Chapter Nine – Japanese Race Weekend
Elena Archer – Post Qualifying
Time was a noose. Tightening with every tick.
Qualifying was over. Volkov had finished second. The car was now in parc fermé, untouched. Allegedly.
And somewhere between now and Sunday afternoon, the cheat would happen. The software mapping switch. The fuel tweak. The thing no one could prove.
I had one shot to catch it. One window. And it was closing.
I loitered near the Obsidian hospitality suite, keeping to the bustling walkway, close enough to see who came and went but far enough not to draw suspicion.
I’d already done three laps around the media centre pretending to look for a charger, then spent twenty minutes making myself invisible near a catering truck.
Nothing.
The mechanics were buttoned-up. The engineers were ghosts. No loose tongues, no slips of protocol. Ross was nowhere to be seen. Volkov had disappeared after the press conference.
And I was stuck watching doors.
A group of Nova crew passed by, chatting in bright voices. I kept my head down, notebook tucked against my ribs. I wasn’t technically breaking any rules—but journalists didn’t hover in the middle of the paddock without a reason.
That’s when I saw her. Clipboard in hand, navy FIA polo shirt, blonde hair in a loose knot, moving like someone with a purpose no one else could see.
She wasn’t looking at me.
But I had the sharp, unmistakable sense of being seen.
She passed twenty feet away, never breaking stride. Didn’t glance sideways. Didn’t pause. But the way she adjusted her pace as she passed me…
That wasn’t a coincidence.
She’d clocked me.
And she wanted me to know it.
But why?
I shifted my stance, pretending to check my phone, but kept her in my periphery. She showed her badge to the gate marshal and disappeared through, as unremarkable as any other FIA staffer.
I didn’t recognise her from the regular media briefings. Not one of the public-facing compliance officers. She moved like someone used to walking corridors that weren’t on the map.
And she’d noticed me. Not the way fans or drivers did. The way insiders did.
Like she knew exactly what I was doing.
And maybe even why.
Callum Drake’s loud laugh cut through the usual noise and I turned to see him approaching with a small entourage, including a few members of his family, his manager, and a few other hangers-on.
This was my opportunity. I tugged my jacket off and hung it over my arm, my black shirt underneath would blend fairly well with the sea of Obsidian polo shirts moving towards the suite.
I seamlessly tagged onto the back of the group as they filed into the hospitality suite, the young man at the back actually holding the door for me.
Drake led the group past the bar and towards the door at the back marked “Team Only”.
I kept my head down and followed them through it and into the sleek, polished corridor that led to the drivers’ private rooms, the offices and, somewhere, the garage.
I slowed down, creating a little space between me and the group scurrying in Drake’s wake.
They turned left where I was sure I’d need to head right if I wanted a peek at the car.
I hung back, checking over my shoulder to ensure no one was behind me.
Drake’s entourage turned the corner and I came to a halt, standing alone with just my rapid breathing as the noise of the group faded.
I whipped to the right and ran swiftly down the brightly lit corridor.
Past a door marked “Team Principal: Norton Ross” and straight towards a set of double doors that I recognised from glimpses I’d had from the pit lane: the garage.
It couldn’t be this easy. There was bound to be someone in there. I couldn’t just barge through the doors.
I came to a halt and listened. Silence.
There was no obvious security. No keypad or lock.
I turned one of the handles and inched the door open a fraction.
The distant sounds of a crowd leaving the stands drifted past the heavy scent of engine oil and warm tyres.
It was the garage, its doors to the pit lane still open, by the sounds of it.
There was no way that the illicit software swap would be happening with the doors open.
But I hadn’t really expected to catch them in the act, not so easily.
I hung there in the doorway, not quite able to see into the garage.
My pulse raced and my palm was greasy against the metal door handle.
The decision made, I pushed the door open and stepped through it.
Immediately to my right were two small, sealed rooms. Walking cautiously along the walkway, the floor opened up to a bank of equipment drawers on wheels and seven-foot-tall stacks of tyres. Voices cut through the relative quiet and the clanking of metal tools made me jump.
