Chapter 95: Crashing out
Alaric
"I said I don’t smoke," I retorted, my patience snapping as I slapped his hand away. The cigar flickered in the dark. "Don’t you understand what consent means? What the hell is your problem, Nico?"
Nico let out a dark, mocking chuckle, shifting his weight against the leather cushions as he brought the cigar back to his own lips. He exhaled a thick plume of gray smoke right into the air between us. "You speak entirely too highly for someone who only stood on the top step of the podium thanks to me."
My blood ran cold, my fists clenching so hard the skin across my knuckles felt ready to split. I stared at him, incredulous. Now he was throwing that in my face? Just days ago, he had looked me in the eye and told me I won that race entirely on my own merit.
What the hell was wrong with him?
I looked past the cigar to the crystal glass of Louis XIII Cognac held tightly in his left hand, noting the slight flush on his neck.
I heaved a deep, exhausted sigh. He had to be drunk. There was no way a sober Nico would twist the knife this recklessly—or maybe, I bitterly realized, I was just thinking too highly of myself. I was forgetting exactly who was sitting in front of me.
This was my rival. This was a man obsessed with holding onto his championship at any cost.
"Why the hell are you even here, Mr. De Villier?" Nico sneered, leaning his head back against the lounge chair, his eyes tracking me through half-lidded stares. "Have you come all the way out here to lecture me? Or are you here to apologize for trying to throw your pathetic life away in the ocean?"
I bit the inside of my cheek, a hot flash of anger blinding me. I wanted nothing more than to smash my fist into his arrogant face. There he went again, talking down to me, reducing my absolute breaking point to something pathetic.
But I wasn’t going to let him break me tonight. I wasn’t going to stand here and let him trample over my dignity.
"The live stream must happen," I said, keeping my voice dead, flat, and professional. "That is the only reason I am standing here."
Nico let out a sharp, caustic laugh that tasted like pure poison. "No, De Villier. I am not doing that stupid PR live. I’ve already instructed my manager to pay the contract termination fee, so you should go ahead and do the same. There is no way in hell I am ever working with someone like you again."
"Someone like me?" I yelled, my composure fracturing as the anger roared to the surface. "You make it sound like I did something wrong to you! Like I owe you some kind of twisted favor!"
"Well, you do," he growled.
Nico slammed his crystal glass down onto the wooden table, the cognac sloshing over the brim, and stood up. He took slow, calculated steps toward me, his towering frame casting a long shadow over my face.
"I realized I was doing you a massive favor just by sharing a grid with you," he whispered, his voice dripping with lethal arrogance as he stepped directly into my personal space. "You’re nothing but past glory, Alaric. A broken driver who needed the most trending name in motorsport just to be recognized by the world again."
I saw red.
The words struck me like an physical impact, tearing through every insecurity I had fought to buried since the crash.
How dare he talk down to me like that? How dare he weaponize my trauma?
I clenched my fists so violently that I felt a sharp, stabbing pain in my left palm, followed by the sickening crawl of warm liquid smoothing down my fingers.
My own fingernails were cutting straight through my skin, drawing blood, but I barely felt it.
I wanted to scream back at him. I wanted to tell him that he was pathologically obsessed with his own reflection, that his achievements were the only thing keeping his hollow chest moving.
But the words choked in my throat, tied in a suffocating knot that forced me into a desperate, furious silence.
"What’s the matter now?" Nico demanded.
He took one more aggressive step forward, crowding me so entirely that his boot kicked between mine, forcing my legs apart just to keep my balance against his weight. The sheer gravity of his tone vibrated right through my chest, his proximity turning the air suffocatingly hot.
"Cat got your tongue, Alaric?" He chuckled, a dark, mocking sound as he tilted his head down, his lips brushing the shell of my ear. His hot breath sent a violent shiver straight down my spine.
"Since you came all the way out here to beg for this contract, it clearly means this brand means everything to your dying career. Well... I suppose I can help you save it. If you drop to your knees right now and beg me for it... maybe then I’ll consider—"
I didn’t let him finish the sentence.
The explosive rage inside me broke its chains. I pulled my hand back and threw my entire weight forward, driving my bloody, clenched fist straight into his arrogant jaw.
The impact cracked loudly through the quiet beach club, the force of the blow snapping his head sharply to the side.
"To hell with you, Nico Park!" I screamed, my voice raw and trembling with absolute fury. ’’I already have enough from your constant disrespect but I am not going to let you talk down on me.’’ I didn’t even care that my knuckles were throbbing or that the blood from my palms was smearing across his skin. I stepped closer, refusing to give him an inch of ground. "I have tolerated your constant disrespect for months, Nico, but I am not going to let you talk down to me anymore! Not about my career, and certainly not about my life!"
