All Chapters of Saved by Brother's Best Friend: Chapter 111 - Chapter 120

Marianna POVMy father.Who lives in Miami, forty minutes from Wynwood, who I have not spoken to in eight months.Until now.Until me, apparently, sitting in an Abu Dhabi hotel courtyard with an ambitious pastry, finally knowing the thing I've been circling.My phone buzzes.Marco comes to find me forty minutes later.He sits down across the table, steals half my pastry without asking, and looks at the Abu Dhabi morning with the expression of someone who has just finished something significant and is locating himself on the other side of it."Well?" I say."We talked," he says."About.""Things." He eats the pastry. "He told me some things I didn't know. I told him some things I suspected." A pause. "He loves you, Mari. Not the—not the way people say that casually. The actual version."I look at my coffee."I know," I say."I needed to hear him say it.""I know you did.""And he needed to hear—" Marco stops. "There are things about our family that he needs to understand before—before

Marianna."Come back," he says, like the words are an agreement."Yes," I say. "Exactly that."Practice goes well.Duane's lap times in FP2 put him P1 by four tenths, which the timing screens report with the flat neutrality of numbers that don't know what they mean to the people watching them.It means: no incidents. No debris. No anomalies in the race data that a physicist would later find suspicious.I watch FP2 from the Veloce garage with McCartney, who stands with her arms crossed and watches the screens with the expression of someone attending a concert she has strong opinions about."The Turn 12 exit," she says."I see it," I say. We're

Marianna.He kisses me and I stop thinking entirely.That's the thing nobody tells you—that it's possible to just stop, the whole running commentary, the clinical inventory, the part of my brain that's always watching and cataloguing and explaining things back to itself. Gone. Just his mouth and his hands and the Mexico City air thin around us.His jacket hits the floor. I don't see it happen, just hear it.My hands find the buttons of his shirt and he's already reaching for my hem and we get in each other's way twice—my elbow, his wrist, a brief collision of intentions—and I laugh, surprised, and he pulls back enough to look at me."Sorry," I say."Don't apologize," he says, and kis

Marianna.When we finally separate I'm breathing differently."The shoulder," I say again."Ninety-four," he says, against my forehead. "I assessed it myself.""Your self-assessment is consistently—""One point five below actual," he says. "So ninety-four means ninety-five point five. I know."I pull back enough to look at him. "You've been reading my clinical notes.""I told you I read the protocol.""The correction factor is in my personal notes, not the—" I stop. "How did you get my personal notes?"The corner of his mouth. "McCartney.""McCartney gave you my personal

Marianna POVMarco calls at 7 AM on a Tuesday."Marco," I say."Where are you." Not a question. The lawyer voice, which means he already knows."Still in Mexico. We fly to São Paulo this afternoon." I look at Duane. He's watching me. "What's happened?"A pause that lasts exactly long enough to be terrifying."There's a photo," Marco says.The cold arrives. "What kind of photo?""The garage. Mexico City. After the race." His voice is very controlled. "You and Duane. The helmet scene."I close my eyes.The garage. The cameras I knew were there. The moment I didn't move away from