Page 67 of Knot So Fast (Speedverse #1)

CHICANE

~ C ASPIAN~

Monaco sleeps differently than other cities—even in the pre-dawn darkness, there's a shimmer to it, like the money never quite stops glowing. But I'm not interested in that world today. Today, I'm stealing her away from it.

I watch her emerge from the building's entrance, and Christ, even at this ungodly hour, she moves like she owns the morning itself.

She's dressed in that effortless way that probably took thirty minutes to perfect—high-waisted jeans that make her legs look endless, a cream silk blouse tucked in just so, and leather ankle boots that somehow work for both city streets and wherever I'm taking her.

Her hair catches the streetlight, those highlights she got last week making the whole thing look like spun gold even in the darkness.

"You know," I say as she slides into the passenger seat, bringing the scent of that perfume with her—something French and expensive that always makes me think of jasmine and bad decisions, "most people would question being picked up before sunrise by someone who won't tell them where they're going. "

She buckles her seatbelt with a smile that suggests she knows exactly how much trouble she's courting. "Most people aren't me."

"No," I agree, pulling away from the curb and heading inland, away from the coast. "They're not."

I'm wearing what passes for casual in my world—jeans that cost more than most people's rent and a dress shirt that looks effortless but was actually chosen with surgical precision.

The kind of outfit that photographs well from a distance, just in case some photographer with a telephoto lens decides to make today interesting.

But as we leave Monaco behind, trading coastal glamour for winding mountain roads, I feel myself relaxing incrementally. Out here, we might actually be nobody.

"Are you going to give me any hints?" she asks, fiddling with the radio until she finds something that isn't French talk radio at five in the morning.

"No."

"Not even a small one?"

"Especially not a small one."

She settles back in her seat, apparently content with the mystery, and I steal glances at her as I drive.

The way the passing streetlights paint her face in intervals of gold and shadow.

The way she drums her fingers against her thigh in time with whatever song she's found.

The way she trusts me enough to let me drive her into the unknown without questioning it.

The roads get narrower as we climb, leaving behind the manicured perfection of the Riviera for something older, more honest. Olive groves stretch out on either side, their ancient trees twisted into shapes that speak of centuries of wind and weather.

The smell of woodsmoke drifts through the car's ventilation system—some farmer already up, starting their day the way their grandfather probably did.

"It's beautiful out here," she murmurs, and I catch the surprise in her voice. She's gotten used to my world of carbon fiber and corporate sponsorships. She doesn't know about this part yet.

"My father used to bring me out here," I find myself saying, the words coming easier in the darkness. "When I was young. Before—" I stop, but she doesn't push. Just reaches over and rests her hand on my thigh, a silent acknowledgment that some sentences don't need finishing.

The sun is just starting to hint at the horizon when I turn off the main road onto something that barely qualifies as a path. Weeds crack through ancient asphalt, and the trees have grown wild, creating a tunnel of green overhead. She sits up straighter, curiosity evident in every line of her body.

"Caspian, where?—"

And then we emerge into a clearing, and she goes silent.

The circuit spreads out before us like a secret—three and a half kilometers of cracked tarmac that haven't seen an official race in thirty-five years.

The barriers are still there, faded and rust-spotted, with the ghosts of old sponsorship logos barely visible.

Marlboro. John Player Special. Brands from an era when racing was more about courage than computers.

"What is this place?" she breathes, and I can hear the awe in her voice.

"Circuit de l'Espérance," I tell her, parking near what used to be the pit lane. "Built in 1979, abandoned by 1989. Now it's just... here."

I get out, and she follows, her boots crunching on gravel that probably hasn't been disturbed in months. The morning air is cool, carrying the scent of wild thyme and motor oil—somehow, after all these years, the place still smells like racing.

"This is where I learned," I tell her, walking toward the pit wall.

"Really learned, I mean. Not the corporate-approved biography version where I was discovered at a karting track at age seven.

This." I gesture at the abandoned buildings, the cracked track surface, the weeds growing through everything.

