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CHAPTER TWO

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River Daniels aims to win his third Formula 1 Drivers Championship this year. The real question is if there’s anyone who can go head to head with him? Right now, it’s looking like the other teams might need a miracle.

CENTRAL RACING NEWS

“It’s done?” I glanced over at Grayson from where I sat on the couch.

“It’s done. Your crush is now officially a member of Paragon Racing.”

“I don’t have a crush,” I muttered. Which wasn’t true. I did. Vanessa Lennon was fucking gorgeous, and anyone who said she couldn’t drive was a liar. What wasn’t to like? Somehow, in all the years we’d been racing, we’d never managed to share the same space. That would change soon, and I couldn’t wait.

A sigh reached my ears and I lifted my eyes from my phone, which happened to be open to one of Vanessa’s socials—a complete coincidence—and met my packmate’s gaze. “You know I have to tell you this. Be careful.”

I rolled my eyes.

Grayson’s accent got deeper when he was angry or extremely serious. And right now? He was the latter. “I mean it, River. This is already going to be hard for her. Don’t toy with her.”

I paused. “You really think I’d do that?”

“No.” He sighed again. “But I’m not speaking to you as my packmate at the moment. I’m speaking to you as her Team Principal.”

Discomfort swam in my chest. “Seriously, Gray. If you really think that about me, we have a different problem.”

Shaking his head, he closed the laptop. “I don’t. It’s?—”

He didn’t have to finish the sentence. This was unprecedented, and the racing world wasn’t going to take it well. Assholes. “I get it. Let me make this clear. I’m going to do my best to beat her on track the same way I do every other driver on the grid. But off the track I fully intend on being her ally the same way that I’m Elias’s. Or Beck’s. Or yours .”

People thought it was a little crazy that my whole pack worked for one team and I raced for another. But that was the thing about contracts. They didn’t care about things like finding your pack. And compared to some, we hadn’t been a pack for very long. Two years. Well, almost two and a half now. When Grayson came on as Paragon’s new Team Principal, Elias and Beck were already on the crew, and I’d never interacted with any of them before.

People thought that everyone knew everyone in Formula 1, and that was true a lot of the time. But it was also easy for people to slip by one another. The paddock was a big place. It was busy, and in general I didn’t interact with the crews of the other teams.

Like Vanessa. By all rights I should have met her by now. Especially since the guys liked to tease me about my crush. They could make fun of me all they liked. The woman was a badass, and I was ecstatic to go up against her. If what she did at the end of the last season was any indication, now that she was in an even faster car? I hoped she would be unleashed.

But like us slipping past each other, I’d never met any of my pack despite all of us working in racing. Until I was in a press conference with Grayson and felt that pull. It wasn’t an explainable thing. A subconscious synergy and knowing. All four of us felt it. A simple shift.

Elias and Beck had known they would be in a pack together, but it hadn’t truly fallen into place until I met Grayson, and then he met them. And that was the end of it.

I already had a contract in place with Xelerate through next year, and I didn’t mind signing about a hundred NDAs for both teams. Because they were my pack, but I was still a racer. Xelerate was the fastest team on the grid, and I fully intended on winning a third championship. At the end of next year, when my contract was finally up with Xelerate, we’d see what happened.

I knew Gray was worried about a hundred more things than I knew of, and he wasn’t truly worried about me and Vanessa, but regardless, I was also going to make myself crystal fucking clear.

“Thank you,” Gray said, running a hand over his face. “And I’m sorry. I wish I didn’t have to think about those possibilities.”

The way this was going to rock the entire world weighed on him. Vanessa was the right choice, and I had no doubt she would prove that to everyone, but being the first to do something was hard. Grayson was going to be under the world’s microscope.

We all would be, but he and Vanessa would take the brunt of it. I didn’t envy him.

I smirked. “Would be easier if you just owned the whole damn team, wouldn’t it?”

“You’re telling me.”

Grayson owned the minority share of Paragon Racing. Which meant he still answered to the majority shareholder. Not an easy place to be.

“Have anything else to do today?” He gave me a look, and I laughed. “Stupid question.”

“Yes, I have a lot. But I’ve blocked off tonight.”

“Good.” I stood and stretched. Because we were such a new pack, we tried to reserve time every week to do things. Like ‘date night.’ Tonight it was poker. “I’m heading to the gym if you need me. You know, to do your job faster and better than you.”

He flipped me off as he turned back to the computer, but he was smiling. Good enough.

Now to work out. Because I needed a distraction. Not only from Vanessa, but from the reality that everything was about to change. I just hoped it was for the better.