I know how it sounds. But he was my brother. He was on my side. And now he looks at me the same way he looks at Mama.

Toto:Sometimes you repeat things she taught you.

Rosa:And Ana repeats things you taught her. Cold. Cutting. Always right. Always above everyone because feelings are inefficient.

Toto:Ana learned coldness because warmth was not always safe.

Rosa:And what did I learn?

Toto:You learned things I should have protected you from too.

Toto:I failed Ana. I failed Benedict. I failed you.

Rosa:Don’t.

Toto:It is true.

Rosa:I don’t want your guilt speech.

Toto:This is not a speech.

Rosa:It always becomes one.

Toto:Then I will keep it simple.

Toto:Your money was changed because I will not let money be used to reward cruelty or avoid consequences. It was not done because Ana asked. She did not. Benedict not speaking to you is Benedict’s decision. I will not force him. You are not receiving details tonight because you have broken trust with private family information before. The security is not punishment. It is because you are my daughter and I will protect you whether you are angry at me or not.

Rosa:Did she really get threatened?

Toto:Yes.

Rosa:Badly?

Toto:Yes.

Rosa:By who?

Toto:I am not sharing that.

Rosa:Because you don’t trust me.

Toto:Because it is an active security matter and Ana’s private information.

Rosa:Does Benedict know?

Toto:He will receive the same safety information. Not the details.

Rosa:So I’m not the only one being treated like a child.

Toto:No.

Rosa:Great.

Rosa:Is she okay?

Toto:No.

Rosa:Is she hurt?

Toto:Not physically.

Rosa:Is Jack there?

Toto:Yes. Susie had just picked him up from school. They came over. He knows only that there is a security concern and Ana is not physically hurt.

Rosa:He shouldn’t be around this.

Toto:He is not hearing details.

Rosa:Still.

Rosa:Jack loves her.

Toto:Yes.

Rosa:Everyone loves her.

Toto:Many people love you too.

Rosa:Not Benedict.

Toto:Benedict loves you. He is probably hurt and angry.

Rosa:Because I was mean to Ana.

Toto:Because you were cruel and refused to acknowledge it.

Rosa:I don’t know how to fix it.

Toto:Start by not making what happened tonight Ana’s fault.

Rosa:I didn’t say it was.

Rosa:Do I really need security?

Toto:Yes.

Rosa:Will they be obvious?

Toto:No. Discreet. Routes and perimeter. You will not be embarrassed at school or activities unless there is an emergency.

Rosa:I’m not a child.

Toto:I know.

Rosa:You keep saying things like school and schedule like I’m twelve.

Toto:University. Movements. Transport. Any place you will be outside your flat.

Rosa:Thank you.

Toto:Send your schedule, please.

Rosa:Mum already is.

Toto:Send yours too.

Rosa:Why?

Toto:Because your mother may edit.

Rosa:Fair.

Rosa: I’ll send it.

Toto: Thank you.

***

Text Messages: Toto Wolff & Benedict Wolff

Toto:Benedict, there is a temporary family security concern. You will have additional security around your movements for the next few days.

Benedict:Hello to you too.

Toto:Hello.

Benedict:That somehow made it worse.

Toto:I am sorry.

Benedict:Okay. What happened?

Toto:Ana received serious threatening messages tonight. Police and security are involved. We are extending precautions to the family.

Benedict:Is Ana okay?

Toto:She is not physically hurt.

Benedict:That is a terrible answer.

Toto:Yes.

Toto:Security will contact you shortly. Please answer the call and provide your schedule for the next seventy-two hours.

Benedict:No.

Toto:No?

Benedict:No security.

Toto:This is not optional.

Benedict:It is if I refuse to cooperate.

Toto:Benedict.

Benedict:Papa.

Benedict:I am literally seeing nothing but my apartment and my workplace anyway.

Toto:That is not as reassuring as you think it is.

Benedict:It should be.

Toto:It is not.

Benedict:I do not go out. I do not meet people. I take the same route. I park underground. I go upstairs. I work. I come back. There is very little to secure.

Toto:Benedict, why are you only seeing your apartment and your workplace?

Benedict:Because I have a job.

Toto:That is not what I asked.

Benedict:It is the answer.

Toto:No. It is a deflection.

Toto:Answer the question.

Benedict:I am tired.

Toto:Of what?

Benedict:Everything.

Toto:Can you be more specific?

Benedict:Not really.

Toto:Try.

Benedict:Work is easy.

Toto:And everything else is not.

Benedict:Yes.

Toto:Is this about Rosa?

Benedict:Partly.

Toto:She told me you do not answer her texts.

Benedict:I know.

Toto:She is hurt.

Benedict:I know.

Toto:Are you?

Benedict:Yes.

Toto:Because of what she said about Ana?

Benedict:Because of what she keeps saying. Because she acts like if she says it nicely enough, it is not cruel.

Toto:You are allowed not to answer her.

Benedict:I know.

Benedict:It does not feel good.

Toto:No.

Benedict:She thinks I chose Ana.

Toto:Did you?

Benedict:I chose not to pretend Rosa did not mean it.

Toto:That is a difference.

Benedict:Apparently not to her.

Toto:No.

Benedict:Or to Mama.

Toto:Your mother has her own version of events.

Benedict:That is a diplomatic way to say she lies.

Toto:Security.

Benedict:No.

Toto:Benedict. Please.

Toto:Would a discreet exterior watch be acceptable?

Benedict:At my apartment?

Toto:Yes. And a route assessment. No one inside. No one following you visibly. No contact unless there is a concern.

Benedict:That sounds like you already reduced the plan because you knew I would say no.

Toto:I know my children.

Toto: Will you accept that?

Benedict: Only exterior.

Text Messages: Max Verstappen & Victoria Verstappen

Max: I don’t think anything is going to happen, but I am sending security.

Victoria: What?

Max: To you.

Victoria: Max.

Victoria: What the fuck is going on?

Max: Nothing probably.

Victoria: You cannot say “nothing probably” after “I am sending security.”

Max: I can.

Victoria: No, you absolutely cannot.

Victoria: Max Emilian.

Max:Do not do that.

Victoria:I will do worse if you do not explain in the next ten seconds!

Max:There was a thing.

Victoria:A THING?

Max:Yes.

Victoria:Is Ana okay?

Max:Physically yes.

Victoria:Max.

Victoria:What happened?!

Max:She got threatening messages.

Victoria:From who?

Max:Probably George.

Victoria:Russell?