Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Leclerc’s going to overshoot Rascasse again.”

Lando says it with the confidence and dread of some traumatized Ferrari strategist who’s definitely seen more than he should. He glances around the table conspiratorially like he has some secret documents to photocopy. 

Oscar doesn’t even look up from the menu. “He literally just won last year.”

“Yeah, and that was lightning in a bottle,” Lando shrugs. “And even he couldn’t bottle that twice.”

It’s Monaco, the Thursday night before Grand Prix weekend: the moment where every who’s who of the rich world begins descending to this absurdly small nation and the only currency that matters is the reservations and access.

Le Dôme isn’t just a restaurant—it’s the kind of place that takes six months, a favor, and a well-placed phone call to get a table during Grand Prix week. The kind of place where billionaires hover on waitlists and discreet bribes go politely unanswered.

The restaurant hums with chatter about the odds, the strategies, and who’s most likely to bin it on the first turn.

Max leans back in his chair, the bay glittering behind him like a low-res screensaver. “He wouldn’t—if someone reminded him to lift. He’s been braking two meters too late all season.”

Oscar closes the menu with a soft, definitive snap. “He’ll learn,” he says sagely, “eventually.”

Lando snorts. “They all drive like they’ve got gunpowder in their helmets.”

Oscar, at last, looks up. “Except Sainz,” he says, calm. “He drives like he’s got no idea which direction the track goes.”

Lando barks a high pitched laugh. Max doesn’t even flinch.

“Zero situational awareness,” Oscar adds. “Good car control. Brain made of fog.”

Then, quieter: “Beautiful eyes though.”

Lando stares at him. Max pauses mid-pour.

“You want to talk about that?” Lando asks carefully.

Oscar doesn’t blink. “No.”

“Please don’t,” Max mutters.

The three of them sit in brief, smug silence, dissecting the skills of multimillionaire athletes like bored teenagers. It’s rich considering none of them have touched an F1 steering wheel their entire life. Not for driving, at least.

A soft interruption, then—the waitstaff reappears, almost on cue. Plates are cleared. Glasses topped off. Orders confirmed with quiet efficiency and the practiced discretion of a place that’s used to seating heads of state and people who fund coups.

Oscar doesn’t look up from his drink. Lando gives the waiter a sunny thank-you and immediately forgets what he just ordered.

“Williams is doing alright though,” Lando says after a beat. “Relatively.”

Oscar arches a brow. “Relative to what, exactly?”

“Relative to Ferrari,” Lando replies. “Same pace, way less drama.”

Max huffs. “They’re both running on thoughts and prayers instead of upgrades.”

Oscar shrugs. “At least Williams isn’t laundering cash through junior teams.”

Lando grins. “Ouch, too soon?”

“Not for the Oakes brothers,” Oscar replies.

Max snorts, bone-dry. “That’s some amateur shit. If you’re getting caught wiring cash near the factory, you deserve to lose your passport.”

“And your position as team principal,” Oscar adds.

“Especially that.”

A beat of silence. Then Lando, tilting his head with genuine curiosity, says, “Alright. So what would you have done?”

Oscar and Max both glance up like they’ve just been asked if water’s wet.

Oscar doesn’t even blink. “Offshore NFT shell,” he says, “Gibraltar license, routed through a telecom patent holding company. No physical proximity, no audit trail.”

Max swirls his glass. “I’d’ve moved the whole thing through a retired sponsor. Legacy accounts. Buried it in debt consolidation from the Renault days.”

Lando whistles, low and admiring. “Okay. Jesus.”

Oscar shrugs. “What?”

“Just forgot for a second,” Lando says, “that we’re the real…” Lando clears his throat and looks around their table, “professional.”

They let a collective exhale as the sommelier approaches, topping off their glasses with something expensive and older than at least one of them. Moments later, their food arrives—on time, on brand.

Max gets a rare steak, seared and simple, practically still breathing. Control on a plate. Lando’s ordered three appetizers and no main, a chaotic pile of bread, fried things and truffle aioli, like a raccoon let loose in a Michelin kitchen. Oscar’s meal is a hyper-specific pasta dish—handmade agnolotti stuffed with lemon ricotta, no butter sauce, garnished with exactly three microgreens and a dusting of pecorino on the side . The chef had to remake it twice. He stabs at it with the scrutiny of someone who absolutely sent the first version back and still isn’t convinced they got it right.

Max doesn’t say a word.

He sets down his knife with the kind of deliberate gravity that says I’m about to say something, and you’re going to fucking listen.

“I had a daughter.”

Lando doesn’t look up from buttering a piece of focaccia. “We know.”

Oscar, scrolling something that definitely shouldn’t be visible in public, nods absently. “We follow Kelly on Instagram.”

“Right,” Max says, voice tight. “So you saw.”

Lando shrugs. “Hard to miss. You were holding her like she was going to explode.”

“She was newborn,” Max snaps.

Oscar glances up. “Your watch was off. By nine minutes.”

“I was tired.”

There’s a pause.

Max stares at them. “I was expecting some congratulations or some shit. Come on.”

Lando tilts his head. “Do you want, like, applause? A balloon? A firm handshake and a tax-deductible gift basket?”

“I want,” Max growls, “basic human decency.”

Oscar raises a brow. “From us?”

Lando gestures between them. “The guy who faked his own death for a job in Barcelona, and the guy who staged a bank collapse just to short his own mark’s startup—that’s your audience?”

Max sighs like he’s aged ten years in ten seconds. “You people are feral.”

Oscar returns to his phone. “The baby’s cute though.”

Lando perks up. “Really? Can I see? I scrolled past the story.”

Oscar tilts his screen. “There.”

Lando leans in. “Oh my god. She is cute.”

“She looks like she’s judging me already,” Oscar notes.

“She looks like she’s about to report you to Interpol,” Lando grins. “I love her.”

Max stabs a cherry tomato with surgical precision. “She will never meet either of you.”

“Oh come on,” Lando protests. “I’d be a great uncle.”

“You’d sell her baby teeth on the dark web.”

“For a very competitive price,” Lando says, wounded. “There’s a difference.”

Max exhales, slow and frustrated, dragging a hand down his face like he can physically scrape off the disappointment.

He’s trying.

He really is.

This weekend, which starts with this dinner—a stupid overpriced tradition with its €40 bread basket and hand-pressed mineral water—matters to him. It’s the one thing he can keep steady. One hour a year where they get to sit still. No encrypted messages. No burner phones. No headlines about "alleged fraudsters linked to anonymous shell firms with ties to motorsport."

Just them. Around a table. Like normal people.

And yet—

Lando’s halfway through googling baby Gucci. Oscar’s left hand is glued to his phone, never stopping typing. 

He exhales again. Sharper. Pushes back his chair—not dramatically, just enough to plant himself.

“Alright,” he says, calm but deliberate. “Since no one else is going to do it—”

Oscar doesn’t look up. Lando does, sheepish and blinking like he’s been pulled out of a dream.

“As last year’s winner,” Max begins, tone smooth and maddeningly calm, “and the year before that. And the year before that, for the record—”

Oscar rolls his eyes. “Jesus.”

“We get it,” Lando mutters, slouched in his chair like a bored heir.

Max doesn’t blink. “Good. Then you know the rules.”

He taps his tablet, the glow of the screen painting a soft light across his face as he opens a new spreadsheet. Monaco 2025 appears at the top in navy bold.

“Rule one,” Max says. “List your marks. No cheating, no padding. If they’re not listed here, they don’t count.”

He scrolls deliberately.

“Rule two: taking someone else’s mark is fair game. But no simultaneous conning. If you see the other's working on a mark, you should back off. Clean overtakes only—if it’s messy, we dock you.”

Then he glances at Lando, just long enough to make a point.

“Rule three: don’t get caught.”

Lando raises his glass in a lazy salute. “No promises.”

Max taps the tablet once, for emphasis. “Winner’s the one with the highest confirmed haul. Value, not volume. Doesn’t matter if you’ve got ten or a hundred names—if your returns are weak, you lose.”

Max, as always, is the first to input.

He scrolls through his contacts without fanfare, selects six names from whatever hell-drenched shortlist he’s been sitting on for months, and adds them to The Spreadsheet like he’s placing stones on a chessboard.

Six entries. That’s it.

Lando squints at the screen. “That’s it? Just six?”

He tries to sound casual. He’s also trying not to grin, like maybe Max is finally slipping.

“Feeling minimalist this year?”

Oscar doesn’t say anything right away. He’s still staring at the list.

He’s not grinning.

“How the fuck are you going to pull that off in three days?” he says quietly.

Lando leans in for a better look—and the grin slides right off his face.

One of the names is the acting director of a sovereign wealth fund.

One has two embassies between him and an indictment.

One is, reportedly, dead.

“That’s not a mark list,” Lando mutters. “That’s a UN seating chart.”

Max shrugs. “If you’re going to play, play big.”

A beat.

“And long.”

He doesn’t elaborate. He never does.

Oscar mutters under his breath, “That’s a six-month play, minimum.”

“None of us ever starts late in the game, do we?” Max replies, already flipping to the next tab.

And there, nestled among the global finance monsters and politically insulated ghosts, sits one more name:

Helmut Marko.

Lando blinks. “Why the hell is he on your list?”

Max doesn’t even glance up. “Feeling like committing a bit of elder abuse.”

Oscar stares. “Seriously?”

Max finally smirks. “Also, just to make it fun.”

Lando exhales hard through his nose, somewhere between impressed and pissed off.

“You’re unbearable.”

Max smirks but doesn’t answer. The tablet is already sliding across the table.

“Your turn.”

