The one good thing the team had to say to them when they entered the paddock after limping across the finish line was that it was impressive that they’d finished the race at all.
At least I didn’t come in last, thought Nico.
That honor was reserved for one annoying, arrogant, asshole, prick.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
NICO AND ROCCO
Nico stood in the paddock of the Barcelona racetrack, waiting for Casey and feeling sick to her stomach. She’d kept telling herself things would get better after Vegas. Let that first race be the first, last, and only disaster. But that hadn’t happened. They’d kept up their losing streak putting in terrible results race after race, including this last one in Barcelona. They hadn’t had one good race—not even a decent one.
This is it. They’re going to let me go. I’m out.
Casey had told her he needed to speak to herright now. But there he stood, talking with a couple engineers while she waited. She was too far away to hear what they were saying. But she could tell it was bad. None of them looked happy. Hardly surprising, given they’d put in another lousy performance here in Barcelona.
How much longer could she expect the owner to wait for her and the annoying, arrogant, asshole, prick to get their acts together? Rocco hadn’t made it to the podium once. He hadn’t finished any race in the top seven, and she’d failed to earn the team any points at all. It was a disaster.
Nico looked around. Rocco was nowhere in sight.
That prick is just as responsible as I am.
She was sweating bullets and wanted out of this racing suit. She wished she could go to her locker on the second floor and get a change of clothes. But Casey had told her to waithere, where she was standing right now. He wasn’t more than ten feet away, and she didn’t wantto take the chance that he might turn around and find her gone. She couldn’t risk making him any angrier than he already was.
Her cell phone was in that locker too. But she dreaded seeing the missed calls.
Shortly after that first race in Vegas, she’d begun getting random calls. They were from different phone numbers, and whoever was calling never left a voicemail. Charles had tried to convince her they were just spam calls until she told him they were all from Italy.
They had to be from Mickey. But how had he gotten her number?
She kept telling herself to answer when her phone rang. Just get it over with already. But she always copped out.
She glanced over at Casey. If only she could unzip the top part of the racing suit and let it hang from her hips. But the sweat stains on the long-sleeved flame-retardant shirt underneath kept her from doing so.
Yes, they were that bad.
Maybe if I take off the shirt, that’ll cool me off some.
There was a restroom only a couple feet behind her.
She watched as Casey moved farther away to look at something on one of the computers. This was her chance. She quickly slipped into the restroom, removed the flame-retardant shirt, and zipped the suit back up. She hid the shirt behind the wastebasket. She’d come back for it later. She dashed back out and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw Casey still at that computer.
She glanced at her watch. She was supposed to meet Charles and Mateo, a guy he’d met here in Barcelona, at a bar in about an hour. Nico suspected that by the end of the evening, Mateo might qualify as Charles’s newest boyfriend.
Charles had already begun what could qualify as a soft launch of such a relationship by posting photos of the man’s forearms, biceps, sculpted back, and thighs on social media. All body parts placed strategically near enough to Charles’s own to draw the inevitable conclusion.
Barcelona was the only race Charles had attended since that first one in Vegas. She’d been hoping they might do better. He planned to go to the race in Monaco, but now she was worried there might not be a race in Monaco—not for her.
Casey turned around and waved for Nico to follow him. They climbed the stairs to the third floor. Was there no chance of a reprieve? Some clemency? It felt as if she were walking the steps to the gallows.
The third floor was where the hospitality suites were located. During the race, they were frequented by sponsors and wealthy fans who could afford paddock passes. But now all those sponsors and fans had gone, leaving the third floor deserted.
Everyone’s focus was on the next race.
Nico followed Casey into a room and was about to shut the door behind her.
“Don’t bother,” he said, his voice firm.
He was right, of course. There was no one around to hear him when he lowered the boom.
