Chapter 4

MARCO

I shake off the lingering unease from Luca's disturbing "prescription" and head back to my apartment, desperate for the comfort of solitude. The driver's lounge and garage suddenly felt overwhelmingly claustrophobic, like the walls were closing in intent on entombing me in my friend's insidious delusions.

Delusions...or some darker introspection I've refused to acknowledge until now?

Growling under my breath, I smack the heels of my palms against my eye sockets, as if I can physically dislodge the disconcerting thoughts gnawing at the edges of my consciousness. It's a fruitless exercise - if anything, it only seems to grant them more purchase.

By the time I'm showered and changed back at my penthouse suite, the frustration has only compounded tenfold. I consider working out, or studying more race telemetry and data. Anything to occupy my mind and dispel this miasma of...of whatever fresh hell is unfolding around me.

Instead, I find myself collapsing onto the buttery leather sofa and keying up the live hypermedia feeds. Maybe some mindless consumption of pop culture inanity is what I need to reset my perspective.

I couldn't have been more horribly mistaken.

No sooner do the entertainment channels blossom into lurid light than my own face fills the panoramic display - ruggedly chiseled features twisted into a mask of furious concentration. My racing leathers are matte with fresh perspiration and caught in the blur of motion as I wrestle my crimson blur of a machine through a serpentine series of corners.

Of course, there beside me in perfect counterpoint looms the unmistakable silhouette of my on-track "counterpart." Alexandra Dupont's athletic figure etches itself with almost balletic grace while corralling her own shrieking metallic beast through the same diabolical high-speed gauntlet.

I can't tear my eyes away from the holovid as it cycles through the same hypnotic sequence - our twin vapor trails merging and parting in a heated slipstream tango, fractions of inches separating disaster from triumph. The most minute corrections and split-second calculations playing out with perfect choreography.

Until, inevitably, her improbable arc carries the advantage for one final aching exchange of corners before the checkered flash. Then the sequence resets to the beginning, cruel ouroboros of my ceaseless humiliation.

"That's right, viewers - this unbelievable on-track duel between Marco Bianchi and Alexandra Dupont may have been the headliner at yesterday's Gran Premio...but it was merely the latest chapter in what's shaping up to be the fiercest rivalry in Formula One history!"

I nearly choke on my tongue as the dulcet tones of Claire Bennett fill the room - the motorsports media's favorite leading lady bombshell and all-around royal pain in my augusta. Her impossibly flawless visage fills the screen alongside shots of our tangled racers, an almost predatory grin tugging at those full ruby lips.

"For those new to the Formula groove, rookie phenom Dupont's shocking breakthrough with the Velocity team has not only rewritten record books, but driven a deep rift within racing's most celebrated and prestigious outfit. You see, the team's seasoned star - and favorite son of the paddock - Marco Bianchi has found himself increasingly outmuscled and humbled by the ferocious talents of his dazzling teammate. And based on the raging emotions boiling to the surface out there, these two clearly aren't thrilled about sharing rocket ship duties."

Cut to slow-motion replays of one of our various nose-to-nose confrontations in the paddock - bodies bristling with feral aggression, eyes locked in wordless fury despite the blurred mayhem surrounding us. My throat tightens as footage of our most incendiary moments plays out for the entire planet to dissect and savor. I'm practically squirming on the sofa cushions, equally transfixed and mortified.

"Some are already dubbing Bianchi and Dupont 'The Untameables,'" Bennett's saccharine purr continues over the montage. "While others have gotten a bit more...visceral with their rivalry epithets. One thing's for certain, though - when these two alphas share the same stretch of tarmac, lightning is guaranteed to strike!"

The screen flares with a rapid-fire sequence of still images - snapshots capturing our most intense moments of physical and psychological confrontation. Every salacious angle and compromising visual dissected for maximum discomforting impact. I squirm anew as I take in the entire incendiary tapestry of our escalating blood feud on full salacious display.

Which is precisely when the video pivots to its most insidious masterstroke - a perfect frame-by-frame breakdown of our cars passing within a whisper under the pedestrian bridge clearly highlights the unmistakable points of contact. Points of contact that could only have occurred from flagrant, perhaps even deliberate, sabotage and aggression on one of our parts.

"Looks like a bit more than just petty egos and trophy-hoarding going on there, sports fans," Bennett's dripping tones chastise amid the damning evidence. "Multiple points of contact captured from yesterday's closing lap? That's either some of the most heroic racecraft ever recorded...or one very dangerous game of high-speed chicken these two have cooking behind the scenes. Mark my words, it's only a matter of time before someone finally gets served a cold dish of instant karma out there if this feud keeps escalating at its current nuclear trajectory. And I for one can't wait to see how this one finally boils over!"

The final few words are practically purred with wicked delight, leaving me feeling physically assaulted. My fists are clenched so hard I'd swear the knuckles are fusing into bone as I fight the primal urge to leap off the sofa and pummel every reflective surface in my penthouse with haymakers.

How dare she? How dare that...that simpering harpy not only broadcast our most private fiery battles for the entire world's consumption, but then have the audacity to depict us as reckless thrill-seekers? To paint me as such a fool!

I'm so incandescently furious it takes several scorching breaths before I recognize that cold whisper trickling down my spine - the one reminding me that this type of unmitigated defamation and scrutiny is par for the course in my world. That it's not remotely the source fueling my unspeakable umbrage.

No, as always, the true wellspring boils from the much darker, more complicated place my preening on-track succubus has carved out inside me against my will. It's visceral knowledge that from this day forward, my every waking thought, deed, breath will be relentlessly entangled and analyzed through the lurid lens of my imagined "rivalry" with Alexandra Dupont.

Impotent fury at the thought nearly drives me to tear my own hair out by the roots. How dare the universe foist such a blasphemous mockery of my life's pure purpose upon me? To see not only my superhuman talents forever denigrated...but my very spirit endlessly perverted by speculation concerning whatever delirious dance this upstart pretender and I are enacting upon the stage?

I'm panting like a winded cur by the climax of this maddening self-interrogation. Every pulse pounding with the seething refusal to let this ridiculously inflated farce go any further. To allow my transcendent destiny among legends to remain forever toxified by a poisonous infatuation for my sworn enemy.

Which is when blinding clarity finally descends like a lead weight to my skull, nearly staggering me in its abrupt finality. This has gone altogether too far into the abyss. If there is any hope of extracting my pristine soul from the maw of this madness, I must needs confront the matter head on.

The source of this disease must be cut fully from my boundless potential, by any means required. Even if that prescribed remedy defies every principal of decency and honor I've sworn my noble sport upon. Luca was correct - much as it galls me to admit.

If the path to salvation lies in surrendering to my basest obsession..so be it. Alexandra Dupont's grand "rivalry" has been permitted to run rampant for far too long.

Now it's my turn to take the battle to her.