The Paddock Pact

Chapter 14: On the Absolute Edge

POV: Anya

The session was a nightmare. Through the headset, I listened to Marcus's calm, rhythmic instructions guiding Mateo through traffic. The car was fighting him on every turn—on the screens, I could see the rear slipping out every time he hit the apex. In Q1, he barely survived, scraping through by less than a tenth of a second. In Q2, he was constantly complaining about the lack of front-end grip, his voice sharp and panting over the radio as the track temperature dropped.

Somehow, by some sheer miracle of late braking and reckless positioning, he scraped into the top ten shootout.

As the car rolled back into the pit for fresh tires before Q3, the garage became a whirlwind of hot air, carbon dust, and heavy breathing. Mateo didn't get out of the car. He sat motionless in the cockpit, staring straight ahead at the garage wall, his gloved hands locked onto the steering wheel.

The final eight minutes of Q3 felt like a slow, suffocating countdown.

I stood two steps behind Marcus, pressed against the cold metal edge of the engineer's desk. The garage smelled intensely of heated oil, scorched rubber, and brake dust that coated the back of my throat. Every time a car tore past the pit lane outside, the concrete floorboards vibrated right through the thin soles of my flats.

"Last run, Mateo," Marcus's voice cracked through the static of my headset. "Track is clear behind you. This is the one."

The mechanics ripped the black electric tire blankets away, revealing the pristine, slick red-marked compound. The air jacks released with a loud, compressed hiss, dropping the car onto the floor. Mateo fired the engine, the raw vibration reverberating straight through my chest, and accelerated out into the pit lane for his final flying lap.

I couldn't look away from the telemetry screens. I was completely useless here—no spreadsheets to analyze, no corporate contracts to redline—just a spectator watching a young man push a machine to its absolute physical limits.

First sector—yellow. He was losing time in the slow technical corners.

Second sector—green. He was clawing it back, throwing the car into the high-speed elevation changes of the Styrian hills with a terrifying, borderline suicidal lack of self-preservation.

Then came the final sector. Turn 9.

Mateo entered the corner with way too much speed. Through the live broadcast feed, I watched in silent horror as the chassis violently bounced over the high yellow sausage kerbs. The impact sent a violent shudder through the car, lifting the left tires completely off the asphalt. For a split second, the machine was totally out of control, heading straight toward the unforgiving gravel trap at two hundred and fifty kilometers an hour.

My breath caught in my throat. My fingers dug into my palms so hard my nails bit into the skin, my stomach dropping into a dark, bottomless pit.

But Mateo didn't lift his foot off the throttle. With a brutal, lightning-fast correction of the steering wheel, he violently caught the slide right on the absolute millimeter-thin edge of the track, the rear tire kissing the dirt before the car straightened out and crossed the finish line.

The timing screen flashed. P9.

"Copy, Mateo. P9," Marcus said into his microphone, letting out a long, heavy breath. "Good recovery on Turn 9. Bring it in."

There were no cheers in the garage. No high-fives among the mechanics. P9 meant he was in the points for Sunday, but it was a fragile, exhausting result for a team that spent hundreds of millions to be on the podium.

When the car rolled back into the garage and the crew surrounded it, Mateo slowly climbed out of the cockpit. He looked physically spent, his shoulders slumped as he unbuttoned his HANS device with trembling fingers.

He pulled his helmet off, his dark curls soaked in sweat, his skin deathly pale under the harsh overhead fluorescent lights. He stood by the side of the car for a long moment, staring blankly at the carbon-fiber nose, completely unsatisfied with the result and hollowed out by the sheer physical effort.

I stepped forward to hand him his towel and water bottle, our eyes briefly meeting in the glare of the garage. But the playful intimacy from six o'clock this morning was completely gone. There was no recognition in his gaze. He didn't smile, he didn't nod, and he didn't say a word. He just took the towel, draped it over his neck, and walked straight toward the back room, leaving me standing alone amidst the roaring noise of the paddock.

By seven in the evening, the paddock had cleared out, leaving only the cold mountain wind sweeping through the empty team enclosures.

I was waiting near the back exit of the hospitality suite, holding my laptop bag, waiting for Mateo to finish his long debrief with the engineers. The long hallway was dimly lit and completely quiet, smelling faintly of industrial floor cleaner and cold coffee.

The heavy wooden door of the conference room swung open. Mateo walked out, but he wasn't alone.

Walking beside him was Sani, the Team Principal—a towering, gray-haired man with eyes like flint. He wasn't looking at Mateo; he was staring straight ahead, his voice a low, brutal rasp that echoed off the narrow hallway walls.

"P9 is an insult to this budget, Mateo," the principal said, not even slowing his pace as he walked past us. "Fix it tomorrow, or we find someone who can."

The principal disappeared down the stairs, his sharp footsteps fading into the distance, leaving behind a silence so absolute it felt like an oxygen leak.

I turned to look at Mateo. He was standing motionless under the flickering hallway light, his hands shoved deep into his pockets, his knuckles white. He looked like a man standing on the trapdoor of a gallows, waiting for the floor to drop.

Tomorrow was going to be even worse.