Read Chapter 11: Spanish Test

The heat off the Spanish tarmac hit Elise the moment she stepped out of the paddock’s air-conditioned tunnel. Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya baked under a late-May sun, the grandstands a cacophony of red and orange. She shielded her eyes, scanning the garage. Julien was already at the rear, helmet off, sweat darkening the collar of his firesuit. He looked at her, and for the first time, she saw something other than accusation in his gaze.

“The rear’s stepping out on entry in turn nine,” he said, no preamble. “We ran the setup you flagged in the sim this morning. It’s better. Not perfect. But better.”

Better. From Julien Lefèvre, that was practically a ballad.

They fell into step beside each other, walking the pit lane toward the garage where the team’s race engineers huddled over their screens. Elise felt the eyes of mechanics on her—some curious, some wary. She’d stopped letting it bother her. Mostly.

“The tire offset data from FP3,” she said, pulling up her tablet. “Your degradation curve is steeper on the right front, but it’s consistent with the understeer you’re fighting. If we qualify P4, we could risk a two-stop where the others do one.”

Julien grunted. “Monaco taught us what happens when we gamble on strategy.”

“Monaco taught us what happens when we gamble *without data*,” Elise corrected, keeping her voice even. “I have the data now. Three seasons of your telemetry. I know how you manage a deg curve. You don’t like being ahead of the pace—you like being *in control* of it.”

He stopped walking. She stopped too, turning.

Julien’s jaw worked. He was a man who’d built his career on instinct—the last of a breed who could feel a car’s grip through his spine before the numbers confirmed it. Elise was offering him something else: a map of his own habits.

“You ran my numbers,” he said. It wasn’t an accusation. It was amazement.

“Three seasons, every race, every failure. I know when you’re going to push and when you’re going to back off. I know you brake eleven meters later than your teammate when you’re angry, and you hate that you do it.”

He laughed—short, startled, real. “Eleven meters?”

“Every time. Like clockwork.”

Julien shook his head slowly. “My engineer for four years never noticed that.”

“He wasn’t watching. I was.”

The silence between them lasted a breath too long. Then Julien nodded once, decisively, and resumed walking. “What’s the two-stop window? Give me the numbers.”

---

Qualifying delivered P4. Julien held position off the line, then lost one to the Red Bull in the opening lap. Elise kept her voice calm in his ear, the noise of eighty thousand spectators a distant roar compared to the quiet intensity of their channel.

“Box now,” she said on lap sixteen.

“Already?” His voice was clipped.

“Trust the map. You’re two seconds off the leaders, but your tires are gone. Three more laps and you’ll be three and a half. Box now, undercut them all.”

A pause. The engine note hummed through the speakers. Then: “Copy.”

He dove into the pits. The stop was flawless—2.4 seconds. When he re-emerged, clean air ahead, the timing tower showed the overcut attempt of the car in P2. Elise smiled.

“Run it smooth. Mediums will last you thirty laps if you stop overshooting the apex at turn five.”

“You sound like my old coach.”

“He didn’t have my math.”

Julien’s laugh crackled through the intercom, tinny but genuine. The ice was melting. Elise allowed herself a moment of cautious optimism.

Then everything went sideways.

On lap forty-six, with Julien in P2 and closing on the leader, Elise caught a flicker in the live telemetry—right front tire pressure dropping steadily. Not a puncture. Worse. The signature of a slow leak, the kind that ended races and sometimes careers.

“Julien, box now. Now. Right front.”

“I’m four seconds back. I can catch him in six laps.”

“You’ll be on the rim in three. Box now.”

He didn’t argue. The instinct she’d recognized—the fear of losing control—still fought him, but he trusted her enough to override it. He peeled into the pit lane as the tire pressure graph flatlined. The stop was frantic, 3.1 seconds. When he rejoined, he was in P5.

Elise’s hands were sweating. The podium was slipping. She stared at her screen, the data flowing, the numbers rearranging in her head like a puzzle she had to solve in real time.

“Julien. If we’re going to salvage this, I need you to open the gap to the Ferrari behind you. Push for six laps. Run your tires to the canvas. Six laps, Julien. Can you do that?”

“You want me to risk a blowout.”

“I want you to trust that right front is your *new* set. The mediums you’re on now have fifteen laps of life. The race ends in sixteen. But you need to be far enough ahead when they pit that you don’t lose position.”

He was silent for two seconds. Two seconds that felt like a lifetime.

“For you, Moreau. Six laps. No more.”

He drove them like a demon. Elise watched the delta times climb, her heart in her throat as the Ferrari’s pit window approached. Lap fifty-one. Lap fifty-two. The Ferrari blinked into the pit lane. Julien’s lap fifty-three was a glory—purple sector one, purple sector two, the track opening up before him.

“They’re behind you now,” Elise said. “P3. Bring it home.”

“Position to P2?” She heard the hunger in his voice.

“Not today. That Mercedes is fifteen seconds up. Unless he blows an engine, that’s his race. Take the podium. Command it.”

He did. When the checkered flag fell, Julien crossed in third, the crowd surging to their feet. Elise let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. Her radio crackled.

“*That was yours, Moreau. That podium is yours.*”

She blinked. The words hung in the air, heavy as truth. From Julien Lefèvre—the man who had publicly called her a liability not three weeks ago—it was an admission she hadn’t dared imagine.

“We worked well together,” she managed.

“We’ll work better.”

---

The celebratory chaos of the pit wall swallowed her. Engineer and mechanics swarmed Julien as he climbed out, his grin wide and unguarded, champagne already turning his white suit to gold. Elise hovered at the edge, allowing herself a small, private smile.

Then a voice cut through the noise, slick as oil.

“Well, well. The ghost engineer surfaces again.”

She turned. Marco Tessaro, the Red Bull race engineer, stood with a data tablet tucked under his arm, a sneer painted across his face. He’d made a career of stirring doubt, but she hadn’t expected him here, on the podium steps, invading their celebration.

“Three years missing,” Marco said, loud enough for nearby journalists to angle their microphones. “Then you appear at Apollon like a resurrection—except, of course, that’s the wrong term, isn’t it? Your sister was the one who actually died.”

Elise’s blood turned to ice. Julien’s smile snapped off his face. He turned, stepping between them.

“Watch your mouth, Marco.”

“I’m merely congratulating her on her comeback,” Marco said, eyes glittering. “It takes guts to build a career on a dead woman’s coattails. But I suppose that’s the Michaud family way, isn’t it? Only the living inherit the secrets.”

“What did you say?” Elise’s voice was steel.

Marco shrugged, already turning away. “Just reminding you that history has a way of repeating. Your sister was silenced for looking too close. You might want to learn from that.”

He was gone before she could respond, swallowed by the crowd. Julien spun to face her, his expression unreadable.

“What is he talking about? Elise. *What* do you and your sister have to do with Red Bull?”

The podium celebrations faded around her. Marco knew. He knew about Madeleine, about the investigation, about the sabotage. And he was warning her—the same way whoever had killed her sister had warned her.

“Julien,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “We need to talk. Somewhere private. Now.”