Lando’s list is longer.

Twelve names. Some familiar. Some suspiciously vague. A couple that feel like padding.

He inputs them with a casual flick, like he’s ordering tapas instead of logging high-stakes cons.

Max raises an eyebrow. “Twelve?”

Lando shrugs. 

Oscar leans over to read. His eyes narrow by the third name.

One is an heiress Lando once drunkenly flirted with at a yacht party in St. Barts. One is a Saudi motorsport attaché who doesn’t know what Lando actually does. One is Carlos Sainz—which immediately draws a pause.

Max doesn’t say anything.

Oscar raises an eyebrow.

Lando grins. “It’s not personal.”

Max replies, “It’s always personal with you.”

Lando taps the screen like that settles it. “Anyway. If I land all twelve, I win.”

Oscar snorts. “If you land all twelve, I believe it’s called an outbreak.”

Max doesn’t argue. He just gestures for the tablet back.

“Oscar,” he says. “Let’s see the bloodbath.”

Oscar takes the tablet next, but not before glancing at Lando’s list with a flicker of something between judgment and curiosity.

“Hmm… Playing it safe now?”

Lando shrugs, not quite meeting his eye. “It’s not safe. It’s strategic.”

Oscar raises a brow. “You logged seventeen last year.”

“And got burned on five,” Lando replies, sharper than he means to. “I’m keeping it clean.”

Max doesn’t comment. But the corner of his mouth lifts—just barely.

Oscar logs his first name. “Sounds like fear to me.”

Lando scoffs. “Sounds like I’ve learned.”

Oscar takes the tablet in both hands, calm as ever, and begins entering names like he’s checking inventory.

No hesitation. No second guessing. Just smooth, mechanical precision.

By the time he hits ten, Lando leans forward.

By fifteen, Max sits up straighter.

At twenty-one, there’s a beat of silence.

Lando stares at the screen. “You do realize we only have three days, right?”

Oscar hands the tablet back like he’s just finished updating a shopping list. “I’m aware.”

“That’s seven marks a day,” Lando says, incredulous. “That’s not a schedule, that’s a suicide note.”

Max scrolls the list, eyes narrowing. A few names are familiar. One of them is Zak Brown.

He doesn’t comment on that. Yet.

Instead, he says, “You’re spreading too thin.”

Oscar shrugs. “Or I’m scaling the math.”

Lando gives a low whistle. “Alright, prodigy.”

Oscar glances at him. “You logged twelve.”

“Yeah, because I don’t have a death wish.”

Oscar sips his water, deadpan. “You have Carlos Sainz. That’s worse.”

Max snorts, finally, and sets the tablet down.

"Game’s on, then.”

Oscar leans back as Max closes the tablet, the screen now crowded with names: six deliberate, twelve chaotic, twenty-one surgical. Thirty nine names, each with their own stories and backgrounds, and deep pockets ready to be drained. 

It should be overkill. It should be impossible.

But this is Monaco.

Max started coming here in 2015. He wasn’t here to watch the race. He was here to watch the people—what they wore, what they spent, what they thought they were hiding. By the end of that weekend, he realized Monaco wasn’t just a hunting ground, not just a goldmine. It was a game board. And he’s been playing it ever since.

Lando joined him in 2019. Oscar in 2023. And Max has won every single year.

They only meet once a year, and it’s always here—Grand Prix weekend, when the yachts triple-park in the harbor and the helicopters start to outnumber the seagulls. When every third person in the street is wearing a lanyard that costs more than a small country’s GDP. When money doesn’t just move—it bleeds.

In Lando’s words, “It’s the con championship.”

There’s no better playground. The money is louder. The egos are looser. Monaco is so oversaturated with wealth and attention that no one notices three familiar faces exchanging glances in a VIP suite. They’re not hiding. They don’t have to.

Interpol wants all three. There are over a dozen warrants scattered across jurisdictions. But during race week, everyone’s distracted—and Monaco doesn’t like to extradite anyone who tips well.

All three have been doing this their whole lives. It started as survival. It still is, most of the time. But Monaco isn’t about that. Monaco is about pride. It’s about making a point.

Normally, they don’t overlap. Max cons the conservative elite—pension fund managers, old-money bureaucrats, people with legacy assets and too much trust in linen suits. Lando flits between yacht parties and rooftop lounges, charming the newly-rich and the recently-legal into bad decisions. And Oscar? Oscar bleeds the tech sector dry—VC-backed crypto heirs and incel founders who want to be told they're brilliant.

Different sectors. Different prey.

But Monaco pulls everyone into the same room. Same parties. Same boxes. Same race-week schedule. And when the walls collapse—so do the boundaries.

That’s why they meet. Why they run the Spreadsheet. Why they play.

Max pushes his chair back a little—not far, just enough to straighten his spine, just enough to shift the air in the room. When he speaks, it’s not loud, but it lands with weight. Like gravity’s been slightly altered.

“I think this might be my last year.”

Oscar’s head lifts slowly, like someone realizing the ground beneath them just moved.

“You’re kidding,” he says.

Lando turns toward Max. “What, like—retirement?”

Max shrugs. “Ten years is a long time. I’ve made enough. I could disappear. Invest in something boring. Live somewhere people don’t pronounce my name.”

Oscar frowns. The idea doesn’t sit well.

“That’s not fair,” he says. “This is only my third Monaco. You can’t just check out when I’m just getting started. I’m about to beat you this weekend.”

Max scoffs. “No, you’re fucking not.”

Oscar raises an eyebrow, sharp and unbothered.

“You’re young. And reckless. And you’ve barely been doing this long enough to understand what’s at stake.”

Oscar leans forward, voice clipped. “You’re just threatened. The baby’s making you soft.”

Max’s eyes flash. “Watch it.”

“You’re just a coward,” Oscar mutters. “You're walking away before I prove it.”

Lando, still swirling what’s left of his wine, lifts a hand halfheartedly. “Whoa, okay—maybe slow down, Oscar.”

But it’s too late. Max straightens in his chair, glass forgotten.

“I’ve been running circles around both of you since before you figured out what a wire transfer was,” he says. “Don’t confuse being newer with being better. I’m not soft—I’m just better. ”

Oscar’s jaw tightens. “Then prove it.”

Max says nothing.

Oscar presses, “If you don’t win this weekend, you have to come back next year. No disappearing. No retirement. You play again.”

Max pauses.

Looks at Oscar.

Calculates.

Then, carefully, he says, “Fine."

Oscar smiles, looking satisfied. 

"But I’m adding a new clause,” Max says. 

He reopens the Sheet, swipes to a new tab, and types at the top in clean, navy bold:

Monaco 2025 – Rules by Max

And under it:

SOVEREIGN: MOHAMMED BEN SULAYEM

Max doesn’t look up as he says, "I've been thinking about this, we need to raise the stake, to make it more fun, anyone who can land on Sulayem wins.  Doesn’t matter what the Sheet says.”

Oscar stares. “How is that going to make it more fun?”

Lando snorts. "I mean I get it, like a trump card, right?"

Max finally looks up, smirking. “Also, whoever gets him sets the rules next year.”

Oscar folds his arms. “So if you win, you walk. If you lose, you play again next year. And if one of us wins the Sovereign…”

“Then I don’t have to make the rules anymore,” Max says simply.

Lando grins.

For one suspended moment, they all lean back—wine half-drunk, the bay glittering below, the Monaco circuit coiled and waiting like a trap disguised as tradition.

Lando grins, loose and reckless. “This is going to be so fun.”

Oscar doesn’t look away from the skyline. “It always is. Until someone logs a panic mark.”

Max lifts an eyebrow. “That’s usually you.”

Lando shrugs. “Not this year.”

Oscar turns to him, amused. “Bold of you to assume you’ll make it to Sunday.”

They laugh—quietly, dangerously.

And then, inevitably, their eyes drift out across the city. The yachts. The barricades. The buzz of money and machinery. The smell of asphalt, champagne, and just enough gasoline to make it feel holy.

Race weekend.

“God,” Oscar murmurs, “imagine thinking this is about racing.”

“They still say Monaco is the hardest track,” Max adds.

“Oohh... It’s impossible to overtake," Lando says in mocking tone, "yeah i f your car can’t fit through the tunnel, maybe the problem is the car.”

“They’re all afraid to scratch their paint,” Max mutters—and smirks. “We’d have lapped them in go-karts.”

Oscar leans back, deadpan. “And they think they’re the gladiators this weekend.”

Lando snorts. “We’re running five ops a day and watching F1 for the lols.”

Max raises his glass first. “To Monaco.”

Oscar clinks his. “To the con championship.”

Lando taps both. “To the only scoreboard that actually matters.”

They drink.

Lights out and away they go.

Chapter Text

Franz Hermann hates tardiness but he loves what it reveals.

He arrived at the breakfast lounge at exactly 08:00—on the dot, not a second early or late. Precision is part of the performance. He doesn't pace, doesn't fidget. Just sits there with a leather folio and a glass of water, radiating the kind of quiet judgment that makes even waitstaff feel underdressed.

He’s never met Arnaud Kasongo. But Max— as Franz —spent months making sure Arnaud would want to.

Carefully planted whispers, back-channeled whitepapers, a ghost-penned op-ed in the Frankfurter Allgemeine —all part of the construction. The story of a discreet, German-born macroeconomic advisor based in Zürich, “occasionally” attached to IMF task forces, known for cleaning up messy books without ever appearing on the audit trail.

By the time Arnaud walks in, he already feels guilty. He’s late. He’s under pressure. And he believes Franz Hermann is the solution to a very specific, very quiet problem.

