Chapter Twenty-Five Italy
Chapter Twenty-Five Italy
“I’m smart. I’m capable. I’m okay,” I repeat to myself as I stare at the glass door separating me and Monza’s Paddock Club—the fanciest seating for the fanciest Formula 1 fans, above the garages with a view of the pit lane. After flying in with Arthur late last night, I’d looked up how much tickets to it cost. You know, just to see.
I’d tapped out of my internet browser before my heart gave out.
Confidence will be key today. Delaney and Sarah had volunteered to monitor the reaction online and spring the idea of “gently killing Black the three have that old-money cut to their jawline that sucks all the air out of a room.
“Lilah, you obviously know my uncle, Holmes,” Arthur says. “And this is my father, Lorenzo.”
“Hi. I’m so happy to—oh.” His father pulls me into a double-sided air kiss, his whiskery mustache tickling my skin.
“Pleasure to meet you,” Mr. Bianco says. “Please, call me Renzo.”
I’m so not doing that. A stab of anger digs into my side as I politely nod toward Holmes. It’s probably obvious from the way I can’t meet his eyes that I know what’s coming, but I don’t particularly care anymore what he thinks of me.
Mr. Bianco clears his throat. “Shall we sit?”
We sit. Arthur and me on the long couch, the two men on twin chairs. We’re the only people out here besides a couple bored influencers charging their phones and a waiter on their lunch break, lemonade in hand. Arthur’s arm loops around the back of my seat, and his thumb taps above my shoulder to the soft piano music. “Where’s Mum?”
Mr. Bianco’s brow creases. “Back at home. She didn’t share my… concerns.”
And away we go. Holmes lifts two fingers, flagging down a staff member, and asks for a bottle of red wine with an intimidating Italian name. “And I do apologize for calling this last-minute meeting,” he says, glancing at me with his curious, burnt-chocolate eyes. “It’s a busy week—but great to see you back at Monza, Arthur.”
“I’m excited to be here,” he says, a canned interview answer if I ever heard one.
“And you, Lilah. What a nice surprise to have our camera girl here.” I inhale, mustering up a pleasantry that definitely isn’t don’t call me a camera girl , but Holmes slips right back into the conversation before I can speak. “It seems like you two may have lied to me about this little fling, hmm?”
“Uncle,” Arthur mutters, frowning.
“What? It’s the truth, isn’t it?”
Arthur takes a long, silent breath. “So, concerns. What brings you to Monza, Dad?”
“This and that.” Mr. Bianco picks up his damp cocktail napkin and slowly smooths out the wrinkles. “I thought it would be nice to visit. I never see you in person.”
“Sure.” Arthur’s jaw shifts. “The three of us haven’t been in a room together since Holmes retired.”
I squeeze my mouth shut to hide my surprise. Holmes left driving to become a team principal after Arthur’s accident. Which means… “I visited the hospital while you were out, to see my brother, of course, but you were asleep,” Holmes says. “What’s done is done. And family is family, right, little pigeon?”
Pigeon. I rest the side of my ankle against Arthur’s foot. “What does that mean?”
Arthur pulls his foot from mine and flashes me an apologetic look. “Nothing.”
“Aw, humor her.” Holmes’s eyebrows rise. “It’s an old poker term. A ‘pigeon’ is a player with a bad strategy.”
Mr. Bianco laughs. “He did always love those birds.”
Arthur tenses beside me. “Dad.”
“No, it’s sweet. You always had a fondness for animals,” Mr. Bianco says warmly. “Do you still bird-watch in the different cities you travel to?”
“No,” Arthur says, but it sounds like a lie. My mind races backward—to breakfast on the roof, all the birds flying overhead. When he’d said he’d wanted to show me the view, I’d thought he’d meant the buildings and clouds. The golden hour.
Holmes nods, smiling. “Pigeons are wonderful animals. Lovely and obedient. Back in the day, they were bred to race. Now? They’re useless without direction—thus the term.”
My spine tingles as a pattern solidifies in my brain, something to grab on to in this weird conversation. “I guess Arthur isn’t good at cards?” I say tentatively.
“Horrible.” Holmes laughs.
