Chapter 5
Fia
I am fluent. I am rehearsed. I am educated. I am Hungarian.
I am in control.
I do not need to worry.
I’m allowed to worry — but I don’t need to.
Everything will be okay.
To anyone around me, I was confident, calm, and caffeinated.
Three things I always aspired to be.
Head down in my locker, I kept on scrolling through my socials, blitzing past any account that wasn’t @ZoltánFarkas or @Noraaaaa12.
Nothing new from either of them—not since I stalked their profiles until 3 a.m. The results of such unhinged late-night behaviour were minimal: They’d been together for two years before the crash. She posted him. He didn’t post her. Or he deleted them all.
She’d posted a picture of him to celebrate his StormSprint debut, but the missing scar on his jaw told me it was an old picture. And I’d zoomed in to make sure. A couple of times.
I’d screenshotted the post first. Because I had learned my lesson.
Most of my night scrolling was enjoying his profile. He had pictures with dogs at adoption centres, playing football, and on a dirt bike.
I kept scrolling, trying to find something that would make me hate him. No luck. But every post made it worse. His dry and witty captions, his ironic emoji usage. Him.
When @Noraaaaa12 walked in, I inched further into my locker, looking at her through my hair.
She made a beeline for my racer.
Like she owned his cock. Thank you for that visual, Everly.
He was talking to our team director, though his broken English was worse than usual today.
There was every drive in me to prove myself. I knew the right thing to do was to go over there and translate for them, showing my eagerness.
But I kept scrolling, even if I wasn’t looking down.
I didn’t want to talk to Zoltán.
Though I smiled when he completely ignored her, nodding at our boss instead and leaving her awkwardly hanging.
“Hey, it’s Zsófia, right?”
I looked up to see Zolt’s near double. He looked a few years older and was a few inches shorter, but he still towered over me.
And I was five-foot-nine.
“I go by Fia,” I said. “You’re Benedek?”
He nodded, and before he could talk, I said, “I’m sorry about yesterday. I was… not well.”
Smiling, he pulled some papers out of his satchel. “And are you feeling better now?”
Arguably worse? “Yes, thank you.”
“I was hoping you could translate these,” he said and handed me a file. “My spoken English is okay, but I need someone with qualifications to translate these.”
I pulled out the first sheet, just enough to scan a few paragraphs. Zoltán’s name was everywhere, with details about his crash.
He’d been transported to a Hungarian facility as soon as he’d woken from his coma in France.
“It’s his medical clearance. StormSprint needs them.”
“Before he races? In an hour?” I flicked through what had to be thirty pages of medically rich Hungarian. A lot of the words I didn’t know.
He shook his head with a light laugh. “No. Of course not. A couple of weeks? Maybe for Imre’s party?”
My eyes narrowed on the work. “How is he going to race without the directors seeing this?”
Benedek tapped his nose. “The family name gets us so far. Being a Farkas and all that. You know who Simon Farkas is, right?”
If it weren’t for his passing last year, I would have rolled my eyes. “Yes. I met him multiple times.”
“So you’d know why we’re here then.”
I took a deep breath. I was sure people referred to my sister and me as getting into StormSprint through our dad, and there might be some truth to it, but at least I didn’t brag about it.
“Just look over the first page and tell Julian Marchetti and Patrick that he has the all clear; that would be enough.”
“Now?”
He shrugged. “At some point in the next hour. It’s just here.”
The sentence he pointed at explained how he was medically clear to race. It was so painfully disorganised.
How was he even here without this being confirmed? Translated?
“StormSprint must have done their own checks,” I mumbled.
“Of course,” Benedek said. “But they wanted clearance from his rehabilitation, too.”
I placed the file in my locker, leaving out the first page, and closed it louder than I should have. “I’m just a translator. How am I meant to find the director of StormSprint?”
“I’m sure he’ll come to you. Or Zolt will go with you. It’s in his best interests for Julian to know, or he can’t race.”
Great. Mission Detect Director with my favourite accomplice.
I glanced over at him just as Patrick walked away, and he turned to Nora.
Who was grinning despite that ugly, orange grid girl outfit.
Thank you, Prixton, for having the grossest colours of any team.
They clashed so beautifully with our purple.
Before she could say much more than ‘hey,’ I was at their side, glaring at her touch on his arm. Like a vice.
And he acted as if it were normal.
“Zolt,” I said, taking slight joy in giving him a nickname. We weren’t friendly enough for it — I’d only called him that when he was railing me on a bike — but she didn’t know that.
His eyes locked on mine as if he were remembering the exact heat-inducing moment.
“We need to go and find Julian.”
His head inched back. “Why? What’s wrong? I thought I had an interview.”
Nora looked between us, her smile fake. “Who’s this?” she asked in English. “Are you the translator?”
She said it like I was the help in some Victorian BBC drama. Like being a translator was beneath her, when it was the only thing I’d wanted to be. What I’d worked to become for years.
And the way she stood between Zolt and me suggested she wanted as much space between me and her ex as possible.
I opened my mouth, ready to explain that I wasn’t just his translator and give her the full, erotic translation of exactly how well I knew him.
Maybe three espressos before noon had been a mistake.
I was no longer calm. But I stopped myself, because that night he hadn’t mentioned her once, which could mean multiple things.
“Yes.” I turned back to him. “Zolt?”
“Maybe you could translate for the two of us,” she said with a mischievous grin. I could already hear Everly in my head: Don’t start shit in the paddock. Start it where there are no cameras. “You could tell him all the things I—”
“You don’t speak Hungarian?” How did they communicate for the two years they were together before the crash?
I heard the disgust in my voice before I could stop it.
My mind went back to all of those dirty, filthy words he’d spoken to me in English. I knew I hadn’t been the first girl to hear them, but…
“I do,” she snapped and started stroking his arm.