Max doesn’t smile.

Franz doesn’t need to smile.

Max can tell the guy’s surprised—just for a second—when he sees him. He’s younger than Arnaud expected. Too sharp, too still. Not the aging professor he’d pictured, someone graying at the temples with tortoiseshell glasses and World Bank anecdotes.

Arnaud had dressed for a different man. Navy suit, perfectly pressed. A tie that says competent in four languages. The kind of look meant to impress someone who still uses a leather-bound day planner.

But Max sees the fray in the edges. The fatigue behind the politeness. He’s tired, but upright. Buttoned all the way up.

That’s the problem with Western-educated bureaucrats—they’re trained to bleed quietly.

Arnaud speaks with the kind of English accent you can’t fake—crisp, institutional, expensive. Max hears LSE in it. Hears years of seminars and student panels, hears lecture halls filled with human rights lawyers and the sons and daughters of people they’ll never prosecute. It’s always the same blend—conscience and compromise, trained to coexist.

“Mr. Hermann,” Arnaud says as he takes his seat, breathless but trying to cover it, “my apologies for the delay. The shuttle from the harbor—well, you know how it is.”

Max nods once, allowing the apology without accepting it.

“I’m just surprised to meet you in Monaco,” Arnaud adds, unfolding his napkin. “I was expecting—somewhere quieter.”

Max allows a small smile—tight, economical.

“Monaco’s quiet,” he says. “You just have to know where to listen.”

It’s Arnaud who fills the silence with small talk—deference dressed as conversation. He’s honored to finally speak with Franz, fascinated by his work in the Caribbean sovereign debt market, impressed by the restructuring protocol Max designed for a post-COVID economic triage program in Micronesia.

Max doesn’t correct him.

He nods along and shamelessly takes credit for stabilizing three countries he’s never stepped foot in.

Arnaud eats it up. Because the myth of Franz Hermann has been curated precisely for this kind of moment—authority with just enough distance to be believable. Myth is easier to trust than man.

And Max—Franz—isn't here to be liked.

He’s here to be necessary.

They settle into the kind of silence that doesn’t need prompting—two men with too much on their minds and too little on their plates.

Arnaud exhales, loosens his grip on the coffee spoon. “We’ve got donor pressure from three fronts. Currency’s down again, and Brussels is breathing down our neck about ‘transparency metrics.’” He snorts lightly. “Half of them couldn’t point to Kinshasa on a map.”

Max listens, nods—once, just enough. Says nothing.

“It’s the sanitation fund,” Arnaud goes on. “A reshuffle last year—someone buried the buffer under social development. It looks like we cooked the books, and now we’re frozen on three infrastructure tenders.”

Max’s voice is smooth as glass. “I know.”

Arnaud looks up.

Max continues, patient and polite. “€480 million, misallocated under Project Waterlight. Quiet directive, wrong minister, no flags until the auditors circled back three months ago.”

There’s a pause. Then Arnaud says, quietly, “You knew that before I walked in.”

Max finally offers a smile—soft, almost sympathetic. “I did.”

Arnaud looks unsettled. “Why are you here, then? If you already knew?”

Max sets down his cup. “Because I think I can help.”

Arnaud frowns. “And what would that cost me?”

Max doesn’t answer right away. Just tilts his head slightly.

“Not everything’s a transaction, Mr. Kasongo,” he says. “I don’t need your ministry. I don’t want your country’s headlines. But I don’t like watching promising, developing nations like yours drown in slow paperwork.”

He leans forward just enough to lower his voice.

“There’s a structure I’ve used before. A climate reinvestment shell—clean optics, aligned with EU priorities, and flexible enough to camouflage the liquidity buffer.”

Arnaud blinks. “That would require oversight.”

“Only if you report it,” Max says evenly.

Arnaud hesitates. “I’d need approval. From my President.”

Max nods like that’s perfectly reasonable.

“You have until Sunday,” he says, checking his watch. “After that, I’m in Sri Lanka. And then—your options get narrower.”

Arnaud sits back. Processing.

Max sips his coffee, polite and patient and already halfway to the next move.

They part with a handshake—firm, professional, final.

There’s a flicker in Arnaud’s eyes as they break contact. Not relief, exactly, but something close. Like a man who’s been walking blind through a tunnel and has finally seen the faintest suggestion of light. A way out. Or at least a direction to walk toward.

Max almost feels bad for him.

Almost.

Because he knows what this move could trigger. Redirecting hundreds of million under false pretenses isn’t just risky—it’s explosive. The kind of decision that could spiral into resignations, investigations, maybe even another coup.

But if it works, it’ll keep Arnaud in office. If it doesn’t, Max still logs the win.

That’s the game.

He doesn’t look back as he walks out of the hotel, the morning sun sharp off the water.

Back in the sunlight, Max checks the Sheet.

Lando’s already logged one. Oscar has logged three.

He looks at the update beside the names.

Oscar’s already bagged €1.5 million. Before brunch. That’s already triple his Day 1 haul from last year.

Lando’s sitting at €800,000—chaotic, but cleaner than last year. That alone would’ve won Day 1 last year, and Oscar’s already lapping them both.

Max adjusts his cuff, eyes narrowing just a fraction.

It’s early. They’re playing fast. Faster than last year. Faster than they should.

—

By midday, Max isn’t Franz Hermann anymore.

The economist is gone—tucked away with the pressed shirts and rigid posture. In his place stands a man dressed in the kind of casual wealth Monaco breeds like algae: a sleek half-zip sweater in navy cashmere, custom-fit chinos, sneakers that retail for four figures but look politely understated. He wears a lanyard and an accent he borrowed from Zürich by way of Geneva.

Today, he’s Felix Brenner, Chief Financial Officer of Orvio, some disruptive Swiss fintech startup that supposedly just signed on as a Tier 2 Red Bull partner. The name is fake. The paperwork isn’t.

The suite is buzzing with activity. Free practice is about to start, which means champagne is already flowing and half the people in branded polos couldn’t name the second driver on the team. Max—or Felix—steps into the swirl of money and noise like he’s spent his life here.

He nods at a hospitality coordinator who clearly can’t remember if they’ve met.

She smiles anyway. “Mr. Brenner, yes?”

“Exactly,” Max says, breezing past with perfect timing.

He’s here for one name on the Sheet. The Belgian.

He spots her near the rear of the suite—back to the glass, phone in one hand, flute of champagne in the other.

Sophie Van Aert, Belgian private equity. Once bullish, now bleeding behind highlighter-pink lipstick and polished optics.

They met in January, at Davos. Over indulgent fondue in a chalet packed with old money and new delusions.

Trump had just been inaugurated—for his second term—and Sophie was practically glowing. “His first term was good for us,” she’d said, fork raised like a flag. “Regulatory slippage. Dollar-friendly markets. We positioned ahead of time.”

Apparently, she’d bet on the same playbook repeating.

It didn’t.

The tariffs came back harder. Currency shocks cratered her portfolio. A supply chain in Kenya collapsed outright. Now she was trailing hedge funders at Red Bull’s hospitality suite like it was speed dating for capital.

Max watches her for one beat too long.

Then smiles.

He loves desperate people. Desperate people sign before reading.

Max doesn’t approach her like a predator.

He approaches her like a peer. A worried peer. One with market exposure and too many users in too many American states. One who still believes she’s on top.

“Sophie,” he says warmly, just enough familiarity to suggest Davos, just enough hesitation to imply respect. “Didn’t expect to see anyone smart here.”

She turns, surprised—flattered—and already three sips past cautious.

“Felix Brenner,” he adds, flashing the smile that closes term sheets. “We spoke in January. Fondue night. You were right about Michigan. We got buried under the Q1 pullback.”

Her eyes narrow with interest. She remembers him, but more importantly—he remembers that she was right. That’s all it takes.

“Oh, Felix ,” she laughs. “How’s Orvio?”

Max exhales like it’s a burden. “Growing. Fast. Too fast. Most of our user base is U.S. domestic. Now the new foreign trade barrier report’s flagged us—said we’re a risk entity. It’s ridiculous. We’re not Chinese, we just hire engineers who speak Mandarin.”

Sophie smiles, sharp and knowing.

“I can’t lose the U.S. market,” Max goes on. “But I also can’t spin out a Delaware arm without it looking panicked. I thought maybe…” He trails off. Lowers his voice conspiratorially.

“I thought maybe someone like you would know how to shield a fund during that kind of noise.”

It’s not even a question. It’s a compliment disguised as a plea.

She takes the bait. Of course she does. Max feeds her a breadcrumb trail of false vulnerability, then gently pivots: Would you consider joining the syndicate? Just advisory, of course. Just optics.

By the time she’s nodding, he’s already mentally logged it. Not the biggest win. But tidy. Elegant. €3 million confirmed.

He ducks out twenty minutes later under the excuse of a call with Zurich legal.

Back in the service hallway, he checks the Sheet.

Lando: €3.8M
Oscar: €5.2M

Max stares at the numbers. They’re still moving.

He slides his phone back into his pocket. No change in pace. No visible irritation. He smooths a sleeve and keeps walking.

It’s not Sunday yet.

Max is cutting through the inner paddock, dodging junior comms staff and camera crews with the kind of ease that only comes from long practice. He’s moving between roles now—dropping the Red Bull lanyard, preparing to switch identities again before the next meeting.

The sun hits hard. The asphalt is sticky with heat and noise.

He’s halfway past the Sauber transporter when it happens.

Shoulder contact. Not hard—but not avoidable.

“Watch it,” comes a voice, sharp but not loud.

Max turns instinctively.

It’s Daniel Ricciardo.

