This was punishment.
For the press conference.
For making him look like he didn’t have control over his own team.
For daring to do anything without his approval.
I could fight it. Could ignore the radio, push, take another shot at Callaghan, go for the win I fucking deserved.
But what would be the point?
Even if I ignored him, even if I won, Julian still held the leash. He’d find another way to punish me. This was never going to change.
Not unless I stopped playing by their rules. Stopped letting Julian pull the strings. Stopped giving a single fucking inch to a team that fixated on patting one man’s ego.
It shouldn’t have taken me this long.
I was fifteen when they scouted me. Twenty when they put me in an open-wheeled car. I’d built my career in Aedris red, bled for it, fought for it, won for it. Two world championships. Countless podiums. The kind of loyalty most teams would kill for.
And for what?
So I could be treated like a fucking pawn?
I should’ve seen it sooner. Maybe I had, in pieces. A contract renewal that had taken months longer than expected. Strategy calls that had put Stefano ahead when they shouldn’t have. The way Julian spoke to me.
But this was the first year it had felt like a fight.
Every race. Every decision. Every single time I so much as breathed without Julian’s fucking permission, I got pushed back in line.
And now, this.
I’d been blind. I’d spent years believing I was part of something, that I’d earned my place in this team, that what we’d built meant something.
That I meant something.
But I never had.
Not to Julian.
I was useful… when it suited them. When I was a golden boy, when I was doing exactly what they wanted. But the second I thought for myself? Stood up for myself?
No, I wasn’t going to waste another second fighting a war I’d already lost.
The next straight opened up.
I lifted.
Eased off the power.
Watched as Stefano zoomed past like he’d earned it.
Felt the final nail slam into the coffin of my time at Aedris.
This was the last time Julian Carter would ever control me.
Ipulled myself out of the car, lungs burning, sweat dripping down my spine.
Callaghan already stood on the podium, arms raised, soaking in the roar of his team. His fists punched the air, a smug grin plastered across his face like he hadn’t just spent the last twenty laps clinging on for dear life.
