Redline

Pieces that don’t fit

Valentina didn’t sleep. She tried. She really did. She went to bed as soon as she got to the hotel, turned off the lights, left her phone face down on the nightstand, and closed her eyes for almost an entire hour. But every time she was about to drift off, she saw Dante’s office again.

The photographs. The dates are marked in red. The open folders. The accident playing over and over again.

And above all… the photograph of her father.

At four in the morning, she gave up. She got out of bed, made herself an overly strong cup of coffee, and opened her laptop on the bed while rain continued to beat against the hotel windows in Barcelona.

“Luca Bianchi accident.”

Thousands of results appeared immediately. Articles, videos, official statements, interviews, speculation.

Valentina began opening tabs one after another as her exhaustion slowly disappeared, replaced by something worse.

Obsession.

The accident had happened during the Belgian Grand Prix, two years earlier. Final qualifying lap, wet track, and hydraulic failure were confirmed by the FIA just forty-eight hours later.

Case closed.

She reopened one of the technical reports published by the specialist press and read the paragraph for the third time.

“Instantaneous loss of pressure in the rear system.”

But something didn’t add up.

Because in another article, published several weeks later, an anonymous engineer claimed that the telemetry had shown irregularities before the corner, before the impact, before the supposed failure.

She opened another file.

Then another.

And another.

The more she read, the more contradictions she found. Times that didn’t match. Edited statements. Names that had disappeared from team records.

One of the mechanics mentioned in the earliest reports even seemed to have completely disappeared from the internet after the accident, as if he had never existed.

“Oh my God…” she whispered.

Her phone vibrated on the bed, nearly making her jump.

It was Dante.

Valentina stared at the screen for a few seconds before answering.

“How did you know I was awake?”

There was a brief silence on the other end.

“Because the lights in your room are still on.”

Valentina immediately sat up and walked to the window.

Down below, in front of the hotel, a black car waited in the rain.

Her heart lurched.

“You’re outside?”

“Come downstairs.”

That was all.

The call ended.

Valentina looked at the time.

4:37 a.m.

Normal. Completely normal, she thought ironically.

She changed quickly, still confused, and made her way down to the lobby almost twenty minutes later. The night clerk barely looked up as she walked through the automatic doors and stepped into the cold Barcelona rain.

Dante was leaning against the car, dressed entirely in black. His hands were in his pockets, his hair damp from the rain. He looked exhausted and dangerous, but that part was already starting to feel normal.

When she approached, he opened the passenger door without saying a word.

“Are you k********g me?”

“Not yet.”

Valentina got into the car, trying to ignore the ridiculously physical effect Dante Moreau had on her even at five in the morning.

The interior smelled like leather, coffee, and the woody cologne he always wore.

Dante started the car in silence.

“How did you know I was investigating?” she finally asked.

“I’ve known you for two weeks, and I’ve already figured out you don’t know how to sit still.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

Dante glanced at her for a second.

“Your hotel Wi-Fi history is linked to the team’s private system.”

Valentina slowly turned her head toward him.

“Are you spying on me?”

“Yes.”

The answer came so quickly that she didn’t even know how to react.

“Excuse me?”

“I told you this was dangerous.”

“That doesn’t give you the right to spy on me.”

“Would you rather they leave a body at your door first?”

His tone was so cold that silence immediately filled the car.

Valentina studied him for a few seconds. There was something different about him tonight.

More tense.

More aggressive.

As if he were running entirely on caffeine and paranoia.

“I found inconsistencies in the reports,” she finally said. “The telemetry doesn’t match the official explanation.”

Dante’s jaw immediately tightened.

“I told you to leave this alone.”

“And I told you I don’t like being given orders.”

“This isn’t a game, Valentina.”

“I never said it was.”

Dante let out a dry, completely hollow laugh before suddenly pulling over near the harbor.

The dark sea crashed against the docks while rain continued to fall across the windshield.

For several seconds, neither of them spoke.

“Do you know what happens to curious people in this sport?” Dante finally asked.

Valentina looked at him. He was still staring out at the water.

“They end up destroyed.”

She held his profile in her gaze for a few seconds before answering.

“Did that happen to you?”

“Luca was my best friend,” he said quietly. “We spent most of the season living together. I knew everything about him. I heard him talk for months about problems with the car, and no one wanted to listen.”

“Why didn’t you say anything publicly?”

Dante slowly turned his head toward her.

“Because I was threatened two days after the funeral.”

“What?” she asked, startled.

Dante opened the glove compartment, pulled out a folded photograph, and handed it to her.

It was a telephoto photograph of Dante entering the cemetery alone, dressed in a black suit.

Written on the back in red ink were the words:

“Leave the past buried.”

Valentina slowly looked up.

“Who did this?”

“I don’t know.”

“And you never showed it to the police?”

Dante gave her a faint, humorless smile.

“The police got a copy before I did.”

A shiver immediately ran through Valentina.

Because now she understood.

Dante wasn’t obsessed solely because of grief.

He was trapped in something much bigger.

Dante’s phone vibrated on the center console.

He looked at the screen, and something in his expression changed.

An immediate darkness settled over his features.

Valentina caught a glimpse of the caller ID.

Private number.

Dante answered without taking his eyes off the road.

“What do you want?”

Then his voice hardened violently.

“Don’t call me again.”

“Who was that?”

Dante didn’t answer.

“Dante.”

He placed both hands on the steering wheel and closed his eyes for just a second.

“I told you to stay away from this.”

“What did they say?”

Silence.

She began losing patience.

“What the hell did they say?”

Dante slowly turned his head toward her.

And when he spoke, his voice was lower.

More dangerous.

“They said they’re watching you now, too.”

Valentina’s heart stopped for a second.

Outside, the rain continued falling over Barcelona.

But inside the car, everything had just changed.