Total pages in book: 29
Estimated words: 28033 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 140(@200wpm)___ 112(@250wpm)___ 93(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 28033 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 140(@200wpm)___ 112(@250wpm)___ 93(@300wpm)
“Take Leonidas Gazis. His PCL injury ended his career at twenty-nine, but the injury was never the problem. Not really. The problem was that the technology didn’t exist to bridge the gap between what his body could do and what his mind already knew.”
Leonidas felt something tighten in his chest.
“Drivers like him don’t just operate a vehicle. They feel it. They know when something’s wrong before the data tells them. They sense the track, the tires, the weather, the car—all of it—in ways that can’t be measured or quantified. Leonidas Gazis doesn’t drive. He...becomes part of the machine.”
A smile touched her lips, and Leonidas’ heart clenched at the sight of it.
“The system I designed needs that kind of driver. Someone who can tell us what’s wrong by instinct, not by data. Someone whose reflexes and racing intelligence were never damaged, only their body’s ability to execute. There are maybe five drivers in the world who fit that criteria.”
She looked directly at the camera.
“He’s the best of them.”
The recording ended, and the room fell silent.
Leonidas stared at the frozen image of his wife’s face, her words echoing in the space where his certainty used to be.
She believed in him.
Had always believed in him.
So why—
“Leon.” Aivan’s voice cut through his thoughts. “There’s something I don’t understand.”
Leonidas turned.
“If she believes in you this much—enough to design an entire system around your abilities, enough to keep working even after asking for a divorce—then why does she want to leave?”
It was the same question Leonidas had been asking himself since Manhattan. Since the penthouse. Since she’d stood in his kitchen with flour on her cheek and told him his eye was twitching.
“I don’t know,” he admitted.
“And last night.” Aivan’s expression was carefully neutral. “You flew here together. You arrived together. She was asleep in your arms. That doesn’t look like two people headed for divorce court.”
“It’s complicated.”
“Clearly.” Aivan paused. “Does it have something to do with your former...arrangement?”
The word hung in the air between them.
Leonidas thought of Lydia. Of six years in Milan. Of an apartment he’d paid for and a woman he’d visited and a life he’d kept carefully separate from his marriage because that was what the agreement allowed.
“Possibly,” he said finally.
“Then fix it.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“It never is.” Aivan’s phone buzzed, and he glanced at the screen. “That’s Sienah. Dinner’s ready — she’s been feeding the overnight crew, and apparently we’re expected to join them whether we like it or not.”
They walked back through the facility in silence, past the servers and the engineers and the evidence of his wife’s work scattered everywhere like fingerprints. And as they walked, Leonidas found his thoughts drifting to the conversation he’d overheard Aivan having earlier with one of the senior engineers.
Something about a new driver. A rising star.
“This prototype testing,” Leonidas said as they neared the main building. “You mentioned other candidates.”
“Backup options. In case you declined.”
“Who?”
Aivan glanced at him. “Does it matter?”
“Humor me.”
“Arisu Matsumoto.” The name rolled off Aivan’s tongue with the ease of someone who’d said it many times. “Japanese-French. Twenty-four years old. Three championship wins in Formula 2, expected to make the jump to F1 next season. The press is calling him the future of the sport.”
Twenty-four.
Leonidas remembered twenty-four. Remembered the hunger, the certainty, the bone-deep conviction that the world was his for the taking.
“He’s talented,” Aivan continued. “Disciplined. His technical feedback is exceptional for someone his age, and he’s already expressed interest in the adaptive system project.”
“I see.”
“He’s also single, photogenic, and the subject of approximately forty percent of the racing internet’s romantic speculation.” Aivan’s tone was dry. “In case you were wondering.”
Leonidas was not wondering.
Leonidas was thinking about his wife—his brilliant, trusting, too-good-for-him wife—and wondering what she would think of Arisu Matsumoto. Whether she’d seen his races. Whether she’d noticed that he was young and talented and unburdened by the weight of a six-year affair and a marriage built on convenience rather than love.
Arisu Matsumoto was the kind of man Lexy deserved.
Someone clean.
Someone whole.
Someone who hadn’t spent eight years treating her like an obligation to be managed rather than a woman to be cherished.
Not a greedy bastard who had already conquered the business world and still wanted the moon on a platter. Who had been given an arranged marriage and a wife who kept every promise she ever made, and had responded by flying to Milan once a month while she invented technology that could change his life.
Leonidas had been given everything.
And he had still wanted more.
The main building was warm and bright when they entered, the smell of food cutting through the sterile air of the facility. Sienah Cannizzaro was holding court in the staff kitchen, her dark hair piled in a messy bun, an apron tied over what looked like one of her husband’s old racing shirts as she directed a small army of takeout containers with the efficiency of a general marshaling troops.