“What do we know?”
Aivan gestured to the screens. “The attack was sophisticated. Professional. They targeted the adaptive control system files specifically—your wife’s work.”
Your wife’s work.
The words landed strangely, even now.
“How much did they get?”
“Less than they wanted.” Aivan moved to a nearby console, pulling up a series of diagrams that meant nothing to Leonidas but clearly meant everything to the exhausted engineers scattered throughout the room. “Our security protocols held longer than expected. They breached the outer layers, but the core algorithms—the parts that actually make the system work—those are still secure.”
“Do we know who’s responsible?”
“Not yet.” Aivan’s jaw tightened. “But we have theories.”
He led Leonidas through the facility, past rooms full of engineers hunched over laptops, past servers blinking with activity, past whiteboards covered in equations that looked more like art than mathematics. And as they walked, Aivan explained—the breach, the response, the ongoing efforts to fortify their defenses—but Leonidas found himself only half-listening.
Because everywhere he looked, he saw evidence of her.
Her notes in the margins of printed schematics. Her handwriting on a whiteboard in the corner, a formula circled three times with the wordYES!!scrawled beside it. Her coffee mug—the one with the faded cartoon robot that she’d had since university—sitting on a desk like she’d just stepped away and would be back any moment.
“She’s been working remotely,” Aivan said, following his gaze. “Even after she filed for divorce, she never stopped. If anything, she increased her hours.”
Leonidas said nothing.
She had asked for a divorce.
And then she had kept working on the system that would bring him back to racing.
Why?
“There’s something else you should see.” Aivan’s voice had shifted, careful now in a way that made Leonidas’s instincts prickle. “We’ve been compiling footage for investor presentations. Testimonials, technical explanations, that sort of thing. One of the files we recovered from the breach attempt was a recording your wife made.”
They stopped before a smaller room, this one quieter than the others, with a single large monitor mounted on the wall.
“She doesn’t know we’re showing you this,” Aivan added. “It was meant for the technical committee, not for you. But I think you need to see it.”
He pressedPlay.
And there she was.
Lexy, on screen, seated at a desk Leonidas didn’t recognize, her hair pulled back in that practical ponytail she wore when she was working, her serious dark eyes fixed on the camera with an intensity he’d rarely seen directed at anything other than her machines.
“The adaptive control system isn’t just about compensating for physical limitations,” she was saying, her voice clear and steady. “It’s about preserving what makes a driver extraordinary in the first place.”
She paused, glancing down at notes he couldn’t see.
“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.
