The champagne had long since gone flat, the echoes of victory replaced by the sterile silence of the FIA World Motor Sport Council chambers in Paris. The air, thick with the scent of old leather and political gravity, was a world away from the raw perfume of burnt rubber and hot asphalt. I sat not at the defendant's table, but in the front row, a credential identifying me as a material witness hanging from my neck. Kael sat beside me, his large frame a bastion of quiet solidarity. He wore a tailored suit, but he looked as caged and uncomfortable as a lion in a boardroom.
Across the room, Enzo and Mia were arranged with their team of lawyers. Mia was a study in fragile victimhood, her eyes wide and red-rimmed. Enzo wore a mask of weary solemnity, the noble team principal forced into an unf
