Chapter Thirty
Lily
That night, I’d barely slept, tossing and turning while dreading the day ahead.
When I finally woke, my phone buzzed incessantly.
I picked it up, dread pooling in my stomach as I saw the notifications from my friends and family.
My heart raced as I opened a link to an article Andy had sent me. The headline glared back at me.
Campaign
Each word painted a picture of vulnerability I didn’t want to see.
I recognized quotes, details, and anonymous notes that had never left my lips.
Specific phrases from the notes—ones I’d only ever shown to a handful of people.
Details about which races they’d appeared at, about the flowers they’d left, about the escalation.
Things I didn’t remember telling Ollie yesterday.
How much had I spilled to him?
My hands trembled as I scrolled further.
He’d positioned himself as some kind of crusading journalist, exposing the “disturbing pattern of targeted harassment” faced by women in Formula 1.
He’d painted me as a brave victim standing strong against anonymous threats and invasive attention—a narrative I’d never consented to, built from information I’d never given him.
Except I had given him the information he needed, hadn’t I?
I’d let him into my room, let him see the notes arranged in their careful rows, and he’d stood there studying them with that furrowed brow and those earnest eyes, offering friendship and discretion while memorizing every detail he could use.
My phone buzzed again. The world was waking up to Ollie’s article, and with it, to every private terror I’d been carrying alone.
A text from Felix arrived.
Felix:
My room. Now. Thomas will be there.
Felix’s hotel room was three floors above mine, in the section reserved for leadership and other important people. I knocked once, heard the President of Rennen’s voice call, “Come in,” and pushed through the door.
They were both standing. That was my first clue this wasn’t going to be a pleasant strategy meeting.
Thomas leaned against the hotel desk, arms crossed, his expression carefully neutral.
Felix stood by the window, backlit by the morning sun, and when he turned to face me, I saw something in his eyes I’d never seen before.
Uncertainty.
“Sit down, Lily,” he said.
“I’m fine standing.”
“Sit. Down.”
I sat. The chair was too soft, too low. It made me feel like I was a child who’d been called to the principal’s office. Felix studied me with an intensity that made my skin prickle. “I’ve heard something concerning. About threats you’ve been receiving.”
“I know. The article.” Then I paused. “But I thought my mother might have told you about them?”
Felix’s eyebrows lifted. “Your mother? No.” He exchanged a glance with Thomas. “Henri told me.”
The words hit like a physical blow.
“Henri,” I repeated, my voice flat.
“He showed me photographs of the notes. Said you’d been receiving them since Miami and refused to report them.” Felix’s disappointment carved lines deeper into his face. “Your mother knew about this?”
“She—” I stopped. Processed. “She took the last one. Said she’d handle it.”
“She didn’t.”
“I’m handling it,” I said, although my voice lacked confidence.
“Handling it?” Thomas’s voice cut through my defensive haze. “How? These aren’t random hate messages, Lily. Someone’s been accessing your hotel rooms.”
The room tilted slightly. My mother had dismissed my concerns, pocketed the evidence, and done nothing. And Henri… Henri had gone behind my back after I explicitly told him to stay out of it.
“Henri had no right—”
“Henri did exactly what he should’ve done.” Felix stepped closer. “What you should’ve done weeks ago.”
My hands clenched the chair’s armrests. Betrayal burned hot in my chest, mixing with embarrassment. It was stupid to keep this from the team for so long. Deep down, I knew my mother wasn’t going to deal with the notes. It’s probably why I’d told her in the first place.
I couldn’t meet Felix’s eye. My gaze fixed on a small star on the carpet, tracing the pattern while my mind raced through possible responses.
“I need to know how many,” he demanded.
“A lot…” My head ached. “Between the texts and the DMs, I stopped counting.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” The hurt in Felix’s voice was worse than anger would have been.
“Because I didn’t want to be a problem. I mean this kind of story isn’t exactly what sponsors want to see, is it? And I figured why make a big fuss when it’s just some asshole trying to get in my head.”
“Trying to get in your head?” Felix’s voice rose.
“They’re threatening you. They know where you’re staying.
They have access to you.” He stopped, visibly forcing himself to calm down.
“This is serious. This is incredibly serious. We’re going to team security with this,” Felix said finally.
“The FIA too. And you’re getting protection. ”
“I don’t need—”
“Not negotiable.” His tone left no room for argument. “Someone is threatening my driver. That makes it team business. You should’ve made it team business the moment the first note arrived.”
Shame burned hot in my chest, and I knew my face was red. Felix was right.
“I’m sorry,” I said quietly.
“Don’t be sorry. Just don’t hide things like this, Lily.
” Felix stood. “It’s not your job to worry about what sponsors might think.
We, Rennen F1, selected you to be our driver; their opinion only matters so much.
And sure, this article might not be ideal for BetHere Gaming, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that if you’d come to us earlier, we may have avoided this article in its entirety. ”
That irony wasn’t lost on me, although I’d sort of hoped it had maybe been lost on Felix.
“Look,” he added. “We’re going to take care of this, but I need you to promise me that if anything else happens, anything at all, you tell us immediately. I’m mostly annoyed it took Henri coming to tell us about it.”
“Which he shouldn’t have done—” I started.
Felix looked at me for a long moment, and something finally shifted, the team principal falling away, replaced by something more personal, more paternal.
“Lily, I want you to think about something.” His voice was measured now, careful in a way that told me he’d been turning this over in his head.
“I know you and Ollie have been… hanging out, but I want you to consider this. Two people found out about these threats. Two people acted on that information this week.”
He held up one finger. “Henri came to me privately because he was worried about your safety. He didn’t call a press conference.
He didn’t tip off a journalist or tell his team so he could use it to his advantage.
He came to your team principal and said, ‘Someone is threatening her, and she won’t ask for help, so I’m asking for her. ’”
He held up a second finger.
“And then there’s the person who wrote that article.
Who took your pain—your private, personal terror—and published it for the world to consume over breakfast. Who used your vulnerability to build their own platform.
” Felix shook his head with disbelief. “One of those people exposed these notes out of care, Lily. The other did it for personal gain. I need you to be very clear about which is which.”
The words landed like stones dropped into still water, the ripples spreading outward through everything I’d been feeling since I woke up.
I thought about Henri’s face in the drivers’ briefing yesterday, the way he’d watched me from across the room when he thought I wasn’t looking.
The quiet worry in his eyes that I’d mistaken for pity.
The calls I’d ignored all week. The texts I’d left unread.
He hadn’t gone behind my back to hurt me. He’d gone behind my back because I’d left him no other choice.
“He promised he’d stay out of it,” I whispered. It was the only defense I had left, and even I could hear how thin it was.
“And if he had?” Felix’s voice was soft. “If he kept that promise and something had happened to you, how do you think he’d have lived with that?”
I didn’t have an answer. Or maybe I did, and it was sitting right there in the center of my chest, aching.
Felix crossed the room and pulled me into a hug. Brief, firm, the kind that said more than words could. When he stepped back, his eyes were bright.
“We’re going to take care of this,” he said. “But I need you to promise me, if anything else happens—anything at all—you tell us immediately.”
I nodded, not trusting my voice.
“I promise.”
Thomas walked me to the door. “We’ll figure this out,” he said quietly.
I nodded, not saying anything in return. What was there to say?
Back in my own room, I sat on the edge of the bed, Felix’s words still reverberating through me. “One of those people exposed these notes out of care, Lily. The other did it for personal gain.”
But before I addressed this with either of them, I had another person I needed to talk to, and it was a conversation I should’ve had much earlier this season. After free practice, I was going to finally talk with my mother.