The wine arrives. Holmes talks with the waiter about the year it was from, tannins, coloring, and I study Arthur. There’s a low flush on his face, and he’s removed his hat and pushed back his hair, revealing the sheen across his forehead. He’s nervous, clearly. I don’t need to riddle that out. But this is beyond anxiety. I saw his resolved, dissociated frown on a thousand faces when I was younger; it’s the frown of a child doing their very best to put up with a guardian who’s made their life a living hell. It isn’t his dad that he keeps looking at, either. It’s Holmes, in shifty glances and finger-fidgeting peeks, like Arthur can’t take in the whole weight of the older man’s silently crushing disappointment.
I rest my hand on his arm and take a sip of wine, since I can’t do what I want to do: dump the glass on Holmes’s head and pull Arthur out of here. We’re stuck until Holmes frees us. All four of us know that.
I don’t have to play as nice, though.
After swallowing the liquid courage, I say, “Let’s get to it. We know you saw those photos, Holmes. Tell us what’s actually on your mind.”
Arthur’s arm twitches under my fingers, but Holmes’s mouth only quirks in a bemused smile. “Maybe I just wanted to talk to the girl my nephew likes so much.”
“Holmes, she’s right,” Arthur says, more sure of himself, like my confidence is feeding his. “I’m respecting your wishes to meet. Please respect our time. I have other meetings today.”
“Son, you know I’ve never liked telling you what to do, and that’s why we sent you to study with Holmes. He always knows best,” Mr. Bianco says, leaning to rest his elbows on his knees. He’s in dark suit pants, the sleeves of his cream-colored button-down rolled up, and I can picture the annoyingly vague lectures Arthur must’ve gotten ages four through eighteen, sat down at a dining room table by a father who didn’t want to father. “But I’ll say it. We wanted to meet you—I did—because you just can’t date this girl right now.”
This girl. My stomach plummets. I don’t know what I expected, after months of being on the team, in the garage, but it wasn’t that.
“It’s not appropriate,” Holmes adds breezily, clearly used to taking the Arthur reins. “You’re a Bianco . The world watches what you do. And now with the changes Formula 1 has made in recent years—catering to ‘mental health’ and ‘equality’ and theatrics from underqualified female racing drivers—you want to have an affair with an employee? A girl who was hired to film you for the most important marketing project in American Formula 1 history? This is insanity. You’ll grow tired of her, like you do all the others.”
“Don’t say that about—”
“Our family has invested millions in this film, all to bring the excitement and passion for Formula 1 to the U.S., for Ignition, for the new American circuit. I took this risk to help you. But we need to sell this story. There is a fortune at stake, an opportunity to become true legends in our sport, and I will not let you ruin another opportunity for our family.”
“You did that!” Arthur snaps, and it’s like watching a spool of thread get kicked down a staircase, how the anger he’s been repressing unwinds until there isn’t a single sharp smile that could hide it. “Don’t act like I don’t know what this is. You don’t care about a movie or American fans. You both want to control me. And—and I don’t need to put up with it. I can drive somewhere else.”
I run my thumb over his knuckles, silently urging him to relax. He’s going too fast, and I need to catch him before he startles himself into running away. “Arthur—”
“Who will take you?” Holmes says, exasperated. “Leone? They’d only do it to infuriate me. Cavalli? As if you could handle that.”
“Fuck you.”
“Language.” Pantomiming a better patriarch, Holmes frowns. “Arthur, the fact of the matter is that she was hired . She is not like us, and she will never be like us, and if you choose her, you will be vilified by her world and cast out of ours. Choosing a public partner is a matter of family business, and you cannot choose one that jeopardizes our business’s future.”
My muscles tense . Not like us. How many times have I dreamed about meeting my future partner’s happy, loving, perfect family? I know it isn’t super healthy to want to marry into a family more stable than your own, or have kids so that you get another shot. But I want it. I want Christmas mornings with the same place at the table every year, I want to be a mom and a wife who creates a better world for the people she loves. I want to fight for my family, not fight with them.
“Listen to him,” his dad pleads. “This is your moment. You’re almost back to Monza. When winter comes, Holmes can pull Faust, blame his headaches, give you the seat. You need to keep putting driving before all else.”
“I wonder why I need to do that,” Arthur mumbles beneath his breath.
