Read Chapter 29: The Missing Man's Refuge

The stairwell smelled of old oil and damp stone, the kind of smell that clung to the underside of Monaco like a secret. Jack’s boots echoed off concrete as he half-carried Emile down the final flight. The Frenchman’s breathing was a ragged metronome, his arm heavy across Jack’s shoulders.

“You sure about this place?” Jack asked, voice low.

“It’s where Fenice used to store the older cars,” Emile said, wincing as his foot caught a step. “Before the new factory in Italy. Philippe kept it as a tax write-off. No one’s been here in years.”

They emerged into a wide, low-ceilinged space beneath the hill that rose behind the casino quarter. Pale security lights flickered through high, grimy windows. A few empty wheel racks stood like skeletons, and a single torn halo seat lay on its side near a workbench. The air was thick with the ghost of rubber and fuel.

Jack eased Emile onto the bench and swept a hand across the dust to clear a patch for him to lie down. “I’ll check the exits.”

“Do it quick,” Emile said. He pulled the collar of his jacket down to inspect his shoulder, where a fresh bloom of red had soaked through the dressing. “I don’t think I’ve got many more moves in me.”

Jack did a tight circuit of the space—two shutter doors, both padlocked from the inside. One personnel door leading back to the stairwell. No cameras that he could see. He dragged a metal toolbox against the personnel door handle, jamming it shut enough to slow an entry, then returned to Emile.

The Frenchman had propped himself upright against the wall, fishing something from an inner pocket of his jacket. A SIM card, tiny and gold, held between his thumb and forefinger like an offering.

“This is why I stayed in your room,” Emile said. “Not just the shooting. I needed to retrieve this. It was in the phone I dropped at the track the night Luca died.”

Jack dropped to a crouch beside him. “I thought you gave me everything already. The diagnostic file. The security footage.”

“That was the evidence they could destroy.” Emile’s eyes were glassy, fevered. He tapped the SIM. “This is the evidence they couldn’t. Luca was paranoid, and for good reason. He kept a backup of his findings—everything Alain and Philippe did to that car—but he also recorded a message. Video. In case he didn’t survive the race.”

Jack’s stomach tightened. “He knew.”

“He suspected. He found the weakened suspension days before the Monaco weekend, but he couldn’t prove who ordered it. Alain told him it was a minor flaw from shipping. Luca didn’t believe it. He set up the backup and he recorded himself naming both of them.” Emile coughed, a wet sound Jack didn’t like. “I only got the SIM out of his phone before I ran. I never watched the file. Couldn’t bring myself to.”

Jack stared at the piece of plastic and gold. “Where’s the device to read it?”

Emile gestured weakly to his backpack, which Jack had carried down. “In there. A cheap adapter and my old tablet. It’s encrypted, but I know the passphrase.”

“Give it to me.”

Emile did, whispering a string of words—Luca’s mother’s name, a year, a town. Jack worked the SIM into the adapter, plugged it into the tablet, and powered it on. The screen glowed pale blue in the darkness. A single video file appeared.

Jack pressed play.

Luca Marchetti’s face filled the screen—sharp cheekbones, dark hair unkempt, eyes that carried the exhaustion of a man who hadn’t slept well in weeks. He was sitting in what looked like a sparse hotel room, a plain wall behind him, a phone propped on a stack of books.

“If you’re watching this,” Luca said, voice low and tight, “then I’m either dead or I’ve gone to ground. I want it on record that I, Luca Marchetti, driver for Scuderia Fenice, believe this is my own doing. Not an accident. I found the fault myself, on Thursday before FP1. The right-rear wishbone was deliberately weakened. The metal was scored at the stress point—I know machine work, I’ve seen it done before.”

He paused, jaw tightening. “I confronted Alain Barthélémy, our so-called race director. He denied it. He offered me fifty thousand euros. Spoke to me like I was a dog being thrown a bone. I told him what I thought of his offer.” A grim smile. “I shouldn’t have. He told me Philippe Aethel would hear of my ingratitude. Not my complaint—my ingratitude. That word told me everything. This wasn’t a dispute between engineers. It was an order from heaven.”

