Tyler's POV
The Monaco paddock smells like fuel and ambition and the particular desperation of men who've bet everything on speed.
I breathe it in, letting the familiar cocktail of scents anchor me to the present.
The garage buzzes with controlled chaos—engineers reviewing telemetry, mechanics making final adjustments, the car gleaming under harsh fluorescent lights like a predator waiting to be unleashed.
This is my moment. Grid position four. A realistic shot at the podium if I drive smart, if I keep my head, if I don't let the pressure crack me open.
My race engineer, Josh, appears at my elbow with a tablet displaying weather data. "Conditions are holding. Dry track, minimal wind. Should be clean racing."
"Good." I roll my shoulders, trying to release the tension that's been building since I woke at dawn. "Any updates on the competition?"
"Verstappen's dealing with a minor hydraulics issue. Nothing confirmed, but there's chatter in their garage. Could work in your favor if it affects his start."
I nod, filing the information away. Every advantage matters on a track this unforgiving. One wrong move, one moment of hesitation, and you're in the barrier.
Monaco doesn't forgive mistakes.
"Tyler." My team principal, Richardson, approaches with his phone extended. "Quick interview request. Sky Sports wants two minutes before you suit up."
"Fine."
I follow him to the media area, where a camera crew waits with practiced smiles. The questions are predictable—how does it feel to be racing Monaco as a rookie, what are my expectations, do I think I can challenge for the podium.
I give the answers I've rehearsed a hundred times, my face arranged into the confident mask the sponsors pay for.
Then the interviewer's expression shifts, and something knowing creeps into her smile.
"One last question, Tyler. There's been quite a bit of buzz this morning about your family. Photos surfaced of your brother Derek with a young woman—apparently the same Ellie Harman whose parents did in a recent rink accident. Care to comment on the family's newest addition?"
I keep my expression neutral through sheer force of will, but something fractures behind my ribs. "My brother's personal life is his own business. I'm focused on the race today."
"Of course." The interviewer's smile widens, sensing blood. "It must be nice to have family supporting you from home. Will you be celebrating with them if you make the podium?"
"We'll see how the race goes first."
I extract myself before she can dig deeper, but the damage is done.
I find a quiet corner behind the garage and pull out my phone with fingers that refuse to stay steady. The headlines assault me before I've even finished typing her name.
"McKinney Heir's Mystery Woman"
"Billionaire's Son Goes Public with New Flame"
There she is. Ellie, laughing, Derek's arm draped across her shoulders. They're leaving a restaurant—his restaurant—and she's looking up at him with a warm expression.
Focus.
I need to focus. The race starts in forty minutes, and I cannot afford to be thinking about auburn hair and brown eyes and the way she gasped my name.
I shove the phone back in my pocket and press my palms against my eyes until I see stars.
The anger arrives without warning, hot and familiar, burning through my veins like fuel. I welcome it. Anger is easier than hurt. Anger is something I know how to use.
"Tyler." Josh appears in my peripheral vision. "Time to suit up."
I nod, not trusting my voice, and follow him back to the garage.
The race suit feels like armor as I pull it on. Helmet, gloves, the familiar ritual of preparing for battle.
I slide into the cockpit and let the car wrap around me like a second skin, the only place in the world where I've ever felt completely in control.
The formation lap passes in a blur.
I position myself on the grid, engines screaming around me, the Monaco circuit stretching ahead like a serpent made of concrete and barriers.
Lights out.
I launch off the line, the G-forces slamming me back into my seat. Fourth becomes third as I dive into Sainte-Dévote, threading the needle between two cars that hesitate a fraction too long.
The crowd is a smear of color in my peripheral vision. But the images keep surfacing.
Derek's hand on her waist. The way she leaned into him. The smile on her face—relaxed, happy, nothing like the guarded expression she wore around me.
I push harder into Massenet, taking a line that borders on reckless. My engineer's voice crackles in my ear, warning me about tire management, but the words barely register.
All I can think about is how stupid I was to leave her.
I could have claimed her. Could have told her she was mine, that the no-strings bullshit was just stupid fear.
The tunnel approaches, and I plunge into darkness at one hundred sixty miles per hour. The brief blindness is almost welcome—a moment where I don't have to see anything, don't have to think about anything except the next corner.
Then the light hits, and I'm back in the glare, back in the chaos, back in my own spiraling head.
Third becomes second after a mechanical failure takes out the car ahead of me. The championship leader is within striking distance, his rear wing filling my vision as we scream through the Swimming Pool complex.
I should be elated. I should be calculating my strategy, conserving my tires, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.
Instead, I'm replaying every conversation I had with Ellie, searching for the moment I should have said something different.
My engineer is saying something about pit strategy, about gaps, about the leader's pace falling off.
I respond on autopilot, my hands moving through sequences my body knows by heart while my mind remains trapped in California, in my bedroom that still smells like her.
Pathetic. I'm pathetic.
The anger surges again, and I channel it into my right foot. The car responds, eating up the gap between me and the leader.
Corner after corner, I push harder than I should, taking risks that make my engineer's voice climb an octave.
I don't care. I need to win. I need to prove that leaving her behind wasn't a mistake because look at what I can achieve when I'm focused.
Except I'm not focused. I'm falling apart, and the worst part is I can feel it happening and I can't stop it.
Final lap. I'm on the leader's gearbox, close enough to taste victory, close enough to see the gap that will open on the exit of the last corner.
The crowd roars, a wall of sound that penetrates even my helmet.
This is it. This is the moment I've been building toward my entire life.
I dive for the inside. The leader defends, but he's too late, his tires too worn. I slot alongside him through the final chicane, my front wing inches from his sidepod, and then I'm ahead.
I'm ahead.
The checkered flag waves, and I cross the line first.
For one perfect second, everything else disappears. The pain, the anger, the jealousy—all of it evaporates in the blinding light of victory.
I scream inside my helmet, raw and primal, every emotion I've been suppressing exploding at once.
I did it. I actually fucking did it.
Then the world tilts.
One moment I'm easing off the throttle, beginning my cooldown lap, and the next the rear of the car snaps loose on a patch of debris I didn't see.
The barrier comes at me sideways.
The impact is a screaming symphony of metal and carbon fiber disintegrating around me. The car rolls, once, twice, the world becoming a kaleidoscope of sky and asphalt and sparks.
My head slams against the cockpit wall despite the HANS device. Stars explode across my vision.
I hope Ellie is watching. I hope she sees what I did for her.
Then everything goes black.
[a]share/take/touch/hold