Still in full Red Bull kit. Walking fast, jaw tight, eyes already on the next point ahead—like he’s late for a debrief or carrying a thousand unspoken expectations on his back.

He doesn’t recognize Max. Why would he?

To him, Max is just another high-net-worth nobody, one of the many polished strangers who clog the paddock during race week. The kind who think owning a yacht gives them front-row access to something real.

Daniel pauses, gives Max a quick once-over—half amusement, half disdain.

“You lot just sort of appear, huh?” he mutters. “No idea where to stand, just float between the hospitality like it’s a goddamn casino.”

Max doesn’t respond.

Daniel’s already moving again, tossing a final glance over his shoulder.

“Try not to trip over the sport on your way back to the champagne bar.”

He’s gone before Max can say a word.

It doesn’t hurt exactly. But it lingers.

Because Daniel doesn’t mean it to be cruel. He’s not mocking the con—he doesn’t even see it. He’s frustrated. Tired. Still trying to earn something in a world Max long ago stopped believing was fair.

Max exhales.

The comment shouldn’t matter. He’s above this.

But there’s something quietly unbearable about being mistaken for someone who doesn’t know the game . Someone passively rich . Someone who just shows up .

He keeps walking. Doesn’t change his pace. But the line echoes longer than it should.

Try not to trip over the sport.

He walks on.

But something’s splintered.

Max doesn’t get them—the drivers. Not really. Not anymore.

They take it too seriously. All of them. Like racing’s some kind of higher calling, not what it actually is: a bloodsport engineered for branding opportunities. They throw away their childhoods for it—start driving karts before they know how to spell strategy , train until their knees lock, starve themselves to hit race weight. All to master the extremely niche skill of knowing when to turn the wheel .

They call it sacrifice. Max calls it stupidity.

Because once they make it— if they make it—they’re nothing more than walking billboards. Giant logos in overpriced jumpsuits, contractually obligated to smile like the sponsors didn’t buy their last name. Their entire value measured in fractions of seconds and percentage points. Lap times become personality traits. Podiums become therapy.

They cry when they lose. They act like kings when they win.

And Daniel—kind, golden, charismatic Daniel—is just another one of them. Too earnest to know he’s inside the grift. Still thinks it’s about heart. Still thinks the stopwatch is honest.

Max clenches his jaw. Adjusts his pace. The crowd feels closer now, pressing in. Too many bodies. Too many lanyards. Too many wide-eyed interns and performance coaches and fake investors.

He’s late.

By the time he reaches the Mercedes hospitality suite, the damage is already done.

The mark—Harlan Ng, Singaporean clean energy startup founder, worth at least a provisional 2.1 million—is already talking to Oscar.

Max sees him across the lounge, smiling that polite, almost deferential smile he saves for clients who think they’re doing him a favor. Oscar stands beside him, casual, charming, probably spinning a story about solar yield optimization and sovereign fund co-funding opportunities.

The tablet’s already out.

Fuck.

Max straightens his spine. Smooths his sleeve. Forces himself to look like he planned to be late.

But the rhythm’s off now. One stupid shoulder bump and a throwaway insult, and suddenly the day’s no longer on rails.

Oscar glances up for half a second. Makes eye contact. Doesn’t smile.

Max lingers at the edge of the suite, watching Oscar laugh at something the mark says—like he actually thinks it’s funny. The tablet is still out. The pitch is probably halfway through.

Max could cut in. Just walk over, put a hand on the mark’s shoulder, drop something terrifying and precise and devastating. He could unravel Oscar’s whole angle in three sentences.

But he doesn’t.

Because he made the rules.

Rule two: no simultaneous cons. Clean overtakes only. No messy handoffs. No vulturing a live mark.

He wrote that rule. For order. For clarity. For control .

Now he regrets it.

Because if he hadn’t, he’d already be mid-sentence, watching Oscar flinch and the deal crumble.

Instead, he forces himself to step away—jaw tight, phone to his ear like he’s pretending to take a call. He doesn’t even dial. Just nods once at the air and backs out of the suite with practiced smoothness.

Back in the paddock, it’s chaos.

Too many bodies in too little space. PR girls, camera ops, Twitch streamers, YouTubers, C-list celebrities pretending to care about tire degradation. Max shoulders past them like they’re scaffolding. The heat bounces off the asphalt like it’s radiating from the core of the earth. It’s humid in that peculiar, cloying way that reminds him of wet markets in Southeast Asia—clamorous, humid, too human.

He exhales. Scans the crowd like he’s hunting a thread to pull.

And then—he sees him.

Helmut Marko. Alone.

Sitting at one of those absurdly exclusive corner terraces above the paddock, shaded by an umbrella that cost more than most junior driver contracts. There’s a drink in front of him—neat, probably schnapps. A real newspaper in his hand, folded once. Actual ink smudging his thumb. Reading like it’s still the 1990s. Like the future hasn’t already made him obsolete.

Max stops.

No lanyard. No script. No costume.

Helmut is the type of man most people circle around like a storm. Too unpredictable. Too sharp. Too angry at being left behind.

But Max doesn’t circle. Max cuts straight through.

He climbs the short set of stairs, casual as anything, then hovers just long enough for Helmut to notice the shadow.

Max doesn’t pause. Doesn’t pretend to be anyone else. Just himself—clean and polished, every step calculated to land lightly.

“You again,” Helmut mutters, not looking up.

Max doesn’t answer right away.

He’s seen Helmut like this before—alone, brooding, sharp-edged even at rest. Over the years, in passing, at sponsor brunches and press day chaos. When Max was younger—hungrier—he used to idolize him. Even introduced himself once, all bright eyes and fake credentials, rattling off Red Bull stats like scripture. Helmut had been vaguely amused. Gave him a wristband. Said, “You’ve got the teeth for it.”

That was Max’s first real paddock pass.

He still remembers how it felt—like stepping into a cathedral of speed and violence, knowing he didn’t belong yet, but someday he would.

Now he’s here. And Helmut’s the one who looks like he doesn’t belong anymore.

Max doesn’t pause. Doesn’t pretend to be anyone else. Just himself—clean and polished, every step calculated to land lightly.

Max slides into the chair across from him like he’s been invited. “You looked like someone worth talking to.”

They don’t speak for a moment. Just sit, two men watching chaos unfold below—Red Bull mechanics, clueless influencers, photographers chasing the next marketable expression.

Then Helmut speaks, low and flat, “They want me out.”

Max doesn’t flinch. “Of course they do.”

Helmut swirls his glass. “They’ve been polite about it. Too polite.”

“That’s always the insult,” Max says. “First they stop listening. Then they start smiling.”

Helmut exhales, sharp and bitter. “I gave them twenty years. Built their pipeline. Managed their monsters. Covered for things that would sink anyone else.”

“They’ll name a conference room after you,” Max says. “Put a quote on the wall. Misspell your last name.”

Helmut’s lip twitches. Not quite a smile.

“I had a plan,” he mutters. “My terms. My timeline. But now they want legacy. Clean exits. Optics.” He snorts. “They want to bury me in bronze before I’m cold.”

Max nods. Slow. Sympathetic. Perfectly timed.

“They want a statue,” he says. “Not a memory. You’re not part of the brand anymore. You’re a liability they’re embarrassed to admit they need.”

Silence. Then Max leans forward, lowering his voice.

“But what if you didn’t have to wait for them?”

Helmut’s eyes flicker.

“There’s a structure I’ve used before,” Max says. “Soft exit. Offshore rollover. Liquidate without headlines. Let them keep the narrative—while you keep the money.”

Helmut is quiet.

Max presses, just enough. “You disappear when you decide. And you don’t owe anyone a farewell post on LinkedIn.”

A beat.

Then Helmut says, “What’s in it for you?”

Max shrugs. Light. Honest. “Consulting fee.”

Helmut stares at him for a long time. Then: “Send me the paperwork.”

Max doesn’t gloat. Doesn’t smile. Just nods.

They finish their drinks like war generals sharing a final toast.

But as Max walks away, he knows the truth.

That was Helmut’s pension fund . His last hold. His parachute. Gone.

Max logs it on the Sheet.

€12.4M.
Restructured. Extracted. Filed under: Legacy Management.

Oscar: €6.4M
Lando: €5.2M
Max: €12.4M

He should feel proud. But all he feels is the silence of that final moment—Helmut’s tired nod, the quiet agreement, the flicker of dignity Max let him believe he still had.

That is the part Max actually loves. Not the theft. Not even the win.

The moment where someone powerful finally says, help me.

And means it.

He straightens his cuff. Rolls his neck.

Still playing. But finally— finally —having fun again.

Chapter Text

Lando wakes up on a yacht surrounded by corpses.

Not literal ones—probably. Just the kind you find after a Monaco Friday night: slumped over sunbeds, passed out on teak flooring, half-covered by Versace throws. One guy is facedown in the ice bucket. A girl is spooning a lobster plushie like it’s her emotional support animal. Someone’s leg is sticking out from the hot tub with a Rolex still ticking on their ankle.

Lando doesn’t feel better than them. Just slightly more vertical.

His mouth tastes like sea air and tequila. His shirt is missing. His spine clicks when he sits up, like it’s trying to veto the motion.

He gropes around until he finds his phone tangled in someone's bikini top and a cocktail napkin that says ‘We ❤️ the DJ’ in glitter pen.

It takes forever to power on.
Longer to load the Sheet.

He blinks blearily at the numbers.

Max: €13.8M

Lando: €8.1M

Oscar: €11.3M

He stares.
Squints.
Swears.

“Fuck off.”

