Sunday. The sun hangs low in the desert sky, a molten coin bleeding orange and purple across the horizon. The five red lights of the starting gantry illuminate, one by one, a string of crimson tears against the twilight. My world shrinks to the space between those lights and the first corner. The roar of twenty engines is a physical pressure, a tsunami of sound that vibrates through the carbon fiber monocoque and into the marrow of my bones.
I am preternaturally calm. The chaos of yesterday—the discovery of the sabotage, Elena’s ignominious exit—has been incinerated, leaving behind only a core of cold, hard certainty. I am on pole position. The Red Bull is beside me. The championship will be decided in the next ninety minutes.
The lights go out.
My reaction is flawless. The car leaps of
