Chapter 166
callum
No one fights harder for me than the man they think I’m fighting against. –Aurelie
Marco peeled away from Kimi and the girls, catching my sleeve with a grip too tight to ignore. His usual smirk was gone, replaced with something raw and full of vitriol.
“Fraser, do not let me within ten feet of that fucker,” he growled, low and vicious.
I side-eyed him as we sauntered down the paddock toward the Vanguard garages. The rain had lightened some, enough for the FIA to not delay the race, but not enough to make these optimal wet conditions. Strategy would be a bitch today.
“Who? Morel?”
“Yeah, and you wanna know why I nearly took his head off yesterday?” He let go of my arm and leapt in front of me.
I paused mid-stride at the crazed look on my best friend’s face.
Rain slicked his dark hair to his forehead, his Italian accent thick with venom.
“It wasn’t just Aurélie. Morel’s been sniffing around Ivy for weeks.
I saw him in Spielberg. Ivy—she was leaving a meeting with Beckett’s team—and Morel—” He cut himself off and raked a hand through his hair, then folded his arms across his chest and fixed his dark brown eyes on me.
“Mate, slow down,” I told him, glancing around to see the abundance of cameras fixed on us. Throwing out Beckett Lachlan’s name—my old friend who’d bought out Orion GP—could raise more than a few eyebrows before we were ready. “We’re mic’d up.”
“So fucking what!” he exploded, face turning red.
I had never seen him like this. “He touched her, too. I saw it happen. He put his hands on her waist, tried to kiss her. Fucking slimeball couldn’t take a hint.
Kept trying to take her out for drinks. She was shoving him away.
I saw it and stepped in. Dio mio, I saw her face after.
She needed someone and I—that’s how she knew to come to the air strip. ”
Jesus, he was fired up. Could barely form a complete sentence.
Wait.
Morel had laid his hands on Ivy, too? Fuck. Now her pale face and panicked demeanor when Marco showed up made sense. She was reliving Morel getting handsy with her.
My blood ran hotter than an engine in the desert. “You’re telling me this now?”
“Ivy begged me not to make it worse,” he snapped and unfolded his arms, pacing in front of me. “But when you looked at me yesterday, I knew—I fucking knew. He touched Aurélie, too. He’s a goddamn predator. He left marks on her, for Christ’s sake!”
“Marco,” I warned. “Not here.”
He threw his hands in the air. “Not here? Callum, did you see yourself yesterday? I thought you were going to kill him!”
“Yes!” I shouted. “You have no idea how furious I am, mate. I just spent the entire fucking morning watching Auri fight for justice in front of a bunch of misogynistic assholes and still the best solution they came up with was an investigation after the race!”
Marco’s chest heaved. We were both drenched now. I grabbed his shoulder and guided him toward the garages again.
“Callum, how many fucking women do you think he’s touched? Doesn’t matter if it’s Ivy, Aurélie, whoever.”
“I don’t know,” I muttered. “But he’ll keep pushing until someone breaks his fucking teeth.”
Auri had calmed me down earlier, talked me off the ledge of fury I’d been riding since the moment we set foot in the paddock. Her gentle words, her seductive little grin, her passionate kisses… it had shifted that fury into something stronger. Lust. The little brat knew the effect she had on me.
But now? I wanted to grab Morel by the throat, storm back into that boardroom, and slam him down on the fucking table. Let them all see exactly what I thought of their plan for retribution.
There wasn’t enough vengeance in the fucking world to give to women what was taken from them.
“If he touches either of them again, I’ll murder him,” Marco snarled.
I huffed a sardonic laugh. “Get in line, mate.”
In that moment, I had never felt more like his teammate. Not only were we fighting for Vanguard as a team, but for two important women in our lives, circling the same enemy, and itching for blood.
Then the roar of the crowd carried over the grandstands and drifted into the paddock, the swell of noise reminding us we were still on stage. Marco and I exchanged a glance, then looked at the cameras once more.
Time to play the part.
The pit lane buzzed with that pre-race hum I’d always found comfort in. Around us, mechanics bent over last checks, engineers barked numbers, and the rain still hammered against the tarmac. The Off The Grid crew had their cameras trained on us, every lens panning for the best content.
Down the lane in front of the Luminis garages, Ivy was removing Aurélie’s mic pack while Kimi leaned against the wall.
Aurélie stood in front of her car, helmet tucked against her hip, hazel eyes narrowed against the rain-slick glare of the pit lights.
Every camera in the world seemed trained on her. On us.
And that was when Morel slithered up like the toxic fucking snake he was.
“Fraser,” he sneered, just loud enough for the boom mics to catch. “Try not to crash your car this time, eh? Or maybe your little girlfriend is planning to cry sabotage again when she can’t keep the car pointed straight?”
My vision went red. I stepped toward him, shoving my finger in his face as rage raced through me like it was trying to win a Grand Prix.
“You’re a fucking coward, Morel. You put your hands on her, you tampered with her setup, and you think you can joke about it?
I should’ve broken your nose properly yesterday. ”
He grinned, leaning closer, and my fists tightened. It would’ve taken nothing—nothing—to deck him. I wouldn’t hold back until his goddamn teeth were loose and blood poured from his face. Until I beat him to a fucking pulp because that’s what men like him deserved.
Aurélie’s voice snapped like a whip through the noise. “Callum!”
She stormed over, annoyance in every step, the material of her race suit swishing.
“You fought like hell to be cleared for this race, and you’re going to throw it away on this limp shrimp-dick of a driver who claims to be a man?