Zoltán sighed, eyes closed, as if he was done with our catty drama.
She wasn’t. She pouted, took a deep breath, and then said in his language, “I try say congratulations on contract! So much more penis now!”
I saw Zolt’s eyes widen for one second before I couldn’t hold it in and bent over, clutching my mouth to stop the laughter.
I completely understood why she had made the slip-up she had. ‘Penis’ and ‘money’ were only a consonant off.
But oh my god.
My stomach hurt by the time I gathered myself, realising I had crumpled the medical file slightly. I managed to deadpan, “He’s certainly not poor there.”
I’d felt him for a week.
I’d thought of it every day after.
Zolt’s jaw was slack, and he looked me over as if he was seeing me for the first time, like he was proud and hungry.
“I need to confirm your medical clearance with Julian. And I need you to help me find him, or you can’t race.”
“Okay,” he said with a nod. “Just give me a second here.”
To do what? Try and speak through body language and grunts?
Oh god, no, that was a worse visual.
But it wouldn’t stop forming — her bent over, him breathing in her ear—
I quick-marched out.
And, looking over my shoulder, she was now stroking both of his arms, and his hands had fallen to her waist.
“Zoltán?” I bristled without thinking.
He didn’t say another word to her, just looked up at me and followed me out. I walked a few steps forward before he reached for my arm, and I threw his touch off me.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, jolting back at my rejection.
“That performance there nearly made me pull a you.”
His frown took over his whole beautiful face.
“Being sick behind the trailers.”
He chuckled and crossed his arms, leaning against the wall, inches before me. “Are you jealous, Zsófia Bacque?”
“No,” I snapped. “We were—” I looked around him to check that the tunnel was empty. “We were a one-night, no-strings entanglement.”
A corner of his mouth tilted. “You know, for a language expert, your delivery is shit. At least lie well.”
“Anyway,” I said and shoved the paper into his ridiculous chest. “We need to find Julian.”
He took it from my hands, his fingers stroking mine with the same gentle brush that reminded me of two weeks ago.
Eyes fluttering, I looked away while he analysed the paper.
“But—you need to be honest with me. Are you well enough to race?”
A dangerous scowl through his brows anchored me to the floor.
A tight breath, and I used all the moral responsibility and confidence the caffeine had given me. “Because the doctors can say you’re ready to go, but nobody knows your body better than you do.”
“Why are you saying this?”
“Because you fell off a chair and threw up yesterday.”
“Contacts and food poisoning,” he said through his teeth. “And I didn’t fall. What do you care anyway? You’ve just got to translate, and you get your pay.”
“I don’t care,” I snapped.
He smirked. “Again with the lies. You’re cute, Zsófia.”
“I don’t care.”
I knew what men like him were like. That was why my fantasy of fucking a racer was just that. Just fucking. Location. Condom. No emotion. In that order.
“So that little high-pitched cry of my name just then was nothing? It reminded me of your gasps and—”
“Oh my god, stop!” I pressed my hands against his chest as I looked around him again.
He held them there.
“Then be honest.”
I exhaled deeply, snatching the paper back from him. It was creased now.
I didn’t want to be honest with him or myself.
“She’s on a different team and all over you, and you’re all over her.”
His eyes narrowed. I’d expected him to laugh at me or dismiss me completely. Not see me. “That’s the issue here? That she’s on a different team?”
“Yes.”
He leaned forward, and my back hit the cold wall.
“I have no idea why you’re insecure when I ignored everything she said there and haven’t humoured her in over a year.
Or the fact that I’ve told you I want you to text me while I’ve been leaving her on read.
Do you think I would have fucked you like I did if she still meant anything to me?
I barely know how to deal with one woman’s feelings. You think I’ve got room for two?”
Technically, he was right. He hadn’t spoken a single word to her.
“But you said to give you a sec—”
“For me to tell her to fuck off, Zsófia.”
“And… and did you?”
He shook his head and sighed. “No, because a little angry translator screeched my name like she was as frustrated as when I edged her—”
“Zoltán!”
His grin slowly spread across his face. He knew he had me.
“You’re the one who just told everyone in that room you know how big my cock is, Fia.”
My hand slammed to my mouth because, oh my god. I had, hadn’t I?
“They don’t speak… none of them speak…”
He cocked his head to the side in thought. “Well, my brother does… and Nora…”
Her name should not be coming out of his mouth.
His hand tugged lightly on mine, pulling it from my still parted lips. “It’s okay,” he said softly. “No one’s going to say anything.”
“Because I’m just the translator?”
“Because they wouldn’t dare.”
The words didn’t match his calming tone. I was glad he was holding me gently, cornering me with that look of care in his eyes, because the threat was clear. I did not want to be on the bad side of Zoltán Farkas.
“No one is going to upset you,” he promised and brushed a strand of hair out of my face. I should have been scared. But there was a soft warmth in the sharp, cutting threat.
He inched closer, his boots nudging mine.
He was going to kiss me.
Right here. Right now. In a tunnel.
“You keep looking at me like that, and I’m going to forget we’re in public.”
My entire body shivered, and I slipped out from under his arm. “I’ll find Julian alone. I don’t think looking at you is a good idea.”
The smile was clear in his voice. “Not until we’re alone?”
I flattened the paper against my chest, trying to iron out the wrinkles, conscious that I was stalling but unable to get my feet to move forward.
“When you’ve seen him, can I have a copy? I haven’t actually read it.”
“I need to translate it, but I can— I can send you pictures of it.”
“I’ll send you my number, Zsófia.”
I nodded and walked away before I did something stupid. Like kiss him. Again.
Because I wasn’t calm, I was no longer caffeinated. And I definitely wasn’t in control anymore.