Chapter 8 Matteo
MATTEO
Race day mornings were almost always the same.
There was rhythm to it, like muscle memory laced with adrenaline. Wake up early. Hydrate. Light workout. Media duties. Team briefing. Suit up. Then, the shift—the one that happened when the helmet is in my hands and suddenly, nothing else matters.
Except that day, my brain was a little too busy to shut off.
The Moretti Racing garage buzzed with activity. Screens flickered with telemetry, engineers speaking in clipped, rapid tones. I nodded through it all, hyperaware of the weight in my chest that had nothing to do with the car.
Lucia was over at the Belen Racing garage today, which wasn’t anything too crazy.
She’d been over there since they’d struck up a fake dating scheme to help Alexander’s image and secure a contract for next year.
I wouldn’t be losing my mind about it if it wasn’t my baby sister and my best friend.
The whole ‘my two favorite people ever dating’ thing made my insides twist. It could be great, but it could also be horrible.
I exhaled, flexing my fingers as one of the mechanics passed me my gloves.
Before we started prepping for the race, I had seen her at the Belen Racing garage. Lucia was laughing at something one of the engineers said, holding Gia on her hip. Gia had on her little earmuffs, custom made smaller for her. She had identical Moretti red ones too.
And then, just like clockwork, Nicola appeared.
She looked extra dressed up today, and I took a moment to take it in: a matching power suit and heels that made her reach my chin today. Effortless, smug, and unreadable as ever.
“You ready to score some points today?” She smirked, arms crossed.
“Wow, so supportive. Really warms a guy’s heart,” I shot back, grinning.
She shrugged, strolling closer, and lowered her voice just enough for only me to hear. “My dad sent me over to talk to you about an event but I know you’re about to start your prep so we can talk later.” She paused. “Good luck, DeLuca.”
Something soft flashed behind her eyes. It threw me for a second. I nodded, mouth suddenly dry. “Thanks.”
She walked off without another word, and I didn’t even pretend not to watch her go.
Bloody hell.
I shook my head and grabbed my helmet, heading toward my private room. On the way, I FaceTimed my parents. One of my favorite traditions.
“Ciao, Amore!” Mama’s voice filled the screen, bright and familiar.
“Matteo!” Papà waved, already wearing his Moretti Racing cap, seated at their kitchen table back in Italy. “Focused?” Papà huffed from beside her, adjusting his glasses. “He looks nervous. Are you nervous? Drink water. And carbs! Did you eat carbs today?”
“Ciao, ciao!” I said, laughing. “I’m fine. I promise.”
Mama leaned closer. “Is Lucia with you?”
I hesitated. “She’s with Alex. At the Belen garage.”
Papà frowned. “Why?” My mother raised an eyebrow and smiled.
“She…it’s complicated.”
They exchanged a look I knew too well. Mama softened first. “She’s allowed to live her life, Matteo. And Alexander has always been good to her.”
“I just don’t want her to get hurt,” I admitted instead.
“She’s stronger than you think,” Papà said. “And you don’t always have to fix everything. Just race your race. Make us proud.”
“Always.”
We said our goodbyes and I hung up, letting the screen fade to black before slipping the phone away.
I stayed there for a moment longer, phone tucked away, but my mind still lingered with my parents’ voices.
Their love, their pride—it settled into my chest, warm and heavy.
I exhaled slowly, letting the ambient roar of engines echo through the pit lane, grounding me like a tether.
The world hummed around me. Technicians calling out times, tires screeching during last-minute checks and the smell of fuel and heat rising in the air like static. Race day.
I sat down against the wall of the garage helmet in my lap, and stared at it like it held all the answers I couldn’t find in myself. My thumb ran over the Moretti emblem—the name, the legacy. I didn’t take it lightly. Not the name. Not the team. Not the weight of everyone who counted on me.
Truth is, I was used to being the one people relied on.
The guy with the jokes. The lightness. The buffer between tension and breakdown.
I was the one who talked Lucia down from a panic spiral at 2:00 a.m. when she thought she was failing as a mom.
The guy who kept morale up in the garage after a rough qualifying.
The guy who pulled Alexander back from overthinking and reminded him to breathe.
And I liked being that guy. I liked being needed.
If me being a little chaotic, a little loud, a little annoying—okay, a lot annoying—made it easier for people to breathe, then I’d do it a hundred times over.
It was easy to slip into. It was safer, even, than sitting too long with the things I couldn’t fix.
