Jax nodded slowly. “I know. I didn’t know the full thing—not until it was too late. But I saw how you looked at her. How she looked at you. I liked her, mate. She was one of the good ones. Losing her sucks for all of us. But you’re carrying it different. And it’s showing on track.”
Lucas stared at his hands, knuckles still raw from the steering wheel. “I don’t know how to do this anymore.”
Jax was quiet for a minute, then said, “You don’t have to do it happy. Just do it. One lap at a time. One race. You’re still in this. Still got a car under you. Still got a shot. She wouldn’t want you throwing it away.”
Lucas exhaled. “I know.”
But knowing and doing were different things.
Jax clapped him on the shoulder—firm, steady. “Come on. Let’s get a drink. Not to forget—just to breathe. You don’t have to talk. Just sit with me.”
Lucas nodded. They walked back to the hospitality suite in silence, the paddock lights flickering off one by one behindthem.
The next morning he woke early, hotel room still dark. He sat on the edge of the bed, phone in hand, thumb hovering over her name. He didn’t text. Hadn’t in weeks. But he opened the last message she’d ever sent him—four words from Abu Dhabi, before everything shattered:I’m sorry, I can’t
He stared at it until the screen timed out.
He went to the sim that day. Pushed harder. Not because he believed in the fight anymore, but because stopping felt worse. The car responded—better lines, cleaner exits—but the joy was gone. It was just motion.
He told himself he’d get through the season. One race at a time. One breath at a time.
But every night he still checked his phone—hoping, stupidly, for a message that never came.
The track waited. The championship waited.
He waited too.
For something to feel like it mattered again.
???
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Mia
One Tuesday in late June—the leaves had well and truly gone, snow lined the alps and the air was frosty—Dana’s name lit up Mia’s phone.
She stared at it for a long moment. The screen glowed in the quiet kitchen, her mother’s scones cooling on the rack, the house still except for the distant bleat of lambs in the paddock.
She almost didn’t answer.
But she did.
“Mia?”
A long silence stretched between them—thick, heavy with everything unsaid.
Then, softly: “Hey, Dan.”
Dana’s voice cracked on the other end. “Jesus Christ. You’re alive.”
Mia laughed—small, watery, the sound startling even to herself. “Barely.”
There was a relieved exhale, almost a sob. “I’ve been checking the news like a lunatic, waiting for some headline that you’d… I don’t know. Disappeared for good. You didn’t reply to anything. Not one text. Not one call.”
“I know,” Mia whispered. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. Just… talk to me. Please.”