Holmes’s eyes snap over, patriarchal sympathy gone. “What was that?”
“You heard me,” Arthur replies, glowering. “Neither of you are ready to admit what he did.”
No. He isn’t—is he implying…? “You needed to be taught a lesson,” Holmes scoffs. “I’m sorry for what I did that day. I had to. You know how it is when you drive—you get competitive. But I love you, Arthur. I’ve mentored you since you were a child. I discovered your talent. And I pulled the strings I had to so that you could race Monza again and redeem yourself from that embarrassment I’ve covered up for as long as I can.”
What he did that day. Holmes did it. On purpose. His uncle crashed into Arthur on purpose, and he just admitted it out loud, when—when I wasn’t filming. My pulse wooshes, loud in my ears, and then Arthur is spitting back. “ Please . Your movie was never an apology. You drove into me because you knew I’d get another championship, and you couldn’t stand me having one more than you. You are a sad old man who has nothing left in your life except controlling mine. And you ”—he turns to his father—“have never been brave enough to stand up to your younger brother.”
“Enough,” Holmes snaps. It’s too loud, far too real, and he quiets himself down instantly, shifting in his chair. “You haven’t lived one day of your life without me. You stepped into my legacy. You’d throw that away for her?”
I don’t know why I flinch at the hatred in his voice. They don’t like me—they’ll never want me for Arthur. They agree with the online comments. I’m wrong, I’m not enough, again, always.
But when Arthur speaks, he doesn’t just sound hurt. He’s furious. “I already have, Benedetto.”
Holmes blinks from the use of his real name, then gives Arthur a withering stare, resting back in his seat. “Fine. Then I’ll give you what you want. After the Italian Grand Prix, I’ll terminate your contract.”
My eyes swivel to Arthur as his cut to me, then away, his cheek rippling with pent-up energy. Motorsports are dangerous. There’s always risk. But I don’t understand why Arthur is just sitting here after Holmes admitted to what feels like a criminal offense, why he’d even want to drive the Grand Prix with Holmes as his team principal, knowing what he knows now. Redemption in Monza is what he wanted—what we wanted—but doesn’t Holmes’s admission change everything? Won’t Arthur pick his safety and sanity over climbing back into the cockpit?
Arthur’s brows draw in. He’s thinking. Then he says, “Okay. Thank you,” and I feel like I’ve lost him again, the Arthur I thought I knew, whisked into the air.
But maybe that version of him—who pushed and argued and stood up for himself, who asked me what I thought he should do, who made me feel like I was part of the plot instead of just watching—doesn’t exist at all.
Maybe that version was just for my camera.
“Wonderful,” Holmes says, back to his warmer self. “Why don’t we celebrate with a game? For old times’ sake.”
Time slows down as Holmes pulls a deck of cards from the leather bag at his feet. It might stop entirely when he cracks it open. I’d know those cards anywhere, by sound, by smell. Bicycle playing cards, made in Erlanger, Kentucky. Once made by my birth mom.
Probably still made by her.
Holmes peels the plastic wrap off the deck. “Lilah, do you know how to play Texas Hold’em?” The plastic crinkles. “Maybe you’re a better player than my nephew.” He crumples it in his fist. “With how smart you’ve been this summer, I wonder if you can beat me.”
“Apologies.” Arthur exhales. “But we have to go. I have a meeting with Leone.”
That’s when he stands. On his feet, and up for himself. Driving for Leone. That’s it. That’s what he cares about the most. Not really Monza, and definitely not me. My fingers wrap around Arthur’s wrist helplessly as this undeniable truth sinks in, floating on the surface of my brain, then crashing down, through the waves. The house always wins , my birth mom told me on my fifteenth birthday, written in a cheap card I’d watched her steal from Walgreens. The electric out, blankets on our laps, shuffling through the cards; King of Hearts, the suicide king. Queen of Hearts, the beheader. That’s why real winners keep playing!
I’m standing, and Arthur must take my hand—but his grip slips as I get to my feet. “I’m sorry. This is… I have to…”
Arthur tries to touch me again. “Lilah?”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, then I’m out the Paddock Club door, gone, the watch on my wrist ticking like I’ve swallowed a time bomb.