Read Chapter 10: Hidden Past

The knock came at 9:47 AM, forty-three minutes before the press briefing Elise had been dreading all week.

She looked up from her data tablet to find Charlotte Beaumont, the team's press officer, standing in her doorway with the expression of someone who had just swallowed a lemon whole. Behind her, a man in a rumpled blazer clutched a recorder like a talisman.

"Elise," Charlotte said, her voice clipped and professional in that way that meant trouble, "this is Tom Okafor from *Motorsport Weekly*. He has some questions about your employment history."

Elise's blood went cold. She set the tablet down carefully, buying herself a beat. "I have a briefing in forty minutes."

"This won't take long." Tom stepped past Charlotte into her office, all easy confidence and hungry eyes. "I've been doing a profile piece on the engineering talent shake-up across the paddock. You're an interesting case, Ms. Moreau. French junior formula champion, moved to endurance racing, then... nothing. Three years. Then suddenly you're at Apex Performance, and now you're the first female race engineer at a top-tier team since 2017."

Elise kept her face neutral. "I took time away from the sport."

"To do what, exactly?" Tom smiled, but there was a blade behind it. "Because I checked. You're not registered with the FIA as a competitor or team member. No engineering firm in Europe lists you on staff. For three years, you simply didn't exist in motorsport. Which is strange, because your early career suggested you were headed somewhere. What happened?"

The question hung in the air like a guillotine blade.

Elise thought of Alain, pale and thin in his hospital bed, the machines beeping their steady rhythm. She thought of the promise she'd made him, the file he'd given her, the weight of what she'd agreed to investigate. She thought of the truth that could end her career before Monaco's glamour faded from the rearview mirror.

"I was caring for a family member," she said. "My grandmother. She was ill."

It was the lie she'd rehearsed a hundred times, the one that sounded wholesome and unremarkable. It had worked for three years. It would work now.

Tom tilted his head, clearly not satisfied. "Your grandmother. And which grandmother would that be? Because I spoke to your mother—"

"You called my mother?" Elise's voice sharpened before she could stop it.

Charlotte stepped forward, herding Tom toward the door. "Mr. Okafor, I think we've taken enough of Elise's preparation time. If you submit your questions in writing, our comms team will be happy to review—"

"I'm just doing my job," Tom said, not moving. "There's a story here. A three-year gap that nobody can explain, and suddenly Elise Moreau appears at the top of the sport, connected to Madeleine Michaud's family, no less. That's not coincidence. That's a narrative."

The name hit Elise like a physical blow. She gripped the edge of her desk, knuckles white.

"I don't know what you're implying," she said, her voice barely steady. "My sister was an incredible analyst. Her work speaks for itself."

"Her work got a driver disqualified and nearly ruined a team principal's career," Tom said smoothly. "Then she died in a crash that was ruled an accident. But accidents happen to people who know things, don't they, Ms. Moreau?"

Charlotte had gone pale. "Mr. Okafor, I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

Tom held up his hands, the picture of innocence. "I'm leaving. But I'll be at the briefing. And I'll be watching. Because I think there's a much bigger story here than a rookie engineer with a lucky streak. And eventually, Ms. Moreau, someone's going to tell it."

He left without another word, his footsteps echoing down the corridor.

Charlotte turned to Elise, her carefully maintained composure cracking. "What the hell was that? Who is this sister he's talking about? You told us your references were from Alain Marchand—"

"Alain is my mentor. That's true."

"Then what's the gap? Because that man is going to dig, Elise, and when he digs, he's going to find whatever you're hiding, and it's going to be a scandal that buries this team right before Monaco."

Elise opened her mouth to respond, but a shadow fell across the doorway.

Julien stood there, arms crossed, his expression unreadable. He'd clearly heard everything—the lies, the evasion, the crack in her armor that Tom Okafor had pried open with professional cruelty.

"Charlotte," he said quietly, "can you give us a moment?"

