Page 2 of Green Flag (StormSprint #2)

Everly

Dad’s face dropped the second I stepped into the Ciclati garage. His wiry brows furrowed, carving fresh lines in his forehead. More wrinkles had deepened and white streaks now threaded through his black hair—a stark contrast to the olive skin we shared.

He pulled himself together in front of his staff, gave a little head shake, then smiled and stepped forward—arms outstretched as he passed the bikes he adored. “Everly!”

“Dad,” I said, accepting his embrace. His clothes radiated with the August Austrian sun.

His shock at seeing me at the StormSprint championship would’ve been unwarranted once. I’d grown up on the racetrack. I’d learned how to ride a battery-powered motorbike before I learned how to pedal a bicycle.

He’d even named me after a vintage bike model.

He’d fostered my love of racing—then snatched it away.

So I didn’t feel bad when he frowned at me as I pulled back. I didn’t have an ounce of sympathy over going behind his back to secure a job on his motorbike racing team, Ciclati Sport. It wouldn’t be his team for much longer anyway.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, gripping my shoulders, giving me a once-over. “You look well—” His eyes caught the lanyard.

StormSprint Staff.

He followed the words around my neck. Maybe he’d try to use it as a noose.

I’d surely miss the purple VIP lanyard and the unlimited pina coladas it supplied, but drinking on the job would give my dad an excuse to fire me.

No more tropical brain freeze for me.

He touched his own lanyard, lips parted.

As team director, he wouldn’t wear Ciclati merchandise, only the mandatory ID. Everyone else in the pit box wore shades of red and green, apart from a woman in a pink Ciclati top. Cute.

“What?” he asked, blinking.

For a man with a permanent glare, he was really trying on a new human skin today.

It was all a show for Ciclati.

Uncle Abbé — Dad’s best friend and the one who had offered me the job — grinned beside him. “Everly! Nice to have you on board.”

And, for my comedic value, he offered me a dark hand to shake. As if I hadn’t known him for ten years.

Dad blinked at the handshake. “On board?”

From behind his back, Abbé pulled out my new uniform: a red top with bold Ciclati and StormSprint logos. “Thought you’d like the red more than the green.”

I nodded and unfolded it. It was a bit baggy for my liking, but I could always tie the waist with a hairband. Cowgirl style.

“I’d prefer one like hers,” I said and nodded to the blonde girl in pink, talking to one of the other team members. She caught me looking and smiled.

“No can do on the grid, I’m afraid,” Abbé said. “Though I’m sure Livie can get you one for when you’re not working.”

Dad finally twigged. His mouth opened, though he wasn’t able to put his feelings into words — no surprise there — and instead went back to his factory settings: a frown.

“Everly, tell me you’re not—”

“Your new grid girl, Dad!” I said and slapped his arm with a bit more force than was friendly. “You did say if I dropped out of uni, I better get a proper job.”

Seeing as he’d taken my dream job from me.

He didn’t consider being a grid girl a ‘proper job’, even if he hired them.

Every team across StormSprint had two grid girls, one for each racer of each division. They ran VIP tours, managed day-to-day logistics, held umbrellas over riders in all weather, and looked glamorous doing it.

I’d been expecting his disappointment. Lately, I almost relished it.

“You can go back to uni,” he urged, turning crimson with panic. “September starts just next week— you can pick up where you left off and—”

“Nah,” I said, shaking my head. I tried to keep it casual, but my heart was racing.

I’d flunked my last term. Retaking the year was inevitable.

If he found out… he’d tell Mum. Then Fia would know.

I wanted to be a role model for my sister, not the failure I’d already become.

“I signed a contract, didn’t I, Abbé? I’ve decided to take the year off. ”

Abbé looked down at his feet as if Dad’s lethal glare had physically weakened him. “I didn’t realise you could go back to university.”

Now it wasn’t just warmth radiating from my father, it was fury. His breaths were strained.

“Livia can stand in,” my dad said, looking around behind him. “Livia!”

The blonde woman in pink looked up and walked over, her slides smacking against her feet, almost as loud as the mechanics tinkering with the bikes. “What’s up?” she asked with a hesitant glance at me and the top I clutched to my chest.

“You can stand in on the grid again, can’t you, Livia?”

Her shoulders sank with a sigh. “Not with the inquiry dropping tomorrow, Cris. It’s going to be manic.”

“See?” Abbé said with a shrug of his broad shoulders. “Livie’s job is media. We’re down a grid girl. We’ve replaced one English girl, Clara, with another.”

