LOGINEmily POVWe ran the entire length of the car park.Nathan reached the facility entrance first and held his badge to the scanner without breaking stride. The doors opened and we went through together.Claire met us in the corridor, already moving toward us. "Brake caliper Front left. The Polymer degradant in the hydraulic line, the same method Voss described. Whoever did this used our exact specification documents.""Is Phoenix drivable?" I asked."Not until I strip and replace the entire front brake assembly." She kept pace beside us. "Emily, this wasn't a rushed job, someone took their time. They knew exactly what they were doing and where to do it.""Bradley is in this building," Nathan said."Or was." Blake's voice came through my earpiece. "Santiago has footage of a male figure on level two, maintenance corridor, eleven forty-seven PM. He's wearing a staff uniform. Santiago can't get a clean face, he knows where every camera is positioned.""He's been here before," I said. "He kn
Emily POVBlake's call came at midnight while Nathan and I were still in the car heading back from the facility."Voss is gone," he said. "He left the coffee shop in under sixty seconds. A professional extraction repositioned camera on the exit, clean vehicle with no plates. Someone had a team staged outside that building before I walked in.""Meaning Damien knew about the meeting before it happened," Nathan said loud enough for Blake to hear."Has to be. Only four people knew — me, Emily, Marcus, Sarah Morrison."I looked at Nathan. He looked at me."None of those four told Damien," I said."Which means someone monitored one of our communications channels," Blake said. "I'm running a full audit now. Emily, Stella Reeves called me twenty minutes ago. She's terrified. She says Damien came home tonight, got off a phone call, and told her “the Voss problem is handled.""She knows what that means," Nathan said."She does. She's asking to meet tonight.""Where is she now?""She's parked ou
Blake POVVoss was already seated when I walked in. Coffee untouched and he was completely at ease. That alone told me something nervous people never look that comfortable.I sat across from him without a word."Mr Thompson," he said . "I wondered when Lothan Industries would send someone.""You made yourself easy to find."“Running implies fear." He slid a document across the table before I'd finished sitting. "FIA complaint filing. Damien gave me a copy. I'm giving it to you.""What does it say?""Emily competed in 2010 with deliberate neurological enhancement she knowingly concealed. That Marcus authorised it. Every word is demonstrably false but disproving it takes months of formal investigation. While the FIA investigates, Lothan-Lotus loses its constructor licence. Your season dies before the first race.""You designed this complaint.""I designed everything Damien has used against your team." No apology but just facts”. "Which means I'm the only person who can help you dismantl
Nathan POVDamien Reeves.I had Blake do a full review on him by the time Emily's testing session was over . He's a thirty-four year old British racer . Second-generation racing family with a well documented history. His father Bradley Reeves had finished second in the 1994 Formula One World Championship by six points and had spent the following three decades unable to speak about it without the bitterness surfacing like a bruise that never fully healed.Damien had grown up with the story. Had been raised in the shadow of his father. He'd been genuinely fast in his own racing career, faster than most of the field for four consecutive seasons, extremely talented and very dangerous on his day. And then the 2010 championship season had arrived and Emily Lothan had been faster. Consistently and by a huge margin that was not a fluke of circumstances, she was simply been a better driver than him.Four points. That was the gap at the end of the season.For Damien Reeves, four points wasn't a
Emily POVThe Testing at Silverstone in November felt like coming home to a house that had been redecorated while you were away. Same structure, same cold English air. The smell of damp grass and rubber melting rubber tyres on the track. Different cars under me. Different names on the pit wall above with the same feeling in my chest the moment the engine fired.I had no business being in the car.I was the team principal. I had Davies and Lucas for the driving, our two talented, contracted, insured, purposefully employed racing drivers who were paid specifically so that I did not have to sit in the cockpit. My job was in the pit, the car data, the strategy calls, the tyre decisions, the three hundred micro adjustments per race But Davies had taken a neck injury from a karting shunt two weeks earlier, a minor one actually but it'd take two weeks for his full recovery and we needed setup data from a driver with the sensitivity to feel what the car wanted at its absolute limit. Not inst
Marcus POVThe prototype sat under a white sheet in the centre of the development floor and my engineers looked at it the way people look at something they've built that unsettles them slightly. Like they'd reached for something and found it but it was still a little bit unsatisfying than expected.The word best would mean it was extraordinary."Walk me through it again," I said.Dr. Claire Ashworth, the lead materials engineer, recruited from MIT over a year ago, pulled the sheet back with confidence of someone who had absolute faith in what she'd created.The Phoenix hypercar.I had seen the clay models, the wind tunnel simulations and the component specifications. None of it had prepared me for the actual car. Carbon composite monocoque with structural body panels built with biotech-derived polymer chains that Claire had spent fourteen months developing. It was an adaptation of molecular processes from Catherine's Genesis research, translated into automotive engineering in ways tha
Emily POVSix weeks after the verdict, I sat in the same courtroom for Margaret's sentencing hearing.The gallery was less crowded now-some journalists, a few curious observers, mostly justvictims waiting to deliver impact statements. Jason was there under marshal supervision,his testimony having
Blake POVDmitri Volkov arrived at the Lothan estate at exactly ten o'clock, punctual in a way thatsuggested military precision. I'd deployed twelve security personnel around the grounds,established multiple fallback positions, and had federal agents on standby three minutesaway. If this meeting
Nathan POVThe Maldives resort was paradise, crystal water, white sand, overwater bungalow withcomplete privacy. Emily and I had finally stolen two weeks away from corporate drama,custody arrangements, and family obligations. Just us, the ocean, and the freedom to benewlyweds without crisis inte
Nathan POVPlanning a wedding while co-parenting an infant with your wife's ex-husband's mistresswas not a situation covered in traditional etiquette books. Yet somehow, three months aftermy proposal, Vanessa and I found ourselves in a baby store debating stroller options whileEmily finalized re







