Chapter 82: The Victory That Felt Wrong
Alaric
For a few seconds after I crossed the line, I was in my own world.
I did not care about the shouting from my race engineer or the pounding of my heartbeat beneath the fireproof layers of my race suit.
There was only the sound of my own breathing echoing inside the claustrophobic confines of my helmet.
Then I heard it all.
"P1, Alaric! P1! You won the Saudi Grand Prix!"
The words exploded through my earpiece, a little too loud and completely impossible to fully comprehend.
I stared ahead blindly before my eyes dropped down to the digital display on my steering wheel. The glowing leaderboard read exactly what the radio had promised.
P1.
My name sat at the absolute top of the board while Nico’s sat right beneath mine in second place.
For one strange, suspended moment, my fingers tightened around the molded wheel until the leather creaked beneath my gloves.
I had won.
I had actually won.
Suddenly, the Ferrari garage erupted through the comms.
A wall of static and chaotic cheers flooded my ears as voices overlapped one another so badly that I could barely make out a single sentence.
"Beautiful drive, Alaric!"
"That was incredible!"
"You did it, mate! Absolutely brilliant!"
I should have shouted back.
I should have screamed until my throat ached, slapped the steering wheel in pure euphoria, and laughed like a man who had just stolen a hard-fought victory from the most infuriating bastard on the grid.
That was what a normal driver would do.
That was what I was supposed to do because this was a great win.
After two years away from racing, I had returned to claim P1 in only the second race of the season.
Instead of feeling happy, my eyes instinctively flickered up toward the side mirror where Nico’s Red Bull was coasting behind me.
How could this be happening when he was about to win?
A sharp, cold knot tightened painfully in the pit of my stomach.
There was no way.
No, there was absolutely no way.
He had defended his position against me for forty-nine laps like an absolute madman.
Every inside line, every exit, every heavy braking zone, every single place where I thought I could finally squeeze my Ferrari through, he had shut down immediately.
Nico Park did not make mistakes like that.
Not when he was leading a race.
He was a competitive bastard who wanted everything in his favor.
There was no way in hell he would have willingly let me win, yet everything had happened in the blink of an eye.
"Alaric," my engineer’s voice sounded through the radio, "enjoy your cooldown lap. You won this round."
Won?
I do not think so.
Nico had let me win.
I heaved a deep sigh as I looked ahead at the unfolding track, watching the brilliant stadium floodlights flash across the carbon-fiber nose of my car, reflecting off the asphalt like a hall of mirrors.
On the sides of the circuit, the marshals were already waving green and checkered flags in celebration.
My right hand rose automatically from the wheel to wave back at the crowd in the grandstands.
The moment they saw the gesture, the fans went completely mad.
I tried to force a smile beneath the padding of my helmet, but my lips barely moved.
By the time I slowed the car down significantly for the mandatory cooldown lap, the familiar dark-blue chassis of Nico’s Red Bull pulled up directly alongside me.
I turned my head toward him before I could even think to stop myself.
For a brief moment, we were rolling side by side again, exactly the way we had been all weekend.
Two bitter rival teams.
Two idiots who apparently did not know how to stay away from each other.
Nico’s visor was heavily tinted, completely hiding his eyes, but I still felt his intense stare like a physical hand curling around the back of my neck.
Then, slowly, he raised his gloved hand and gave me a lazy two-finger salute.
What the hell was he up to?
My grip on the steering wheel tightened until my knuckles ached, and I could not help but wonder what he had done.
Before I could even signal toward him, he gently squeezed the throttle and pulled his car away from mine.
But he did not head toward the pit lane.
A few moments later, his Red Bull slowed down to a crawl.
It did not ease off the track smoothly. Instead, it looked like it was losing speed in the middle of the main straight.
My eyes widened as flashes of the previous crash instantly appeared inside my head.
"What the hell is Nico Park doing?" I muttered into the open mic, my heart kicking hard against my ribs as a sudden spike of adrenaline shot through my veins.
Nobody answered me.
Nico’s car came to a complete grinding stop right there on the track, and that only made my heart pound even harder.
What the hell was he up to now?
The roaring crowd noise instantly shifted.
It was subtle at first, but then suddenly the massive stadium screens cut away from my Ferrari to show his stationary Red Bull.
My radio crackled to life with a sharp hiss.
"Alaric, keep moving. Nico has stopped on track and, according to the information we received, he hurt his shoulder. The medical car will be deployed toward him now. Stay focused and return straight to parc fermé," my engineer informed me.
Medical car.
The words landed badly in my chest.
I turned my head back so fast my neck strained painfully against the rigid carbon straps of the HANS device.
Nico’s car sat entirely motionless behind me.
There was no smoke pouring from the exhaust, no visible fire, and no obvious structural damage from a crash.
It had just stopped.
My heart would not stop pounding as I stared at him.
"Nico," I whispered, even though I knew he could not hear me.
"Alaric, keep moving," my engineer repeated.
Be fine, Nico, I thought as I hit the throttle.
My eyes stayed glued to the rearview mirror until his car faded into a tiny speck behind me.
