“He will. Eventually.” He raised his soju glass. “To the truth. And the hell it drags behind it.”
I clinked my water against his glass. “To the truth.”
We drank in silence, the air thick with smoke and something else—weight, tension, relief. The meat on the grill hissed and spat, but neither of us moved to eat.
Tomorrow, everything would change.
But tonight, I had a friend, a table, and the quiet certainty that—for better or worse—I’d done what I came here to do.
Chapter Twenty Nine – Seoul to London
Elena Archer
The last thing we did before checking out of the hotel on Tuesday morning was use the hotel’s WiFi to publish my article. Graham had finally received the green light from legal, so he hunched over his laptop at a table in the lobby, scheduling the post for 8am UK time.
“We’re all set,” he said, giving me a reassuring nod.
I’d also sent all of my evidence to Graham’s contact higher up the FIA chain, someone he swore we could trust, to initiate a complaint for misconduct against Klaus Hartmann and the Obsidian team.
This was it. The ball was rolling.
The knot that twisted in my stomach was normal with such a big story. Everything was on the line. But knowing that the nerves were an inevitable part of this didn’t help to settle them.
Graham shut his laptop with a click that echoed across the spacious lobby. It was early, and only a few stragglers milled around. Most of the F1 personnel and media had flown out the day before to make the most of the two-week break before Bahrain. But we’d taken what flights we could get at short notice—which meant an early start and a layover in Munich.
We checked out, hailed a cab, and headed for the airport.
We were somewhere over Kazakhstan when my article went live. I pulled out my phone and watched the view count start to crawl up, slowly at first but half an hour later it was racing up. 1500, 3000, 15,000… I squirmed in my seat and Graham placed a steadying hand on my knee.
The comments were alive and I couldn’t stop myself from reading them.
Shock.
Disbelief.
Refutation.
People really didn’t want it to be true. Aleks’s fans were rallying behind him, denying his involvement.
I’d steered clear of attributing any direct blame to anyone at Obsidian besides Norton Ross. I was sure he knew every detail, but I had no proof. The best accusation I could level at him, and I certainly did, was that as Team Principal, he was responsible for the actions that broke the rules. Whether he ordered it, oversaw it himself, or knew nothing, he was responsible for the climate at the team that resulted in this happening. He should have known and he should have stopped it.
The FIA on the other hand, they bore the brunt of my criticism.
Seeing those comments on my article, and compulsively checking social media too, I knew that my reputation at the FIA would be in tatters. I could kiss goodbye to exclusives, favours, even basic access.
The fans were seething. And were not shy about showing it.
By the time we landed in Munich the view count had hit fifty thousand. The share count was over ten thousand. It was official. I’d gone viral. I had thousands of new followers on X. People were calling me brave. But some were less complimentary.
We had a three hour layover in Munich and were eating at an airport restaurant when Graham snatched my phone from my hand and put it in his jacket pocket.
“That’s enough,” he said, not unkindly.
I stared at him, blinking, too tired and numb to react.
“You’ll make yourself crazy.”
“Apparently I already am. Have you seen what they’re saying?”