The words croak out of him like a dying bird. He slaps the phone down on a table and immediately regrets the sound.

Stumbling upright, Lando makes it halfway across the deck before he has to steady himself against a champagne cooler and remember his name .

He’s Lando Norris. He’s 25. Maybe. He’s a DJ, at least that’s what he’s been telling people all night. Except he wasn’t playing this party. He was here at the invitation of the Graziani twins—Francesco and Francesca. Two trust fund nightmares with matching cheekbones and daddy’s Amex. Both of them wanted him. Romantically. Sexually. Spiritually. They said it like a promise. He said yes like a threat.

He remembers a balcony. A bath full of dry ice. Some kind of whispered threesome philosophy that involved the phrase “capitalist tantra.”

He does not remember closing any deals but his account says otherwise.

€8.1 million.
A strong Friday.
But not strong enough.

Oscar’s already up.
Max is already miles ahead.
And Lando?

Lando’s naked, mildly concussed, and might be engaged to two Italians who keep sending him heart emojis and voice notes titled “next time with ropes 💕.”

He takes a deep breath.

Okay. Game face.

He just needs a shower, a shirt, and a mark who doesn’t require translation or a safe word.

And maybe—just maybe—a small miracle.

He leaves the yacht barefoot.

There’s no point in looking for his shoes—he vaguely remembers them being handed to someone named Tito as part of a dare involving a poker game, a drone, and the words “just trust me.”

So he walks. Through the marina, up the stone steps, across the blinding pavement like a hot-coal disciple of terrible decisions. No shirt, no shoes, and an aura of debauched glamour that dares anyone to question him.

No one does. Monaco is used to ghosts like him.

His hotel isn’t far. It’s one of those absurd old-money places with marble everything and a scent pumped into the lobby that probably costs more than his liver. The room is comped, of course. It always is.

Courtesy of a Saudi prince who’s been obsessed with Lando since 2022.

They met in Madrid. Or maybe Milan. Lando had been pretending to be the heir to a German lighting empire. The prince—eager, glassy-eyed, and wildly bored—had called him “moonlight.” Lando hadn’t corrected him.

He’s been comped ever since.

The staff don’t blink as he strolls barefoot through the lobby, trailing salt and sin. One bellhop gives him a look that says we both know what you are , and Lando tips him with a wink and someone else’s casino chip.

The shower is scalding. The hangover screams. But by the time he steps out, slick with overpriced shampoo and self-loathing, he feels almost human.

He throws on a linen shirt, gold chain, and those massive sunglasses that say yes I’m judging you —then heads back out. Still tired. Still behind. But at least now, he looks expensive.

Brunch is at Maison Z, one of those rooftop champagne traps where no one eats and everyone has a brand deal. He slides into the booth like he belongs there—and technically, he does.

The table is full of influencer-socialites. Most of them don’t know what they’re laundering. A few do, and that’s why he likes them better.

There’s a girl from Dubai who just sold a startup she didn’t build. A guy from Brazil who talks in riddles and moves crypto between exchanges like it’s a religion. Someone’s manager is here just to make sure they don’t mention Panama on camera.

Lando orders an espresso and a plate of nothing. They air-kiss. Compliment his “glow.”

One of them leans in, low and curious. “I heard you were with the Graziani twins last night.”

Lando smiles, all teeth. “I was with both of them.”

The table laughs.

He doesn’t mention the spreadsheet. Or the prince. Or the €13.8 million Max has already logged while Lando was blacking out in a tub of dry ice.

There’s still time. There’s always time.

He sips his espresso and starts watching. Someone at this table is about to pay for his next million.

Lando watches them sip €30 juices and pretend to laugh at things they barely understand. They grift for Instagram likes and branded teeth-whitening codes, measuring their worth in engagement rates and yacht invites. They con for clout. For visibility.

It’s not that Lando’s above validation. He’s not. He craves it like oxygen.

But his kind of validation is purer. Sharper. He doesn’t want to be seen —he wants to be needed . Worshipped. Obsessed over until people hand him the keys to everything just to keep him close.

And at this table, someone already is.

Margo Livingston. British socialite. Three divorces deep. Rich off alimony and emotionally primed for reinvention. She’s leaning toward him like he’s the only thing keeping her from drowning. Laughing too hard. Touching his wrist like it’s a lifeline.

She doesn’t want another husband. She wants a new myth.

And Lando is fluent in mythmaking.

Margo is staring at him like he’s the first thing that’s ever made sense.

“You’re just so—” she pauses, searching for the word, eyes flicking across his face like a sculptor trying to memorize a masterpiece. “Alive.”

Lando smiles like he’s heard it before. Because he has. But not like this.

She keeps touching him—light brushes on his wrist, a hand on his knee under the table, tucking a strand of hair behind her own ear like it’s his. Asking questions like she’s trying to memorize him. What’s your birth time? Favorite color? What do you dream about when you’re alone?

He doesn’t even think about the answers. They spill out like secrets meant only for her.

It’s all so easy. Too easy.

And for a moment, he’s not playing a role. He needs this. Her attention, her affection, the way she speaks like she’s finally figured out what’s been missing in her life and it's him . It makes the bruises from last night stop hurting. It makes the €8.1 million feel like power again, not panic.

“You know,” she says, sipping champagne like it’s holy water, “I think I was always meant to date a younger man. All that energy. That fire. The way you look at me like you see through all the bullshit.”

He does. Because he knows exactly what it looks like from the inside.

He leans in like she’s gravity.

And then—she says it.

“Anyway, the final settlement came through last week. I got the board seat. The controlling shares. A pension plan I didn’t even know existed. Turns out Swedish pharma executives are very generous when they cheat.”

Lando’s heart skips once.

Ah. Right.

That’s why he’s here.

He lets the warmth fade from his smile just enough to sharpen the edge. Not enough for her to notice. Just enough to remind himself.

She wants him. He needs her account.

And maybe—just maybe—he can have both.

If there’s one thing Lando takes pride in, it’s this.

His pitch is always smoother than Max’s and Oscar’s. They’ve both admitted it. Begrudgingly, of course—Max with a scoff and Oscar with a deadpan “statistically irrelevant”—but they know.

Lando never needs to ask for money. He just rearranges the room until people offer it.

With Margo, he barely has to try.

He opens with a compliment—casual, warm, no sharp edges. Just enough sincerity to feel like truth.

“You’ve always been a strong woman,” he says, voice low, like it’s just for her. “Three divorces and still holding court like royalty. I really admire that. Most people would’ve just... folded.”

Margo blushes. He’s not sure she’s blushed in years.

“You figured it out,” he adds. “By yourself. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who knows how to survive with that much style.”

She laughs, shaking her head like she’s embarrassed, but her hand is already on his again.

“It wasn’t easy,” she says, soft. “But that’s life, right? You take the hits. Rebuild. And if you're lucky, you find someone who sees the whole picture.”

There it is.

Lando leans in just enough to give the illusion of intimacy. He tilts his head like he’s learning something sacred.

“You’re exactly the kind of person people should be following,” he murmurs. “Honestly? You should be leading something.”

Her eyes brighten. He sees it hit—right between pride and hunger.

“You know,” she says, almost too casually, “I’ve been thinking about taking a more active role again. The last divorce left me with some... strategic leverage.”

“Strategic?” he echoes, like he doesn’t already know.

“A controlling interest in a Swedish pharma board,” she says, sipping her mimosa. “And a ridiculous number of patents I don’t know what to do with.”

Lando smiles—just a flicker.

Because that’s it. The ball’s already rolling. She’s already imagining a future with him in it.

And the best part?

She thinks it’s her idea.

By the end of brunch, Margo’s already on the phone with her lawyer. Lando doesn’t even have to prompt her.

She says things like “exclusive licensing rights” and “restructure the voting shares” , and Lando just sips his mimosa, all wide eyes and innocent nods. By the time they kiss cheeks and part ways—her clutching his hand a second too long—his phone pings with the confirmation:

€5.5 million. Logged.

He exhales, almost smiling. That should’ve helped. That should’ve pushed him forward, or at least brought him level.

But when he checks the Sheet again, the numbers have changed.

Oscar: €16.1M
Max: €14.7M
Lando: €13.6M

Still third.

Still behind.

He leaves the rooftop terrace with his sunglasses too low and his pulse too high. The streets blur around him—designer storefronts and sun-bleached stone and the constant, suffocating shimmer of money. Everyone here has a lanyard. Everyone’s pretending to be something.

Lando’s good at pretending.

He slides behind the wheel of his rented Bentley, re-applies some lip balm, rakes a hand through his curls, and drives straight to the paddock like he belongs there.

Like he owns the damn sport.

Monaco lets him pass without checking. That’s the trick—walk like you’re a prince, and they won’t ask what country you rule. His complexion helps. His vibe helps more. He tightens the gold around his wrists and switches to Arabic when a marshal nods at him.

A few words. A name-drop. The right kind of swagger.

And suddenly he’s in.

Aston Martin hospitality—sleek, soulless, everything carpeted in mid-range luxury. There’s champagne on tap and the world’s most well-dressed frauds talking about grip levels like they actually know what downforce is.

He wasn’t planning this visit. But then he sees him.

Nadim Zahrani. Saudi motorsport development liaison. Officially funding a “new sustainable street racing initiative.” Unofficially whitewashing his cousin’s offshore empire via corporate sponsorship and green energy spin.

A mark Lando’s been circling since Jeddah. Slippery. Vain. Desperate to be taken seriously in Monaco.

Which is perfect.

Because Lando Norris is just the right kind of expensive problem to help him do it.

Nadim is holding court like he thinks it’s a boardroom.