Jack’s knuckles went white on the tablet. Beside him, Emile let out a slow breath, as if hearing the words for the first time was draining him further.

“I’ve kept records,” Luca continued. “Invoices, delivery manifests, the names of the men who moved the parts. I’ve sent them to my lawyer in Zurich with instructions to release everything upon my death. If this is the last record of me, I want it known: Aethel killed me. Alain is his instrument. And the syndicate they run has been profiting off crashes and failures for years—not just ours. Drivers have gotten hurt. Some have died. No one has spoken because no one has proof.” He leaned closer to the camera. “I have it now. I’m taking it to the FIA tomorrow. If I don’t come back, it’s because I was stopped. Someone who watches this must finish it.”

The video ended on a freeze frame of Luca’s face, caught mid-breath, half a second before he must have reached to switch the camera off.

The silence in the garage was absolute except for Emile’s shallow breathing.

“He sent it to a lawyer,” Jack said finally. “A Zurich lawyer. Did you know?”

“No,” Emile whispered. “He never told me. If he did, maybe they’d have gone after me sooner. Or the lawyer.”

Jack set the tablet down. His mind churned. The video was a confession, a testimony, a last will—but from a dead man. Without corroboration from a living witness, without a court that would hear it, it was still just a file. The police were compromised. The FIA had yet to return his calls. Every channel he’d tried, Aethel had a hand on the tap.

“Any more secrets you’ve been keeping?” Jack asked, not unkindly.

Emile shook his head. “That’s everything. For real this time. I told you I was saving one thing for the end. Because once you have that file, you don’t need me anymore. I’m not the witness. He is.” He gestured at the frozen face on the tablet. “And he can’t be bought, threatened, or discredited. He’s dead.”

“Which means they can’t frame him as a liar, either,” Jack said slowly. The shape of an idea began to form. “But they can frame me as the man who faked it. Barthes already tried that with the recording.”

“Barthes is one detective. He’s not the whole system.”

“He’s the system that answers when I call.” Jack stood, pacing the grimy concrete. “Aethel’s reach is long, but he can’t touch a lawyer in Zurich with a dead client’s sealed envelope. If Luca’s evidence is already there, it’s been there for days. Untouched. Waiting.”

Emile watched him, shivering now. “You can’t go to Zurich. They’ll have port and border alerts on you. You’re a fugitive.”

“Then I don’t went to Zurich.” Jack turned. “I find a way to call the lawyer. Or better—I release the video myself. Untraceable. Let the world decide who’s lying: a dead man with corroborating documents, or a team owner who profits from crashes.”

He said it with more confidence than he felt. His own voice stared back at him from a different recording—Philippe’s voice on Aethel’s copy, laughing at him, offering a million euros to disappear. How easy it would be for Philippe’s media team to frame the video as Jack’s fabrication. A desperate driver caught red-handed, lashing out.

“It’s not enough,” Jack muttered. He dropped back onto the bench beside Emile. “Not yet. We need corroboration from someone alive. Someone untouchable. Someone already inside.”

Emile turned his head, eyes finding Jack’s in the dim light. “Someone like Viktor?”

Jack froze. Viktor Astier—Fenice’s other driver. The one who won the season opener while Luca’s car was still being scraped off the barrier. The man who had so much to lose if the team collapsed.

“What about Viktor?”

“He knew,” Emile said quietly. “I can’t prove it, but I watched him notice things. A look at Alain when the suspension guy came in. A silence whenever Luca’s name came up. He’s not clean. But he’s not broken, either.”

Jack looked at the door, at the dark beyond the grimy windows. Somewhere out there, Aethel was burning every resource to find him. Sophie was in danger because she’d helped him run. And the only drivers who could end this were one dead man and one who hadn’t spoken a word.

He had the smoking gun. Now he needed the man who’d fire it.

“Where does Viktor stay in Monaco?” Jack asked.

Emile gave a weak, knowing smile. “You’re going to go ask him?”

“I’m not going to ask,” Jack said. “I’m going to tell him what happens next. And he’s going to have to decide whose side he was on all along.”