Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
GRIFFIN
“Pace is shocking, mate. You driving that thing or taking it for a bloody cruise?” The race engineer’s voice crackled in my earpiece, thick with disapproval.
I gritted my teeth and pushed harder. The Singapore night blurred past, neon lights streaking across my visor, but the car felt stiff, stubborn beneath me. Not responsive the way it should be. Like it was working against me rather than with me.
Final run of Q3. My last shot to salvage something from this mess of a session.
Q2 had been interrupted twice. First for a red flag when Mendes kissed the wall at Turn 19, then a five-minute delay while marshals chased a monitor lizard off the track at Turn 7. Only in fucking Singapore.
“Rear’s loose in sector three,” I muttered, adjusting the wheel, trying to coax more grip out of the tires.
“Yeah, we noticed,” Al said, his tone deadpan. “Might help if you stopped lighting them up on the corner exit.”
I gritted my teeth. The last three days had been brutal.
Early morning, cycling in the humidity to acclimatize, followed by team meetings, and enough press obligations to make my head spin.
When I wasn’t sweating my ass off in training, I was up to my elbows in nappies, trying to work out how a human that small could produce such an ungodly amount of mess.
Despite the business of the last few days, I’d gotten some great quality time with my girl. Violet spent every moment pretending she was nothing more than Hazel’s caretaker, completely unaffected by the fact we were living together.
Except, I’d caught the flickers of interest. The way her breath hitched when our fingers brushed passing the bottle, the way her eyes lingered on me a second too long when she thought I wasn’t looking.
Not that it mattered right now. Tonight, I had bigger problems.
“Radio silent unless it’s critical,” I snapped, tightening my grip as I flicked through the gears.
My race engineer, bless him, sighed like a man who was debating walking into traffic.
Singapore was a bastard of a track. Tight walls, humidity thick enough to suffocate, bumps that rattled your teeth loose lap after lap, the lurking risk of dehydration, and a layout that punished hesitation.
If you didn’t respect it, it chewed you up and spat you out. I’d had my share of close calls here, but tonight, I couldn’t afford mistakes.
Not if I wanted to improve on Azerbaijan.
An impossible fucking ask, considering Baku had been an entirely different beast. The kind of circuit that let you stretch your legs with long straights where I could hit top speeds, plenty of room to go wheel-to-wheel.
But it was still a street track. Still had that brutal, no-margin-for-error quality that made every race feel like threading a needle at 200 mph.
The walls were close, the braking zones tight, and the castle section?
A single mistake there and you were in the barriers, race over.
Singapore didn’t even give you the luxury of a mistake.
It was relentless. Stop-start, bumpy as hell, and suffocating under the floodlights and humidity so oppressive it drained you lap by lap. Sweat soaking through the fireproofs, muscles screaming from the constant wrestling of the car.
By the time the checkered flag dropped, most drivers would be a few kilos lighter, every drop of water wrung out of them like they’d just done twelve rounds in a sauna.
Aedris didn’t care.
And right now? I wasn’t delivering.
I swung into the final sector, arms burning, sweat stinging my eyes even through the balaclava. Races here were brutal. Even quali left you wrung out.
I braked late into the chicane, the car twitched under me, rear tires biting too hard, then slipping just as quick. My heart jolted.
Shit.
I caught the slide, hands instinctively correcting, but the damage was done. The time bled away, a tenth here, another tenth there, and suddenly, the checkered flag was waving and my name lit up on the leaderboard:
P9.
Fuck.
Silence filled the radio for a beat before Al finally exhaled. “P9, Griff.”
I slumped against the seat, sweat slick on my back, chest heaving as I stared at the screen. Ninth. Stuck in the midfield. Singapore wasn’t a track you wanted to start low.
I forced a slow breath. “Understood.”
By the time I’d peeled myself out of the car and dragged through the debrief, the media pen was the last place I wanted to be. But PR didn’t give a shit if I was in the mood or not.
Cameras clicked, lights blared. I rolled my shoulders, shifting the Aedris cap lower, already cycling through the generic answers I could give without handing the press anything juicy.
The first few questions were easy. How was the car feeling? Shit, thanks for asking. What’s the plan for tomorrow? Try not to bin it into the wall, mate.
The next question came from one of the bigger outlets. “Griffin, tough session for you tonight. You looked frustrated in the cockpit. Do you think external factors are affecting your performance?”