” Her accent made it bite harder, and despite the fury, a twitch of a grin threatened my mouth.
She swept her eyes over Morel, her upper lip curling back in disgust. God, she was lethal.
“All, hmm, peut-être, sept centimètres of him. No wonder he forces himself on women. He’s compensating. ”
It took everything in me to not burst out laughing. Maybe seven centimeters of him. Three inches. Jesus fuck, I could marry her right now.
Morel’s grin faltered, his gaze shifting to her. He took a half-step in her direction looking oily as ever. But then Ivy slid in front of her like a shield.
“Back off,” Ivy snarled, green eyes blazing.
Marco immediately pushed forward, putting himself between the girls and Morel. “Touch her again,” he warned, “and I’ll bury you.”
The tension spiked. Mechanics froze. Cameras swung closer. My pulse thundered. Marco and I were a step from tearing Morel apart when a hand clamped down on both our shoulders.
“Chill the fuck out,” Kimi hissed, his Finnish accent sharp as ice. “Play the long game. Not here. Not now.”
An Orion GP staff member dragged Morel back, his smirk snapping back into place like a mask. He let himself be hauled off, but the damage was done. The pit lane buzzed with the storm he’d left behind, and in ominous timing, thunder clapped above us.
When I turned back, Aurélie was glaring at me, fury and something else burning in her eyes.
“You shouldn’t even be in that car,” I told her, pitching my voice loud enough that the cameras would catch it. The ripple was immediate—journalists scribbling, producers elbowing each other, every mic craning closer. “Not after what that fucker did to it. And he laid his hands on you.”
Aurélie narrowed her eyes, anger flickering across her face.
“You don’t get to say that like I’m fragile. I’ve survived worse cars than this one. And if I back down, he wins.”
God, why was she so hot when she was mad?
Maybe it was the thought that for all the resisting she did in public, she became so perfectly submissive in private. She melted under my control, her whole body sang for me, and—stop. No. Bad Fraser. Not now.
I closed the distance, blood boiling, aware of every single lens catching this like blood in the water. “Or maybe he wins when you let them strap you into a deathtrap he’s already proven he can tamper with.”
Her eyes blazed. “And maybe he wins when you get back in a car two weeks after you could barely stand without swaying.” She jabbed a finger into my chest, hard enough I had to bite back a smirk.
Fucking hell, even pissed off, she made me want to pull her against me and punish her for looking so goddamn irresistible.
“Do you think I don’t see how stiff your neck is? You’re the one who shouldn’t be racing.”
The crowd hushed, and the drama practically wrote itself.
A ghost of a smirk tugged at my lips. I had to swallow it down before someone caught it. God, she was magnificent like this. I hated it and I loved it, and my cock gave the smallest, traitorous jump at how perfect she was.
“I can handle my body,” I growled, stepping close enough the cameras would frame it as confrontation. “What I can’t handle is watching you climb back into something that’s already tried to kill you once.”
She didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink. “And I can’t handle watching you pretend you’re fine just to prove a point.”
The bruise on her cheekbone looked even worse under the overcast sky, mottled purple and storm-dark against her skin. Every raindrop seemed to trace it, as if the weather itself refused to let anyone forget what had been done to her.
And still she stood there, unbreakable. Her hair was woven into her two signature braids that swung when she moved, skimming just above the perfect curve of her heart-shaped ass.
It was a sight that made my stomach flip with something I’d never let the cameras catch.
Rage. Lust. Pride. All twisted together until it was hard to tell where one ended and the other began.
For a beat, neither of us moved. Just two soaked gladiators in the pit lane, caught between love and war.
The world thought it was a fracture. A lovers’ spat.
A feud on the edge of boiling over. But beneath it, where the cameras couldn’t see, her hand dropping down my side until our pinkie fingers brushed, the barest whisper of touch. A signal.
Agree to disagree. Stay the course.
She leaned in close enough for only me to hear, because this was reserved for just the two of us.
“Racing 101,” she whispered. “Be a good boy, and maybe I’ll make you drool from the heart.” She pulled back with that bratty little smirk that always undid me.
I swallowed hard, forcing the fight back into my eyes for the sake of the lenses. “Then may the best driver win,” I stated, stepping away before the softness in me could give away that we were, in fact, letting our personal feelings bleed into our professionalism.
Then Aurélie turned on her heel, stalking off with Ivy and Kimi flanking her like guards escorting a queen.
The crowd roared like they’d just seen a shark attack. Off The Grid had their scene. And Aurélie and I had our cover.
And fuck me, she was mine.1
1 Before you step into these upcoming chapters, I want to offer a moment of compassion and clarity.
This scene includes allusions to early pregnancy and miscarriage, as well as themes surrounding reproductive health.
If that’s something you’re not in a place to read right now, please take care of yourself.
You can skip ahead to the footnote at the end of the book for a short recap before continuing the story.
A few important things to note: Aurélie does not know she’s pregnant when she drives.
And driving is not while she miscarries.
This storyline is deeply personal to me, drawn from lived experience and the complicated truth that sometimes, when your body feels different, you don’t always want the answer.
Because deep down, you might already know—and you’re not ready to have it confirmed.
Every woman’s fertility, reproductive health, and healing process is unique.
There’s no single “right” way to handle those moments of fear, grief, or uncertainty.
Please, as you read, extend grace and respect to any woman who has ever needed privacy to face something she wasn’t ready to name out loud.
XO,
Cait