Page 33 of Knot So Fast (Speedverse #1)
"You can talk to the others about this arrangement," Lachlan cuts him off, his voice returning to that flat, professional tone that somehow sounds worse than the raw emotion.
"But my answer is no. I'll participate in the race for appearances, for the team, for the sponsors.
But if we truly have to choose an Omega and create a temporary bond to make this work, then I'm officially out. "
"The team needs you. The sport needs you?—"
"The sport survived before me and it'll survive after me.
If Lucius, Caspian, Kieran, and Dex want to go through with this, you have enough drivers to field a team.
Just don't include me in the plans. I'll go back to the shadows where no one gave a damn about my life before stardom, and I'll be perfectly content. "
The sound of the phone hitting the counter with perhaps more force than necessary makes me flinch slightly. I hear Lachlan's harsh breathing, followed by a string of creative curses that would make a sailor blush.
"They can go fuck themselves with these rules," he mutters, and I hear the sound of cabinet doors opening and closing with barely controlled violence.
The creak of the oven opening follows, along with the domestic sounds of breakfast preparation that seem surreal after the emotional intensity of that phone call. I lie still, processing everything I've heard while trying to make sense of the implications.
Someone— presumably me —was in a serious racing accident that nearly killed me.
Lachlan was there, saved my life, and we apparently had a relationship significant enough that he's willing to walk away from his career rather than form even a temporary bond with another Omega.
My racing history has been systematically erased from the internet, which suggests a level of power and influence that makes my paranoid thoughts about my parents seem less paranoid and more realistic.
And now Formula One requires Omega participation, but Lachlan would rather give up everything than race with anyone who isn't me.
The weight of that devotion sits heavy on my chest, making it hard to breathe normally.
How do you process that kind of loyalty from someone you can't fully remember? How do you reconcile the intensity of his feelings with the blank spaces in your own memory?
I think about Rory, currently hiding her identity in the paddock, and Wren with her protective fury and crude humor.
Between the three of us, surely we could figure out something.
The thought of Lachlan walking away from racing because of these arbitrary rules makes something fierce and protective rise up in my chest.
Formula One is more than just a sport to these men—I can see it in the way Lucius talks about racing, the reverence in his voice when he describes the perfect lap.
It's in the way Lachlan moves, every gesture controlled and precise like he's constantly calculating angles and apex speeds.
It's their religion, their passion, their reason for being.
And if Lachlan is anything like his brother—which seems likely despite their apparent personality differences—then walking away from Formula One would be like cutting out a piece of his soul.
I make a mental decision to talk to Rory and Wren about this situation before the deadline.
There has to be a solution that doesn't involve Lachlan giving up everything he's worked for. Even if I can't remember our past, even if I'm not ready to face whatever history we share, I can't let him throw away his future because of me.
The smell of cooking breakfast fills the air—eggs and something else that makes my stomach rumble despite the emotional turmoil.
I hear Lachlan moving around the kitchen with the efficiency of someone who's comfortable in the space, the domestic sounds at odds with the image of the four-time world champion I've seen on television.
Through my lashes, I watch him work, noting the tension still evident in his shoulders, the way his movements are just a little too controlled .
He's hurting, and it's because of me. Because of us. Because of whatever we had and lost and can't seem to let go of.
My phone, which I realize is on the coffe table buzzes with an incoming message.
I ignore it, not ready to face the outside world yet.
Not ready to pretend everything is normal when I've just discovered that nothing about my life is what it seems.
Instead, I lie still and think about online racing, about the hours spent competing against WolfPack_Alpha, about the way he always pushed me to be better, faster, more precise.
Was he training me? Hoping I'd remember? Or just unable to fully let go, settling for whatever connection he could maintain through the anonymity of gaming?
The thought makes my chest tight with an emotion I can't name.
How lonely must it have been for him, racing against me virtually while knowing who I really was, what we'd shared, what we'd lost?
And how desperate must he be to maintain that connection that he'd risk it all by revealing himself to me now?
I think about my parents' insistence on Pilates and finding an appropriate Alpha, about the pills they've been making me take to suppress my Omega characteristics. Are they trying to protect me or control me? Keep me safe or keep me from remembering?
The questions spiral through my mind, each one leading to a dozen more. But one thing becomes crystal clear as I lie in Lachlan's couch, surrounded by his scent and the evidence of a life I can't remember:
I need to race again.
Not just in simulators or online games, but really race. Feel the weight of a real car responding to my commands, the g-forces pushing me back into the seat, the adrenaline of wheel-to-wheel competition.
Because maybe getting back behind the wheel will unlock the memories that everyone seems so determined to keep from me.
And if it doesn't?
If the memories stay locked away behind whatever walls my brain has built for protection?
Then at least I'll know if the passion I feel watching races, the hunger that builds when I'm competing online, the way my heart races at the thought of speed—at least I'll know if that's real or just the echo of someone I used to be.
The irony isn't lost on me.
Formula One needs Omegas, and here I am—an Omega with apparent racing history, currently lying on the couch of the sport's most successful active driver, listening to him choose retirement over betraying whatever bond we once shared.
If this isn't fate giving me a cosmic kick in the ass, I don't know what is.
Lachlan's still moving around the kitchen, unaware that I'm awake and have heard everything. I should probably let him know I'm conscious, join him for breakfast, have the awkward morning-after conversation that our activities last night warrant.
But not yet.
For now, I need to process what I've learned, to figure out how I feel about these revelations, to decide what I'm going to do with this information.
Because one thing is becoming increasingly clear: everyone in my life has been making decisions about what's best for me without my input.
My parents, my friends, the men who apparently loved me—they've all decided I'm too fragile to handle the truth about my own life.
Maybe they're right.
Learning everything at once would break something inside me that's still healing.
But it's time I got a say in my own story.
The thought is terrifying and exhilarating in equal measure, like standing at the starting line waiting for the lights to go out, knowing that in seconds everything will be speed and instinct and the razor's edge between victory and disaster.
I think about that ticket still hidden in my apartment, the mysterious invitation to prove myself.
About the way my body remembers things my mind can't access— how to take the perfect racing line, how to kiss Lachlan like I'm drowning and he's air, how to be more than the carefully controlled Omega everyone seems to want me to be.
The morning sun is climbing higher, painting patterns across the sheets through the massive windows.
Somewhere in the city below, people are starting their normal days with their normal problems and their normal lives.
But up here in this house that feels like home despite being strange, lying on the couch of a man who loves a version of me I can't remember being, nothing feels normal anymore.
And maybe that's exactly what I need.
Surely normal was never meant to be my story anyway.
The thought brings a small smile to my lips as I finally stretch and prepare to "wake up." Time to face whatever this day brings, armed with more knowledge than anyone thinks I have.
Time to stop being a passenger in my own life and start taking control of the wheel.
After all, if there's one thing I'm starting to remember about myself, it's that I've always been better at driving than riding along.
And Formula One is about to need drivers more than ever.
Including me.