Lando watches from the corner of the Aston Martin hospitality suite, sunglasses on, champagne untouched. Nadim’s dressed like power—tailored navy linen, embroidered cufflinks, watch heavy enough to weigh down his handshake. He speaks like he’s used to being agreed with. His laughter is too loud, like he’s trying to buy gravity.

That’s the thing about these guys. The desert princes. The oil scions. The soft-handed sons of steel-and-gas dynasties.

They want to be taken seriously. They want to be seen as modern . As visionary . As clean.

But they carry themselves like the old days never ended—entitlement lacquered over with PR sheen. They’re used to ruling rooms, but still insecure about whether the room wants them.

Which is where Lando slips in.

He doesn’t interrupt. He doesn’t approach with a pitch. He just lets Nadim notice him—let the magnetism do the first pull. Lando’s aura is curated perfectly: quiet luxury, ambiguous wealth, just foreign enough to be intriguing and just casual enough to signal he doesn’t need to be impressed.

They make eye contact. Nadim gestures him over.

They exchange names, small talk, perform the usual ritual of subtle dick-measuring via job titles and foundation affiliations. Lando says he’s consulting for a fund evaluating racing sustainability metrics. It doesn’t mean anything, but it sounds like it does.

Then, just as Nadim starts explaining his “vision” for the sustainable street racing series, Lando lays the trap.

He tilts his head, squints, and says—carefully, kindly:

“That’s smart. Honestly, I’m surprised no one else from your side has tried it first.”

Nadim blinks. “My side?”

Lando smiles, sheepish. “You know—your region. Usually when I hear these pitches, it’s coming out of Singapore. Or Switzerland. That kind of optics. But maybe that’s what’ll make this stand out.”

He lets the words hang.

Not accusatory. Not mocking. 

Just enough to plant the seed.

The unspoken: People don’t expect this from you. The louder subtext: You have something to prove.

Nadim shifts slightly. His hand tightens on his glass.

Lando leans in, as if in confidence.

“It’s just smart to think ahead. Because the thing is, perception is a resource too, you know? And in this space, it’s what opens doors.”

Nadim nods, slow. He’s listening now. Really listening.

And Lando—soft, harmless, utterly nonthreatening Lando—just smiles.

Because he knows exactly what he’s doing.

Lando has Nadim right where he wants him.

The man’s posture has softened, the questions have started flowing in the right direction—curious, flattering, suggestive of a follow-up. Lando can already see the zeroes. He’s just about to steer the conversation toward soft commitment, maybe a vague promise of co-investment or a quiet wire test—

When he hears it.

A voice, close. Sharp.

“Wait a second. Weren’t you at the Graziani yacht last night?”

Lando turns. One of Nadim’s aides. Younger, sharper, not as important—but dangerous in exactly the wrong way. He’s looking at Lando like someone trying to place a face from a police sketch.

Lando blinks. “Sorry?”

“You were there. I remember. You had the—uh—the fur coat and the…” He snaps his fingers. “Gold chain, right? DJ?”

Nadim’s eyebrows lift.

Lando’s heart spikes. This is it. The moment the whole thing collapses.

And then—like clockwork—another voice.

“Excuse me,” Max says, cutting in cleanly from nowhere, crisp polo and diplomatic smile. “Did you say DJ? No, no, I know him. This is Youssef Aitani. He’s one of our guys from the Riyadh project. You must be confusing him with someone else.”

Max doesn’t look at Lando. Doesn’t need to.

The aide hesitates. Looks between them. Starts to backpedal. “Right—right, maybe I mixed it up. Sorry.”

Nadim shrugs. “Happens.”

Lando doesn’t breathe until the aide turns away.

Max clasps Nadim’s shoulder like they’re old business school friends. “Let me know if you move forward with the electrification pitch. I think Youssef would be a great bridge between your end and ours.”

He pats Nadim once, clean and professional, then disappears again without another word.

Lando exhales.

Nadim, nonchalant again, adjusts his cuff and says, “Anyway. Let’s talk after the race.”

Lando nods, smiles, says something polite.

But inside, it’s already souring.

“After the race” means nothing.
It means never .
It means I got spooked but won’t say it out loud .

And Lando knows it.

The Aston Martin hospitality suite feels suddenly… claustrophobic.

Too many mirrors. Too many voices. Too many perfect smiles aimed just a fraction off-center. Lando throws back his champagne in one motion—dry, acidic, pointless—and sets the glass down harder than he means to.

He doesn’t look back as he walks out.

He’s halfway to the paddock exit when he checks the Sheet.

Oscar: €19.8M
Max: €17.2M
Lando: €13.6M

The numbers hit harder than they should.

Oscar’s almost at twenty. Twenty. And Max—Max, who swore he was coasting this year—is still outpacing him. Quietly. Methodically. Like always.

Lando stops under the shadow of a Pirelli banner and stares at the numbers, jaw tight.

He remembers the way they said it.
Oscar, flat and clipped: “You’re the yacht guy.”
Max, smiling like it was a kindness: “Someone’s got to keep the spawn entertained.”

Like the party scene was all he had.
Like that’s where he belonged.

Because Max had his pension funds and Oscar had his crypto monsters, and Lando?

Lando had mimosas and influencers and Margo fucking Livingston.

He shoves his phone in his pocket and keeps walking, faster now.

Maybe they’re right.
Maybe he does belong at the parties.

But that doesn’t mean he’s not going to win.

—

The Williams suite is glass-walled, over-air-conditioned, and buzzing with sponsors in branded polos pretending they belong. It’s the kind of place Lando hates—forced conversations, canned laughter, everyone trying to out-subtle each other’s name drops.

But Carlos is here.

Carlos, with his pressed white shirt and tailored shorts, perfectly windswept hair, a watch that looks like it was passed down through five generations of Sainz men who never had to hustle a day in their lives. He’s smiling, polite, making the rounds like he was born to it. Because he was.

Their social circles overlap—golf mostly. The kind of old-money country clubs where caddies are invisible and no one pays for their drinks. Carlos knows Lando. Probably even likes him.

But Lando’s never sure if that matters.

They greet each other in the lull between sponsor handshakes, the briefest reprieve before someone pulls Carlos away to talk about tire strategies he doesn’t control.

“Lando,” Carlos says, all ease. “Didn’t expect to see you here.”

Lando grins, effortless. “Had a meeting. Needed a quiet room with a decent view.”

Carlos nods. “Still playing at Sunningdale?”

“When they let me.”

He doesn’t mean for the bitterness to slip through, but it does.

Carlos laughs, easy and warm. “We should play again soon.”

And Lando wants to say now. Or today. Or I’m not doing anything more important than you.

But a Williams handler appears with a tight-lipped smile and a clipboard.

“They need me,” Carlos says, apologetic, already turning. “Let’s catch up later, yeah?”

Lando watches him walk away. Watches the way the room tilts toward him. Watches how easy it all is for someone who never had to be anything more than what he already was.

He’s still holding the drink he never wanted.

The glass sweats in his palm.

It’s not heartbreak. It’s not even personal.

It’s just envy.

Plain. Old. Ugly.

And that’s worse.

Lando doesn’t know what he was thinking.

You don’t list an active driver.

It’s like rule zero. They’re at their busiest, their most protected, constantly herded from garage to media pen to briefing to garage again. Handlers, PR, team managers—every second of their day choreographed down to the breath. There’s no access. No openings. No chance.

But he listed Carlos anyway.

Not for the payout. Not really.

He just wanted to see if he could.

If Carlos would look at him for longer than five minutes.

If someone like that—clean, smooth, born into everything—would choose someone like Lando for anything other than a foursome at Valderrama.

Clearly, he couldn’t.

Carlos had smiled. Been nice. Said the right words.

And then he walked away.

That was it.

No drama. No crash. Just the quiet, humiliating truth of being beneath someone’s time.

Lando stares at his phone like it’s betrayed him. The Sheet still shows the name. Still sits there like a bruise he gave himself.

He scrolls down.

Oscar’s ticked another mark.

Max too.

Lando exhales, bitter and hot.

He deletes the name. Quietly.

No one has to know he tried.

But he’ll remember.

He looks at the rest of his list. It’s a graveyard.

The twins are probably still unconscious on a yacht somewhere off Cap Ferrat. The heiress who paid him in crypto is allegedly attending a sound bath “for clarity.” Margo’s tapped out for now—too busy calling her board to make him real.

The rest? Vampires.

People you can’t find when the sun’s out.

Too rich, too hungover, or too allergic to daylight to function.

He scrolls again. Flicks to Max’s list. Reads it like a dare.

Untouchables. Political plutonium.

Even thinking about them makes his teeth hurt.

But Oscar’s?

Oscar’s might be different.

His finger hovers over one name:

Camila Esteves

Brazilian. Electric transit prodigy. Startup founder.

Smart, real, and—most importantly—still underfunded.

Oscar’s note next to her name just says: cap table access required.

That’s all Lando needs to see.

He tabs out, opens Instagram. Camila’s story is a boomerang of champagne glasses clinking in some glass pavilion. A quick scroll through her LinkedIn—god help him—and he finds the caption:

“Excited to be in Monaco for the Grand Prix weekend, attending the ESG Future Mobility Roundtable at the Hôtel de Paris!”

Of course.

One of those events.

The kind that smells like overpriced canapés and soft-launch corruption.

Lando’s already walking before he knows what he’s doing, thumbing a text into his phone like it’ll burn him if he hesitates:

“Tell Oscar I said hi.”

He doesn’t hit send.

He just smirks, deletes the draft, and keeps walking.

If Oscar wants her, he better move fast.

