“I built you,” Ross shot back. “I made Aleksandr Volkov untouchable.”
Mac took a step forward. “Ross, enough.”
“No,” Ross said. “He needs to understand the reality. This sport doesn’t reward purity. It rewards results.”
I looked at both of them then.
My team principal.
My race engineer.
The two men I’d trusted more than anyone in this sport.
“I was the product,” I said slowly. “Wasn’t I?”
No one answered.
I nodded. “Good. That tells me everything.”
I turned for the door. Paused beside Mac and looked back at Ross over my shoulder, simmering rage thudding in my ears.
“If I go down for this, I swear to God, I’m taking you with me.” Then I turned and walked out, leaving the door open behind me.
For the first time since I was a teenager, I didn’t know who I could trust.
And there was only one person left I needed to face.
Chapter Thirty – London
Aleksandr Volkov
I didn’t storm out.
I walked.
Straight through the corridors of Obsidian HQ, past engineers, analysts, interns — all of them pretending not to stare.
The silence behind me rang louder than the shouting.
No one tried to stop me.
No one said a damn thing.
Except Callum.
He stepped out from one of the glass-walled meeting rooms as I passed. Dressed in team kit, hair mussed like he’d been dragging his fingers through it for hours. His eyes flicked to the floor, then back to me.
“They’re saying you didn’t know,” he said quietly. “About Hartmann. About any of it.”
I didn’t answer.
He swallowed, voice dropping further. “For what it’s worth… I believe that.”
I stopped walking.
Slowly turned to face him. “And what do you want for that belief, Callum? A thank you? A trophy of your own?”
He flinched like I’d hit him. “I didn’t mean—”