Like the way Lucia looked at Alexander when she thought no one noticed.
Or how Alexander looked back at her like she was the sun and he was starving for light.
Alexander had told me he cared for her and I wanted to trust him—I did trust him.
But she was my little sister. The one I used to walk home from school.
The one who used to curl up in my room when the world got too loud.
And she’d already been hurt enough. She didn’t need another man burning her to ash just because he didn’t know how to hold on.
I scrubbed a hand down my face and glanced up.
Nicola was on the other side of the garage, clipboard in hand, phone pressed to her ear.
She was all business and grace, her heels clicking against concrete as she multitasked like she owned the place—which, to be fair, she kind of did.
She must have felt my gaze because she looked over.
We locked eyes for a second before she arched a brow and mouthed, Focus, DeLuca.
I flipped her off subtly and she smirked like she had already won.
That was the thing about Nicola. She called me a pain in the ass, but she was the one who drove me completely insane. In those red lips and razor-sharp one-liners, there was something that made my pulse stutter.
“Alright, Teo,” one of the engineers called out, snapping me back to the moment. “Time to get in.”
I nodded once, shook out my hands, and pushed off the wall.
Balaclava up.
Helmet on.
All of it—worries about Lucia, whatever the hell Nicola did to me just by existing, the pressure of legacy—it faded the second I slid into the cockpit. In there, I knew who I was. The noise was different. Louder, but clearer.
I buckled in, fingers flying over the wheel. I saw the lights ahead, and pulled into position, only one spot behind my teammate, Carlos.
Adrenaline surged through my veins as I took the inside line on Turn 12, hugging it like a second skin. I was in third. Fucking third. The car was responding like it was born for this track—tight, aggressive, alive.
“Nice move, Teo,” my engineer’s voice crackled in my ear, calm but charged. “Eyes forward. Two laps to go on these tires.”
Copy.
I barely registered the crowd, the blur of grandstands, the roar of engines around me. It was all instinct now—pressure on the brake, feather the throttle, feel the grip bite beneath me. My pulse was synced with the engine’s rhythm, the world narrowing down to one singular goal:
Podium.
I shifted, leaning into the next turn—too fast.
The moment it happened, I felt it in my gut.
Wheels locked.
The car jerked, grip vanished, and I was spinning.
“Shit, shit, shit—”
The world blurred. My rear tires screamed against the asphalt, smoke billowing, and then gravel. The violent bounce as my car hit the run-off jolted every bone in my body. I slammed the brakes, but it was too late. I was out of control.
Metal screeched.
A loud crack behind me.
Then chaos.
In my mirror, I saw the debris from my car scatter across the track, another car veering to avoid me—and failing. I watched in horror as, ahead of me, the two cars made contact, and I saw the familiar pink and blue livery spinning out—
Alexander’s.
His car clipped the tangle of wreckage and went airborne. Time stopped.
“Fuck.”
The world tilted as I watched his car flip once, twice, and slam into the barriers with the kind of impact that made my soul lurch. Someone was trying to talk to me over my radio. I knew I needed to confirm I was okay, but my mind was buzzing like the static of a radio.
“Red flag, red flag—incident on Sector 3. Medical on the way.”
“Matteo, status check. Are you okay?”
Smoke filled my back wing, but I was moving.
“I’m fine. I’m okay,” I gasped, ripping off the steering wheel and forcing the harness release. I shoved my body out of the cockpit and jumped down, boots sinking slightly into gravel.
But I wasn’t thinking about the crash anymore.
I wasn’t thinking about my race.
I was only thinking about him.
Alexander’s car had rolled, and was half-crushed against the barrier, with smoke pouring from the engine. The marshals hadn’t reached him yet.
I broke into a sprint, lungs burning, legs heavy from adrenaline and panic. I heard someone yelling at me, but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t.
“Alex!”
No movement.
I was slipping on gravel, dodging bits of debris, a sick, sharp fear cutting into my chest like glass. Not him. Not now. Not when things were finally—fuck, not when he was finally happy. Not when Lucia was waiting in the garage. Not when Gia looked at him like he hung the damn stars.
I reached the car just as two marshals converged. One grabbed my arm to hold me back, but I wrenched free.
He was still in the car, helmet on.
“Alex,” I called, voice cracking. “Come on, mate. Say something. Move. Do something.”
The marshal beside me radioed something I couldn’t hear. Everything was muffled under the roar of fear in my head.