Because Lando’s done playing nice.

The ESG Future Mobility Roundtable is exactly what it sounds like: soft lighting, soft politics, soft hands shaking over hard money. The Hôtel de Paris ballroom has been transformed into a temple of buzzwords—sustainability, integration, disruption—all whispered over artisan crudités and mineral water with more branding than taste.

Lando’s badge isn’t real, but his smile is.

That’s all it takes.

He slips in easy, dressed like an heiress’s boyfriend and standing like he owns a fleet of electric helicopters. No one questions him. They never do. Not when he looks like someone with a disruptive fund and a phone full of people named things like Pierre from SoftBank.

Camila’s already speaking.

She’s poised, articulate, lit by the glow of a PowerPoint that doesn’t bore him half to death. She’s not selling anything sleazy. Just trying to scale public electric transport in a region where no one wants to build for the people who actually need it.

She’s good. Too good.

And Lando hates that it’s working on him.

So he does what he’s best at: listens. Watches her language, her cadence. Jots mental notes like he’s back in school, prepping for a test he actually wants to ace.

When she steps off stage, he’s already there—low voice, warm grin, questions lined up like champagne flutes.

 “That last slide—your São Paulo numbers. You’re accounting for last-mile uptake without incentivizing fleet partners. That’s bold.”

Camila blinks—surprised. Maybe impressed.

“That’s exactly what our advisors flagged.”

He laughs, casual. “Yeah, I ran into the same thing when we were backing ride-to-rail pilots in North Africa. Same pushback. You guys are braver than we were.”

Not true. Not even close. But she doesn’t need to know that.

She leans in. “You fund mobility projects?”

He shrugs. “When it makes sense.”

And for a moment—for a flicker—he almost forgets what he’s doing. He actually wants to know more. He likes her. The realness. The conviction. She’s not like the trust fund ghouls or crypto freaks. She gives a shit.

Which is why it stings even more when he starts to lose her.

Because just as he’s about to steer her toward that ask—that quiet, clean step toward investment interest—he sees him.

Oscar.

Standing a few feet away, calm and perfect and watching.

Lando falters. Just a fraction. A moment’s hesitation.

And Oscar—of course—steps in.

Not to steal her.

To help.

He slides into the conversation like a safety net, says something affirming about the CapEx split, subtly name-drops one of Camila’s investors. He supports Lando’s angle. He lets it land.

He lets Lando win.

Camila’s assistant takes Lando’s card. She smiles. She says, “Let’s talk Monday.” The kind of Monday that means after the wires clear.

It’s a deal. €2.1 million.

He logs it.

And it burns.

Because it’s not enough. Not nearly.

He walks out of the hotel and doesn’t look back. Oscar doesn’t follow.

Lando stares at the sky like he’s waiting for it to fall.

Because that’s the problem with being helped by someone you’re trying to beat.

It still counts.

But it doesn’t feel like it.

Lando checks the Sheet again—not to log anything, just out of habit. Out of pain.

Oscar’s number has ticked up again. Another name turned green. Another perfect kill.

He stares at it for a second too long.

Max, he gets. Max is Max.

But Oscar?

Oscar used to be the baby. The rookie. The quiet one watching them from across the suite like he was still learning. Now he’s blowing past them like he never needed to learn at all.

And the worst part?

Lando knows Oscar doesn’t even see him.

To Oscar, it’s Max. Always Max. The legend. The benchmark.

Lando’s just… a name in the middle.

That realization sticks somewhere under his ribs.

When he finally looks up from the screen, everything feels louder. The light too sharp, the laughter too fake. He’s still smiling. Of course he is. He always is.

But inside?

Inside he’s already bleeding out.

—

He doesn't even want to go to the party.

But Daniil Antonov is low-hanging fruit.

Russian exile spawn. Rich off pipeline dividends and his father’s political collapse. The kind of guy who thinks F1 is about bottle service and whoever can say “crypto” the loudest. He’s not a trophy, but he’s safe. A filler. An easy pick to pad the score if things go sideways.

Things go sideways.

Lando shows up too late, too wired, too sweaty under the collar of his half-buttoned shirt. He tries—he really tries. The lines don’t land. The grin feels fake. Daniil keeps asking about a TikTok Lando wasn’t even in. It’s loud, it’s hot, it’s off. Every move he makes gets more desperate. Every drink tastes more like panic.

He ends up poolside again, shoes off, ankles submerged. Not on purpose. Just—there.

Somewhere inside, Daniil is dancing with an American heiress. Lando doesn’t even try to reclaim him.

He gets up. Walks out.

No one stops him.

—

He makes it back to the hotel sometime past midnight.

Still barefoot. Still damp. Still thinking about the moment Camila looked at him like he mattered—right before Oscar handed her the thread to pull it all together.

He should be grateful.

He should be.

But the Sheet doesn’t care about feelings.

It just glows:

Oscar: €23.0M

Max: €16.8M

Lando: €15.7M

Lando stares at it like it’s lying. Like if he blinks enough times, it’ll shift in his favor.

It doesn’t.

He tosses the phone on the bed, face-down.

His room—paid for by a Saudi prince who still thinks Lando might marry him—feels cold. Too white. Too high up.

He doesn’t cry. He doesn’t rage.

He just stands there for a long time, staring out the window at the glittering bay, where everyone richer, better, smarter is still out there spinning their games.

He thought he had it.

He really did.

But Monaco doesn’t care what you thought.

It only cares what you log.

And tomorrow?

Tomorrow is Sunday.

And he’s already running out of moves.

Chapter Text

Oscar wakes up at 6:00 AM sharp. No alarm. No snooze button. His body knows.

The suite is silent, sterile, lit only by the creeping gray edge of Monaco sunrise bleeding through the blackout blinds. He swings his legs over the side of the bed in one clean motion. Breathes in. Out.

Routine isn’t comfort.

It’s containment.

There’s a rhythm to this. Wake. Hydrate. Stretch. Shower. Matcha, not coffee. The same playlist, same lighting preset, same probiotic smoothie delivered exactly at 6:45. By 7:00, he’s dressed in what looks like loungewear and costs more than most entry-level sponsorship packages.

He’s not thriving.

He’s surviving—with precision.

At 7:03, Oscar sits at the small marble desk and opens the Sheet.

Oscar: €23.0M

Max: €16.8M

Lando: €15.7M

He stares at it like it’s the only thing real. Like it’s air.

This is what control looks like.

He doesn’t smile, but something in his jaw loosens.

The schedule—revised sixteen times since last year, post-mortem debriefed like a crash site—has been followed to the letter. Twenty-one marks in 72 hours. Fourteen already closed. Five pending. Two warming. Every encounter planned, scoped, and slotted in 30-minute intervals, with margin for deviation never exceeding seven percent.

Even the Camila encounter—the moment Lando stumbled and Oscar stepped in—had been modeled with a 78.3% likelihood of interference. He’d run simulations. Prepped fallback lines. Wrote three different endings.

He just picked the cleanest one.

Oscar closes the Sheet. Locks it. Opens his calendar. 7:06.

First meeting is at 8:00. Yacht breakfast. Venture capitalists. Low-risk. High-volume. Two of them are already halfway to handing over access codes; they just don’t know it yet.

He exhales once, checks the mirror, and smooths his collar.

Control isn’t luck.

It’s work.

And this time, he’s winning.

—

Gregor Maletz is already seated when Oscar arrives—early, aggressive, surrounded by gadgets that hum with self-importance. Three phones, two watches, no sense of irony. His sunglasses are still on, even though they’re seated in the shade of a €12,000 parasol on the upper deck of a yacht named Compounding Return.

Oscar hates him on sight.

Which is helpful, because it makes the next part easier.

He slides into the chair with the exact amount of relaxed arrogance Gregor respects. Slouched just enough to seem unimpressed. Straight-backed enough to imply he could buy and sell this whole operation before the first espresso hits the table.

“Mr. Maletz,” Oscar says, offering a dry smile, “you’re trending on my side of the ocean.”

Gregor snorts. “I’d be worried if I wasn’t.”

Oscar mirrors the laugh, lets it taper off a half-second earlier. Just enough dominance to seed control.

He’s done this dance before. The billionaire handshake version of piss on the wall.

What Gregor doesn’t know—can’t know—is that Oscar isn’t naturally like this. He doesn’t slide into personas like Max does, shifting dialects and emotional tones like flipping through a wardrobe. He doesn’t radiate chaotic authenticity the way Lando does, disarming people by being messily, maddeningly real.

Oscar builds from scratch.

Every time.

It’s work.

To match Gregor’s energy, he has to grind down the corners of himself, bury the edge, amp the swagger, rehearse the rhythm. He has to become the kind of arrogant bastard who thinks the term “ethical automation” is a punchline and still wants to be quoted in Wired.

It’s a contortion. A carving.

Every smile costs him something.

But Gregor eats it up. Loves it. Finally, someone who speaks his language: money, metrics, manipulation.

Oscar knows the numbers Gregor wants to hear. He drops them casually, like spare change. Mentions hypothetical valuations, cultural capital, the impending collapse of user-generated trust models. He watches the older man light up with the kind of recognition only narcissists share.

And it works.

Of course it works.

Thirty-eight minutes in, Gregor offers a test. “Tell me what your edge is.”

Oscar leans forward, dead calm.

“I don’t flinch.”

He means it. And Gregor buys it.

An hour later, the handshake is done. The paperwork already half-drafted. Oscar walks off the yacht with verbal commitment, shadow access, and a data bundle routed through a shell company that will be dissolved by Tuesday.

€4.7 million. Logged before lunch.