"This is where I figured out who I was."

She's watching me with those distinctive eyes of hers—that unusual blue-green that shifts depending on the light, made even more striking by the early morning sun. "Tell me," she says simply.

So I do.

I tell her about stealing my father's tools when I was twelve, biking out here in the pre-dawn darkness just like today.

About finding an old Renault that someone had abandoned, spending six months getting it to run with parts scavenged from junkyards and knowledge gleaned from library books because YouTube didn't exist yet and I couldn't ask anyone for help without revealing what I was doing.

"My father was an engineer," I explain, running my hand along the pit wall where layers of paint have peeled away to reveal decades of history.

"Not for racing—industrial stuff. Bridges, mostly.

But he understood how things worked. How to see a problem and take it apart in your mind until you found the elegant solution. "

I can still remember his hands, scarred from years of work, showing me how to hold a wrench properly. The weight of his attention when he'd look at something I'd built, really look at it, and nod his approval.

"He died when I was fourteen," I continue, the words coming easier than they usually do. Maybe it's the place, or maybe it's her. "Heart attack at his desk, working on calculations for a suspension bridge in Normandy. They found him the next morning, pencil still in his hand."

She doesn't say she's sorry, doesn't offer platitudes. Just moves closer, her presence a comfort without being a intrusion.

"After that, I came here every day. Skipped school, lied to my mother, did whatever I had to do to be here with the machines.

It was like..." I pause, trying to find the words.

"It was like if I could fix enough broken things, maybe I could fix the thing that mattered.

Maybe I could save something, even if I couldn't save him. "

"You talk about racing like it's medicine," she observes, and there's no judgment in it, just understanding.

"Maybe it is," I admit. "Every race, every perfect lap, every championship—it's all just elaborate life support. We're all out there trying to outrun something. The only difference is, I do it at three hundred kilometers per hour."

She laughs at that, soft and genuine, and the sound echoes off the abandoned grandstands. "So this is where Caspian Thorne learned to be Caspian Thorne."

"This is where a angry kid learned to channel his rage into something useful," I correct. "Come on, I'll show you."

I lead her to a section of the pit wall where the concrete is scarred with decades of graffiti. Most of it is illegible now, worn away by weather and time, but I know exactly where to look. There, carved deep enough to survive the years: C.T. 2007.

She kneels in the dust without hesitation, designer jeans be damned, and traces the letters with her fingertips. "You were seventeen."

"And absolutely convinced I was going to die before I turned twenty," I confirm. "Turns out I was wrong about that, but right about everything else. Three years later, I was in F1."

"From here to there," she murmurs, still touching my initials like they're something precious. "That's quite a journey."

"Every journey starts somewhere," I say, then have to look away from the expression on her face because it's too much, too early in the morning, too everything.

That's when she spots it—the shape under the tarp in what used to be a garage bay. "What's that?"

I can't help but grin. "Want to find out?"

The Lotus Exige underneath is older than our combined ages, more rust than paint, but the engine is solid. I spent three days last month making sure of that, though I'm not about to admit I planned this that far in advance.

"It runs?" she asks, skeptical.

"It runs," I confirm, finding the jerry can of petrol I stashed behind a pillar. "Not well, not for long, but it runs. Want to take a lap?"

The look she gives me is pure hunger. "You're serious."

"Ten minutes of fuel," I tell her. "The track's rough, second gear corners are third gear now because of the surface, and watch the chicane at the back—there's a pothole that'll swallow your soul if you hit it wrong."

She's already climbing into the driver's seat, hands running over the worn steering wheel with something approaching reverence. "Any other advice?"

"Yeah," I say, leaning down to her window. "Drive it like you stole it."

The engine coughs to life with a sound that's half protest, half promise.

She gives it a moment to warm up, listening to the engine note with the kind of attention that makes me realize she understands more about cars than she's let on.

Then she drops the clutch and disappears in a cloud of tire smoke and attitude.