The press officer looked between them, then nodded and slipped out, closing the door behind her.

The silence stretched between them like a wire under tension.

"Your grandmother," Julien said finally. "Which one was it? Because I've met your mother at Monza last year—she introduced herself at the paddock club. And she mentioned, quite casually, that her mother died when Elise was a child. Your father's mother, she said, lives in Lyon and has never been ill a day in her life."

Elise's throat tightened. "You've been checking up on me."

"I've been paying attention." Julien stepped closer, and she could see the calculation in his eyes. "That's different. That journalist will be at the briefing in half an hour, and you're going to have to face him knowing he's already caught you in a lie. So help me understand what I'm protecting."

"I never asked you to protect me."

"No. But Voss made it clear we sink or swim together. And I've been in this sport long enough to know that secrets don't stay buried." He paused, something flickering across his face. "I've got my own ghosts. I understand wanting to keep them locked away. But if yours are big enough that a journalist can smell them from across the paddock, they're going to cost me the title. And I won't let that happen."

"Then fire me." The words came out sharper than she intended. "Tell Voss you want Marco back. Go back to being the driver who blames his engineer for his own mistakes."

Julien flinched. For a moment, the mask slipped, and she caught a glimpse of something raw beneath the arrogance—something that looked almost like guilt.

"That's not what I'm saying," he said. "I'm saying you trusted me with the telemetry. You trusted me with your sister. You can trust me with whatever else is buried in that gap in your resume. Whatever you're hiding, I'd rather hear it from you than read it in a headline."

Elise studied him. The champion driver who had publicly blamed her, who had chosen Marco over her, who had challenged her to prove herself. And yet here he was, offering her a chance to tell the truth before it was ripped from her.

But the truth wasn't hers to tell. Not yet. The investigation into Alain's ouster was delicate; revealing her involvement would expose him to retaliation before she had evidence. And the question of Madeleine—that wound was still too raw, too complicated to explain to a man who had never known his own savior.

"When I'm ready," she said. "When the timing is right. I'll tell you everything. But not because you threaten me, and not because a journalist is circling. Because I owe you that much, after what we've started to build."

Julien stared at her for a long moment, then nodded slowly. "The briefing. Charlotte needs to know what to say if Okafor presses you again."

"Tell her to say I'm committed to this team and my past is irrelevant to my work. It's true, even if it's not the whole story."

"And if he doesn't accept that?"

Elise met his gaze, and for the first time since he'd walked through the door, she smiled. "Then I'll handle it. I've gotten good at handling difficult men."

Julien actually laughed at that, a short surprised sound. "Fair enough. But Elise—" His voice dropped. "If this story breaks at the wrong moment, if it costs us points at Barcelona, I won't protect you. I can't. The title means too much."

"I know."

He held her gaze for a moment longer, then turned and walked out.

Elise stood alone in her office, the weight of three years of secrets pressing down on her shoulders. Tom Okafor knew about Madeleine. He knew about the gap. And if he kept digging, he would find the truth: that she hadn't been caring for a grandmother, but working in the shadows of a classified investigation into the accident that killed her sister—an investigation that Alain had funded with his own career, and that had led Elise to a discovery she'd never been able to prove.

Until now.

She reached into her pocket and pulled out the data chip she'd copied from Dieter's locker, the one containing tire degradation curves that shouldn't have existed. Physical evidence, months in the making. Proof that her sister's death hadn't been an accident, but a cover-up designed to silence the engineer who had caught something she shouldn't have.

She'd thought the chip was about the sabotage of her own career. But as she stared at the screen, cross-referencing the data against Alain's file, the pattern emerged with sickening clarity.

The same irregularity in the brake telemetry—the flaw Madeleine had caught in 2021—was present in the tire data now. Not identical code, but the same signature, the same fingerprint of tampering. Whoever had tried to kill Julien's career back then was still active. And they were still trying to kill him now.