Abbé didn’t mean it to sound belittling, but Livie — or Livia — closed her eyes in frustration. She was the only woman, apart from one mechanic, in the garage.

“And knowing I’m in charge of media, Abbé,” Livie said with a roll of her eyes, “it would have been beneficial for me to know about a new grid girl. Seeing as they are part of our media strategy.”

My lips twitched. I doubted many people spoke to Abbé like that. He’d been a MotoBike champion a decade ago — a different championship from StormSprint — until an injury ended his racing career. Then he’d become a sports analyst.

Abbé dramatically glanced one way and then the other.

“Livie Quinn,” she said with a smile, offering her hand to me. “I’m the new media manager for Ciclati’s StormSprint team.”

“Everly Bacque,” I told her, taking her gesture. I was much more into hugs than the formality, but despite this woman’s outfit, she screamed ‘proper’ with her blonde, curled hair, make-up and painted nails.

“My daughter,” Dad added, as if that was the same standard of qualification as her job title.

Livie acted like he hadn’t spoken. “I know who you are,” she said with a smile. “You sang and produced ‘Lost On Me, ’ didn’t you?”

Now I fully grinned. “The one and only.”

“When it trended, I used it on all of our social media,” she said. “And not because you’re my boss’s daughter. It’s so catchy.”

“Thank you,” I said with a proud smile. My country song ‘Lost On Me’ had gone viral out of nowhere, some algorithm or other forcing it in everyone’s ear for a few weeks, even hanging out in the charts.

It had made people proud of me. Briefly.

But above all else, it had made me realise, all those years ago… that I had a chance of making it until my dad took that away.

“This isn’t happening,” Dad snapped, shaking his head. “Livia, you’ll go on the grid tomorrow.”

“Dad,” I said with a sigh, but I twisted Mum’s ring around my finger — a nervous habit that was better than scratching the itch on my palm.

“One of your most admirable and frustrating traits is your love for these bikes. I’ve been on the track since I could walk.

I need no training when it comes to the tours, the press conferences, the grid.

Despite never doing the job, I know exactly what to do as a grid girl. ”

I tried to keep my voice level. Calm, unbothered. Like I was doing him a favour.

When really I wanted a front-row seat to my dad’s demise.

Livie pursed her lips, brows high with amusement as she side-glanced my father.

“I’m contacting your university,” Dad said, turning to the iPad he’d put down when seeing me. “You can have the role until your term starts in September. After that, you’re staying on English soil. Do you understand?” He didn’t wait for me to argue. “Livia, can you find a replacement?”

My stomach dropped, and my skin heated, calling out to be itched.

But, no, fuck him. He wouldn’t take this from me.

She told him that was the recruiter’s job, not hers. When he huffed, she gestured for me to follow her into the tunnel running parallel to the track.

But I stopped and touched his shoulder.

I had to see if it was worth being here.

Now or never.

I said in French, “It’s been three months, have you heard from—”

“Non,” my father snapped, leaning in, “Do not go there. Don’t even mention that man’s name in this pit box.”

His voice shook with rage, but the tight line of his lips and the flicker of fear in his eyes told me everything—I was right, and I’d get what I came for.

“You don’t need to be so dramatic,” I scolded with an eye roll, sounding a lot more confident than I felt. If I needed Dad’s information, I needed to remain calm. He couldn’t pick up on my desperation.

But his eyes only narrowed. “With you, I do. I mean it, Everly, you are not to discuss him. To anyone. ”

I nodded. But it wasn’t a promise.

I turned on my heel and followed Livie as she led the way to the VIP area.

“We’ll get you a drink and I’ve got to gather some paperwork for you to sign.

Sorry, everything is a bit hectic this weekend.

I mean, it is every weekend.” She breathed in deeply as if trying to gather the energy for the right words.

“Ciclati is a handful,” I said for her.

She shrugged. “I like being busy,” she told me, as I opened one of the doors and gestured her through.

“And both of the Ciclati racers, Luca and Nix, are two of the best men I’ve ever met.

I want them to get good publicity, not just because of my job.

Though with the inquiry and Pedro Velazco… it hasn’t been easy.”

My feet stopped. I was still holding the door. “What?”

She’d mentioned the man I had been strictly forbidden to bring up.

“Did you say Pedro?”

A thick, solid lump formed in my throat at saying his name, but it had come out in one desperate plea for information.

“Velazco?” I added, the obstruction growing and tightening my voice.

“Well, you know who he is, right?”

She mistook my startled gaze for a no.

He was my first everything — kiss, love, downfall.

My confidence used to sound like his voice.