“Like what? The humidity?”
The reporter chuckled, but his gaze remained laser-focused on me. “I was thinking more personal life issues. Anything off-track weighing on you?”
I tipped my chin, somehow keeping my usual cocky smile in place. “Nothing that’d make the car any faster.”
A few reporters laughed, the tension easing just enough for me to move on. Another question came about race strategy. Another about tire degradation. Both easy to handle.
But I couldn’t shake the fishing note behind that personal question. Nico’s voice echoed inside my mind on repeat: you have to own the narrative before they take it from you.
Another harmless question about track evolution. I delivered the same recycled PR speech I’d fed them a hundred times before.
They wouldn’t stop digging. Not until they could slap a headline across the front page and call it an exclusive.
I could keep playing this game. Could keep pretending they weren’t closing in.
Or I could hand them something. Let them think they’d caught me slipping.
The longer I let them chase, the worse it would be when they finally caught up. That’s what Nico had learned the hard way.
Then a reporter from one of the bigger motorsport sites asked, “Long season, long nights. Is the lack of sleep catching up to you?”
I sucked in a steadying breath. Now or never.
“A newborn doesn’t exactly help,” I muttered, keeping my voice low. “But Singapore’s a notoriously tough track.”
Silence.
They stared at me, utter shock slacking their jaws. Like the exact second before a crash, when everything slows and you know impact is coming but can’t do a damn thing to stop it.
Pens hovered over notepads. Mouths hung open. I made sure my own did too.
I blinked at the flashing cameras, channeling my best impression of someone taken by surprise.
For a heartbeat, I almost regretted it. Almost.
“Did you just say newborn?”
Cameras clicked faster. Microphones edged closer. Voices tripped over each other, urgency replacing hesitation.
A second ago, they’d been half-asleep.
I dragged a hand over my mouth like I was debating how much damage I’d done. Let my shoulders drop, slow and reluctant, as if I’d realized too late I couldn’t claw the words back.
Just enough to let them think I’d fucked up.
Sell it.
I gave them a flicker of hesitation, let the pause stretch, then sighed like a man who knew the next few minutes were about to be a nightmare.
Which, in perfect honesty, they were.
Selene stood behind the press pack, arms crossed, her expression a mask of tightly controlled fury that screamed you absolute fucking idiot.
If I had a wife, if I had a long-term girlfriend, this would be normal. These things happened all the time. Drivers had kids, families, normal lives outside the garage. If I treated it like a scandal, it would become one.
Maybe if I’d realized that five weeks ago, we could have handled things differently and I’d have been able to enjoy my time with Hazel more.
I shrugged. “Yeah, newborn. Not exactly sleeping through the night, as you can imagine.”
Cameras flashed, microphones shoved closer. A ripple of pure electricity passed through the room, the scent of a fresh, unbelievable headline turning every journalist in a five-meter radius into a starving predator.
“When was the baby born?”
“Can you confirm how old they are?”
“Who’s the mother?”
“Personal life’s personal.” I forced a dry chuckle, shaking my head like this was exactly the circus I’d expected. Like the story had gotten away from me before I could control it. “Let’s stick to racing.”
A sharp murmur rolled through the pack, half-disappointed, half-thrilled. I’d given them something, but not enough.
“Can you at least confirm if this is recent?”
“Will this impact your schedule?”
“Griffin, was the team aware...?”
I rolled my shoulders, letting the grin on my face settle into something easy, relaxed, unbothered, even as my pulse hammered beneath the surface. “This some new style of interview? Thought I was here to talk about qualifying, not my home life.”
A few reporters laughed, the tension breaking just enough for me to push the focus back where I needed it. But the smarter ones weren’t fooled. They smelled blood and weren’t going to let it go easily.
“You’ve never mentioned having a family before.”
“There’s been no record of—”
“There’s no record of a lot of things, and you lot don’t need to know everything,” I said, the easy smirk gone, my tone flat. “My private life has nothing to do with my racing. Let’s get back to the actual sport.”
The press hesitated for a beat, just long enough for them to realize I wasn’t giving them anything else. I held firm. I’d played nice, let them have their little moment of excitement. But from here on out? The line was drawn. My private life was not up for discussion.
“Next question.” My tone left no room for argument. “About the race.”
A few exchanged glances. Some looked like they wanted to push, but they weren’t stupid. Push too hard, and I’d walk.