I snort.
Couldn’t have happened to a better guy.
“Why are you telling all of this? Why did you want me to come here?” I rise to my feet.
Luciano looks back at me. “I wasn’t the only one cheating last season,” he says.
I narrow my eyes.
“Throughout the season, I would receive notes out of nowhere telling me updates made to your car before a race.”
“My car?” I point to my chest, my voice filled with incredulity.
Car updates are never revealed to the public until race day. That information is kept top secret. Hell, sometimes even from the drivers.
“Someone wanted you to lose,” Luciano says.
“No shit,” I scoff. “What about your officiant friend?”
Shaking his head, he opens and closes his mouth a few times.
“They weren’t exactly friends,” Russo cuts in. “Luciano’s told me that the officiant had nothing to do with the notes. He never found out who it was.”
“Because he didn’t do much digging,” I guess.
Luciano silently answers my question when he looks down, ashamed.
“He wanted you to know this because he thinks whoever had it out for you last season might still be hanging around.”
I don’t tell him about all of the calls and notes I’ve received in the past few months, threatening me to throw races.
“W-Watch your back,” Luciano says, shakily.
I start to ask him why he wanted me to come all of the way out here to tell me this, but I already know the answer. As I watch him look from me back out of the window, I sense his loneliness.
Luciano spent a decade in Formula 1, had two marriages and the same number of divorces. Remembering the way he partied and discarded friendship like they weren’t anything to him, makes it easy to figure out how he ended up alone in this facility with no one but a legal representative to speak for him.
The only thing he showed real passion for was racing. He was a hardline competitor outside of the partying life. And look where it got him. His one championship will forever remain shrouded in controversy. And that’s if I don’t tell what was revealed to me today. If I do, it’ll likely be taken away.
That won’t be me.
The voice wells up in me so firmly that I almost think I say it out loud.
I will not become the next Luciano Farina.
My mind goes to Alyssia. Months ago, I thought my sole reason for existing was to win championships. For most of my life winning has come easily once I put my efforts into it. I lived with tunnel vision, appreciating all my parents and family did for me, but if I’m honest, I’d come to expect it.
Life came easy for me. Except for when I lost last season when I was certain the title was in my grasp. After losing, I sulked and became even more focused on getting what was mine.
Then I met Alyssia and she’s changed everything for me.
Never will I become so focused on winning a championship or this high-profile lifestyle that I’ll forget what’s most important.
“You take care of yourself.”
Luciano nods at me.
As I depart his room and descend the stairs, I leave what happened last season with him. I wasn’t the failure of that race.