If he didn’t move—
“Alex,” I said again, voice loud, desperate. “Get up! Get up!” It felt like a thousand moments before he moved, before he responded.
“I’m okay, I’m okay.” His voice was scratchy and muffled. He pushed up his visor, seeing me, and thenI finally allowed the marshals to pull me away, a medic car arriving behind us.
I climbed in behind Alexander in the medic car, just watching for any signs. Hand on his shoulder to steady him, or me, I wasn’t sure. Did I know what signs to look for? No, but fuck, I just wasn’t about to take my eyes off him.
“I’m okay,” Alex said, turning to look at me, eyes clouded. My hand squeezed his shoulder before letting go.
“Scared the hell out of us, mate,” I said on an exhale. Alex only nodded then rested his head back on the headrest.
He was okay, I kept repeating it to myself until we pulled up to the medic tent. I stayed with him for a bit before they dragged me away to check me too. When I was finally cleared, I walked straight to my family,half-answering and half-ignoring everyone who saw me on the way.
The moment I laid eyes on my sister, my heart broke a little. She looked so small, her eyes glassy and red. She looked scared, and I wanted to fix it. I wanted to do anything or everything to make that fear disappear.
“He’s okay,” I said as I approached, her mouth opened and a strangled sob came out, her knees giving out. I leaned forward, collected her into my arms, and tried to block out the world.
“It’s alright, Luce. He’s okay, he’s okay,” I said softly. She took a moment, cleared her throat and wiped her tears, standing up, shoulders back.
“He’s bruised up, maybe a concussion, but the Halo did its job. He’s asking for you.” She scooped up Gianna from Anna’s arms and looked at me with determination.
“Lead the way.”
I was behind the paddock, tucked into a little alley of scaffolding and crates where the camera crews wouldn’t find me—yet.
I had a handful of minutes before I had to smile and say everything was fine.
That I was fine. That crashing out was unfortunate, but part of the sport.
That I didn’t just watch my best friend’s car fold like tinfoil and think for three long seconds that he was dead.
I scrubbed a hand down my face and tried to steady my breathing. I didn’t even hear the familiar heels clicking until she spoke.
“You look like shit.”
I glanced up, and there she was. Nicola. Arms crossed, hair pulled back into a ponytail that had long since given up on being polished, eyes sharp but soft at the edges.
I tried for a smirk. It didn’t land. “Thanks. I really needed that boost.”
She didn’t fire back. Not like I expected.
Instead, she stepped closer, glancing around like she was making sure no one could see her before sitting down next to me on the low barrier.,not saying anything for a beat.
That’s what got me. Nicola Moretti not saying something was worse than any snark she could throw at me.
She nudged her knee against mine. “That was a nasty crash.”
I swallowed hard. “He’s okay.”
“I know.” Her voice dropped. “But that doesn’t mean you’re okay. Are you?”
And just like that, the tight knot in my chest nearly split open.
“No one ever asks me that,” I said before I could stop myself. “Everyone assumes I’m the one who is okay.”
She was quiet for a moment. Then she shifted, her knee brushing mine again. “Yeah, well. I don’t believe everything people say about you.”
My head snapped toward her, surprised. She wasn’t looking at me. She was looking straight ahead, lips pressed together like she regretted saying that out loud.
And it undid me a little.
“I thought I was about to watch him die,” I said softly. “I spun out, and he got caught in the wreck. That could’ve been it. And I was thinking…it was my fault. I don’t know how to come back from that.”
Nicola didn’t say anything. Instead, she reached for my hand. My hand. Her fingers slid between mine and she squeezed once.
It rocked me more than I cared to admit. We sat there like that, her hand warm in mine, the muffled sounds of the race in the distance, engines still screaming as if nothing happened.
And me?
I was absolutely fucked.
Because in the middle of all that chaos and fear, it was her that grounded me. Not the race. Not the team. Not even my family.
Her.
The girl I’d been annoying all year. The one who rolled her eyes when I flirted and called me an idiot like it was my damn name. And yet, she was the one sitting here now. Knowing what I needed before I could ask. Comforting me without calling it out.
When she finally let go of my hand, I felt the loss like a punch.
She stood and smoothed down her trousers, all business again. “You’ve got interviews waiting, the team wants you to do the Pitspark magazine one too. Better put on the charming idiot mask.”
I blinked. “You calling me charming?”
“I said mask. Don’t push it, DeLuca.”
But she said it with a half-smile.
And I couldn’t stop watching her as she walked away.
God, I was so screwed.