Chapter 6
Zoltán
Coming back to Hungary used to feel like a break.
There’d be nights of meeting school friends and going wild in the bars. Then the weekends of us going to neighbouring countries and making a mess of ourselves.
Now, I spent the days sneaking around and the evenings beside my mother, letting her think I was back to my old self.
Which I wasn’t.
My mother had moved in after the crash. I’d bought and extended the house with the intention of never having to leave. One of the gyms had been turned into a rehab centre for my physio. The guest room on the ground floor had been modernised with an en-suite when I couldn’t get up the stairs.
There were no excuses of going to the gym or the spa, because when I bought the place, I never had any intentions of leaving.
It was a piece of art, carved into the South Hungarian green forest, blending in with the scene, with the plants growing on the roofs of the log-style mansion with grey, heavy brick.
The biggest selling point had been that it was close to my grandfather’s house.
That my brother had now inherited.
The IV bag swayed in the light wind, hooked to the iron railing above my recliner.
The air was thick with droplets hanging in the air, but I hated sitting still.
The only thing that cleared my mind was my beautiful home country and getting to look out at it from my bedroom’s balcony, overseeing all the glorious, emerald land I had the privilege to own, which made the ninety minutes more bearable, before I ripped the cannula out from the inside of my elbow and went back to pretending.
StormSprint meant more travelling than MotoBike, and the more I was away, the less this felt like home.
It reminded me of those months when I clawed back to sanity.
I heard the soft creak of the balcony door before I saw her.
My mother walked out like she always did — quietly and deliberately. She belonged in every room. She became the focus of it.
Everything about her was gentle — from her voice to the laughter lines around her eyes. Her warm, deep bronze skin was soft and nearly wrinkle-free, other than when she smiled.
In the last year, I’d started to see her gentle nature as something I had to protect.
Since my crash, when my life had hung in the balance, and then with the death of my grandfather, I was too aware that life was fleeting.
And my accident had hurt her so deeply. I couldn’t risk scaring her again.
She sat down in the chair next to me, pulling her linen cardigan tightly around her chest. “I didn’t think you liked these,” she said. She’d only caught me doing this once. “You couldn’t even watch a TV screen if someone was getting injected.”
I shrugged.
“You’re a real celebrity now,” she laughed. “On the balcony, overseeing your lands, with a drip.”
She was teasing me now.
“It’s magnesium and B12. It’s meant to hydrate my skin so I look like a god.”
“You already do,” she said and kissed my forehead as she bent to pull out something from her ever-present tote bag.
A blanket.
My mind flashed to the picnic blanket.
Nope.
She wrapped it around my shoulders and patted my arm. “There.”
“You don’t need to baby me,” I said.
She smiled softly. “And you don’t need to lie to me about the drip.”
Normally, I booked them for her book nights or monthly trips to Cape Verde for her to see her sisters. She still needed gentle encouragement to attend those with multiple reminders that I was fine.
But with the ‘party’ tomorrow, there was no way to reschedule them.
Whatever she thought would be better than the truth.
They were a new experimental drug to help with my chronic migraines. If she thought this was excessive, she should’ve seen the rest of my schedule. Needle therapy. My monthly self-injection. My vestibular rehabilitation therapy.
All scheduled to perfection by my brother, so that she didn’t have to know.
Because we didn’t trust anyone else.
Or want to scare anyone else.
She sat and dropped her head onto my shoulder.
When my phone dinged, a very angry bird told me I had to complete my lesson for the day.
“You’re learning a language?”
“Improving my English.”
“Don’t put Zsófia out of the job,” she warned, brows high. “That wouldn’t be kind.”
“Have no intention to,” I said. Even if I had to pretend ‘hello’ was no longer in my vocabulary. She was staying by my side.
“I’m so excited to meet her!” She jumped up, tote bag over her shoulder. “I should stop procrastinating and sort out the last few details.”
I nodded as if I didn’t care, and she left me to my angry bird.
Some English I knew well — but they were learned phrases I used on women or for racing, but when it came to emotions or nouns… I was useless.
And there was a woman to impress.
A woman who kept distracting me.
Because she wasn’t replying to my last text.
ZOLTáN: Wear the team colours to the party.
FIA: Are you giving me orders?
ZOLTáN: I’m giving you context. It’s a team party. Work morale.
Reading the texts now, I felt the deep pitching of guilt in my chest. It was not a party. I should warn her. Tell her not to come. But I was so desperate to see her somewhere other than a pit lane.
FIA: And if I don’t?
ZOLTáN: If you show up in green or red, I’ll pretend not to know you.
FIA: How tempting.
ZOLTáN: You would be devastated. Stop playing hard to get.
FIA: I’m not playing anything.
ZOLTáN: These quick replies tell me one thing.
FIA: Which is?
ZOLTáN: You’re fluent in lies, Zsófia.
I wasn’t worried about her being angry at my teasing. I knew she’d come back eventually, and there was a sick part of me that loved the idea that I had got her right where I wanted her. She should be reflecting on just how much she wanted me.
It had been three hours since our last exchange.
Double texting didn’t even cross my mind.
ZOLTáN: Your guest room is right next to mine.
It took all of thirty seconds for her to reply.
FIA: And why would I need to know that?
ZOLTáN: If you need anything, I’ll leave the door unlocked.
FIA: So I’ve got to come to you?
She was testing me. Clear as day, this girl wanted me. I knew she wanted me. She knew she wanted me, but she couldn’t admit it to herself.
ZOLTáN: I’m trying to be a gentleman.
The three dots of her response were immediate… they vanished then reappeared.
FIA: That’s cute, considering I literally told you last time you didn’t need to be.
Her sweet, half-asleep moans telling me I could wake her up with my cock lived in my head rent-free. All hours of the night. Every waking minute.
FIA: Let’s make a deal.
ZOLTáN: All ears.
FIA: If the door is unlocked, game on. First of us to crack loses.
Was this her reestablishing the whole ‘fuck me while I’m asleep’ situation? I couldn’t get ahead of myself.
ZOLTáN: And if I were to find you asleep?
FIA: If the door’s unlocked, game on.
ZOLTáN: What’s changed? Why a new game?
FIA: I’m counting my Hungary trip as a holiday. You just so happen to be my very temporary holiday romance.
Temporary? Laughable. I was going to etch myself into the woman’s soul.
FIA: And I think I’ll need the distraction of your abs if we’re going to be staying at Imre’s house.
I should tell her. Not because it was actually my house, but because it wasn’t fair to her.
For all my as-subtle-in-English-as-I-could-manage conversations, no one else across the whole of StormSprint knew who her real dad was.
To everyone else, the Bacques were legendary across the track.
Cris Bacque, the man Fia called Dad, was the director of Ciclati for twenty years.
Fia’s sister, Everly, was now in charge of the grid girls and romantically involved with one of the Ciclati racers, Luca Mendes.
Who I avoided asking any questions because that would immediately go back to Fia.
But at the same time… she had agreed to come. Imre was so excited for her to arrive; there had been a youthful smile on his face over the last week. He had started humming.
ZOLTáN: At your service.
She was falling for me.
And I was letting her.
While knowing I’d be her stepbrother by the end of the week.