I pressed myself into a small gap between the tyres and a set of drawers.
Laughter drifted towards me, more clanging, then the voices grew louder. I moved away from the walk way, putting the tyres between me and a pair of engineers as they made their way out of the garage.
I moved swiftly deeper into the garage. Everything was pristine.
Black surfaces gleamed, chrome reflected the bright lights hanging from the ceiling, and there, just beyond a bank of computer stations, stood one of Obsidian’s cars.
The other would be in a matching section on the other side of a sleek divide.
Moving silently, I inched out from behind the tyres and moved towards the car.
It was Drake’s. His name printed in white on black.
I crept past it, heading for the gap between garage bays.
There wasn’t a breath or whisper in the garage, nothing but the distant murmur of the departing crowd.
Breath held, tension coiled tight as a spring, I rounded the divider.
Marcus McKenna, Volkov’s race engineer stood with his arms crossed in front of a bank of screens full of telemetry data.
His head whipped towards me and his eyes went wide, his cheeks filling with colour.
“What the—?”
I staggered backwards, panic rushing up my throat. I backed into a solid object. Hands grasped my upper arms and I swivelled my head to look right into Volkov’s ice-blue eyes.
“It’s alright, Mac. She’s with me.”
I hung there in his grip, my mouth open and no breath in my lungs.
“Not alright, Aleks. You know better than that. Get her out of here right now.” Mac’s voice boomed, the anger in his face making a vein in his temple pulse.
Without another word, Volkov steered me out of the garage, his grip on my upper arm vice-like.
I kept my mouth shut, but my mind raced with questions.
He led me back through the narrow corridors and then through a set of glass doors into a large showroom.
At the centre, on a circular, crimson rug and under a white spotlight, was Obsidian’s latest commercial sports car.
A sleek, black thing with curves and precision edges.
There was a row of chairs opposite and a bar along the left hand wall of the room.
To our right was another set of doors leading back to the front of the hospitality suite.
This room was completely empty and all dark but for that spotlight.
Volkov spun me to face him and leaned closer.
“What the fuck were you doing back there?”
I tugged my arm free and straightened my shirt.
“Investigating. It’s my job.”
“Trespassing is not in your job description.” His accent sharpened with each word, his Estonian roots showing through.
“Why did you cover for me?” I asked, more venom in my voice than was strictly necessary.
He leaned back, his jaw ticking. I could practically see the cogs turning.
He spun away from me, running a hand through his thick, dark hair.
He was wearing a black team polo and dark jeans.
The fabric taut across lean muscle. The spotlight cast stark shadows over his face when he turned back to face me.
“I don’t like you.”
“Fine,” I snapped. “I don’t like you either. I think you’re a cheat. And I’m going to prove it, Champion.”
“I’m no cheat,” he spat, fury flooding his face. “You print that lie and I will sue you into oblivion.”
I stalked over to him, my own anger threatening to spill over. I jabbed him in the chest with a carefully manicured finger.
“I know about the mapping. I know about the fuel level. I have proof. And I will print it. My story goes to my editor tomorrow. So get ready to read the headlines on Monday. Whatever happens on that track tomorrow, you won’t be a winner much longer.”
His face paled. There was a split second where I thought he might yell at me, his nose mere inches from mine. That moment in the corridor at the Singapore gala surfaced in my mind but I pushed it down. Volkov grabbed my arms again and spun me around, pressing me against the car.
The heat of the spotlight tingled against my skin. I shook back my long, dark hair and glowered defiantly up at him.
His body was pressed against mine, hot and hard. My breath hitched. Hate and something much stronger fizzed inside me. Something I didn’t want to name.
I grabbed the back of his neck and closed the gap between our mouths, planting a hard kiss on his.
He pulled his head back, his eyes searching my face.
Regret, rage, and refusal to back down surged through me all at once, tearing me apart. I needed to get out of there. My eyes flickered towards the doors towards the paddock and my body twitched as if to try to break free.