He doesn’t smile.

He just checks the Sheet. Max has moved. Lando hasn’t.

Oscar slips his phone into his pocket and exhales.

He’s still ahead. Still flawless.

But that voice—quiet, sour—still scrapes the inside of his skull:

It shouldn’t be this hard to pretend you belong.

—

By noon, Oscar’s schedule ticks over to the most delicate job of the day: Zak Brown.

Precisely two and a half hours before the race. The exact window where a team boss is most distractible—still thinking about strategy, but just accessible enough to make room for a crisis they think they can squash in five minutes.

Oscar doesn’t approach Zak directly.

He never would.

That’s not how this play works.

He slips into the McLaren compound through a service entrance he’d scoped out on Friday. It’s hot, humid, humming with activity. Interns moving tyres, engineers glancing at telemetry, executives pretending their suits aren’t suffocating them.

Oscar wears a team polo. Unofficial. From a launch event in Bahrain two years ago. He’s modded the logo just enough—like someone desperate to still feel part of the ecosystem that rejected them.

He knows exactly who to talk to.

Liam H—trackside systems engineer. Quiet. Credible. Once replied to a Reddit post about brake cooling in 2023. Oscar brushes past him just close enough to drop the line: “They’re calling it asymmetric hydraulic override. I’ve seen the prints.”

It doesn’t take more than that.

Liam asks two questions, rapid-fire. Oscar answers them both with the right mixture of precision and vagueness. Enough to sound legit. Enough to sound dangerous.

By the time Zak’s been summoned, Oscar’s already waiting in a tucked-away briefing room—posed like someone who doesn’t want to be there. That’s the trick. Always make them ask why you came.

Zak walks in, tense.

Oscar doesn’t stand.

He just looks up, all calm intensity. Like he’s tired. Like he’s been debating whether to do this at all.

Zak glances at Liam, then back at Oscar.

“You’ve got about five minutes before I’m needed elsewhere.”

Oscar nods. Slides a folder across the table. It’s fake, of course. Just the right amount of technical gibberish. But the diagrams are familiar. Suspiciously familiar.

“You have a system,” Oscar says. “Experimental. Unregulated. It works. And other teams are asking questions.”

Zak stiffens.

Oscar waits.

“I don’t want to sell it,” he says, quiet. “I want you to control the story before someone else does.”

That line?

That line took him three weeks to get right.

He lets it sit. Watches Zak’s brain run at race pace.

When the older man finally speaks, his voice is low. Measured.

“What do you want?”

Oscar tilts his head. Doesn’t smile.

“Guarantees.”

Zak nods. “I’ll have my office draft something.”

Oscar stands.

“We’ve got two hours and change,” he says. “Clock’s ticking.”

—

By the time he exits the McLaren garage, Oscar’s hands are steady, but his heartbeat is not.

It worked. Of course it worked. Zak Brown’s face did that thing it always does when something’s gone just a little too off-script.

Oscar logs the entry before he’s out of pitlane.

€6.2M.

Technical blackmail bonus: secure.

The Sheet updates. He swipes it away.

Doesn’t smile.

It’s working. The system is working.

But god, it’s exhausting becoming someone new every ninety minutes.

—

The Zak deal is clean. Too clean.

Oscar should feel invincible. €6.2 million logged, the team boss spooked, the Sheet glowing like a scoreboard at full tilt.

Oscar: €33.9M
Max: €25.1M
Lando: €21.0M

But control doesn’t taste like champagne—it tastes like metal. Like he's biting down on a coin to make sure it’s real.

He doesn’t stick around. Doesn’t gloat. The Sunday protocol is clear: wind down by 1:30, change, and arrive at the hospitality suite exactly fifteen minutes before lights out. Long enough to be seen. Short enough to be strategic. The walk up is smooth. Polished. The paddock buzzing with race nerves and champagne fog.

The suite overlooks the garages. VVIP-only. Not for fans. Not for clients. Just them. Just tradition.

Max is already there.

He’s leaned back in his chair, half a glass of Dom in his hand, legs crossed like he’s watching opera. No urgency. No fire.

Oscar narrows his eyes.

Max doesn’t greet him. Just gestures to the seat across the table like it’s already decided. “Took your time.”

“I’m precisely on schedule,” Oscar says, brushing invisible dust from his sleeve. “It’s lights out in fifteen.”

Max lifts his glass. “Then sit.”

The air between them crackles—not hostile, not warm. Just two men who know they’re both dangerous and trying not to flinch first.

And then—

The door slides open again.

Lando stumbles in.

Not literally, but close. Hair wind-tossed, shirt unbuttoned just slightly too low. He’s breathless, grinning, and late.

Oscar checks the Sheet instinctively. No new entry.

“You’re late,” Max says without looking at him.

“Am I?” Lando beams. “Didn’t notice.”

Oscar frowns. He hasn’t logged a single thing in hours. Last confirmed activity was a low-stakes brunch. And yet he looks... smug. Like a man who’s holding a royal flush and pretending he’s folding.

He drops into his seat, unbothered. Snags a glass of champagne like he owns the air in the room.

“Have you done something?” Oscar asks flatly.

Lando just blinks. “Define ‘done.’”

Max chuckles under his breath.

Oscar doesn’t join in.

Because Max is too calm. And Lando’s too delighted.

Oscar’s run every possibility. Mapped every variable. This is his game. His hour.

So why does he feel like he’s already lost?

The lights go out. Engines roar. And just like that, the most prestigious motorsport event in the world turns into the dullest possible Sunday matinee.

Fifteen laps in, Leclerc bins it at Rascasse.

Lando whoops, louder than necessary. “Told you!”

Oscar barely reacts. Max lifts a brow.

“450k payout,” Lando grins, flashing his betting app. “Thank you, Charles.”

Oscar scowls. “That’s not even a mark.”

“Still money,” Lando sings. “Sweet, untracked, tax-free money.”

The red flag stalls the race. Everyone gets a free pitstop. Strategy evaporates.

For twenty laps, nothing happens.

No overtakes. No drama. Just overpriced yachts, looping aerial shots, and commentary so dry it could powder your teeth.

They lounge like apex predators forced to watch children’s theater.

Oscar lets himself breathe. Just a little. He checks the Sheet again.

Oscar: €33.9M
Max: €25.1M
Lando: €21.4M

Good. Still good. Still ahead. He sips his water—hydration window, 3:15 PM—and finally lets his shoulders drop one inch.

Then Max clears his throat.

Taps his tablet.

And logs it.

Max: €50.1M

Oscar freezes. The number sears like a glitch. He blinks. Refreshes.

It’s still there.

€25 million. One entry. Clean.

Oscar’s breath catches. “What the fuck .”

Max doesn’t even look at him. Just says, calm as ever, “Arnaud came through.”

Oscar stares. “That was supposed to take months .”

“I made it take three days.”

Oscar’s heartbeat spikes. He opens the full entry. Everything’s real. Signed, routed, buried in legalese so dense it looks like a World Bank white paper.

He grips the table.

“You closed that today ?”

Max finally meets his eye.

“I told you,” he says softly. “Start early.”

Lando whistles, impressed and a little nauseous. “Okay. Jesus.”

Oscar stares at the Sheet like it’s taunting him.
All that structure.
All that control.
All that work.

And none of it was enough.

Because Max didn’t just overtake.
He lapped them.

This was supposed to be it.

Oscar’s Monaco. His redemption arc. He pulled the gap. Built the lead. Ran the strategy to perfection. Twenty-one marks. Every hour accounted for. Every risk calculated to the decimal. It was meant to be a victory lap .

And now?

Now Max has teleported past him. Fifty million. One strike. It might as well be a nuke.

Oscar’s hands twitch in his lap, hidden under the pristine white tablecloth.

The screen in front of them shows the race—but he’s not watching it. Not really.

Ricciardo is leading Monaco again, like it’s 2018. Like no time has passed and the world still thinks winning here matters. They’re all driving in circles, praying for tire life and a safe release.

Oscar feels sick.

Three hours left on the clock.

Three.

That’s nothing.
A blink.
A fucking death sentence.

He scrolls the Sheet again—maybe something’s wrong. A decimal misaligned. A draft not saved. But no.

Max: €50.1M
Oscar: €33.9M
Lando: €21.4M

It’s real.
It’s final.
And he knows it.

He should’ve won.

He did win—right up until he didn’t. Right up until Max decided not today, kid , and made twenty-five million appear out of thin air like it was petty cash.

Oscar’s not blinking.

Not breathing.

There aren’t enough viable marks left in Monaco. Not the kind that could close this gap. Not unless he sells a kidney or takes a second passport and flees to Jakarta.

He grips the stem of his glass, knuckles white.

Max sips his champagne without a glance in his direction.

Lando’s flipping between betting apps and Instagram, humming something tuneless and smug.

Oscar stares at the numbers again.

He can’t lose. Not again.

He was flawless.

Oscar slams his tablet down on the table.

Not hard. Just loud enough to turn heads. Lando jumps. Max doesn’t.

“This isn’t fair,” Oscar snaps.

Max turns to him, still maddeningly calm. “It’s just a game.”

“No,” Oscar says, breath hitching. “It’s not just a game . You can’t just—just warp reality in the last three hours and call that strategy.”

“I didn’t cheat,” Max replies evenly.

“You must’ve ,” Oscar says. “There’s no way you pulled twenty-five million in a single hit—”

“I told you I started early, been working on it since January.”

Oscar scoffs. “Then that’s cheating. That’s—pre-loading the score. That’s not what we agreed.”

Lando raises a hand like a white flag. “Okay. Let’s all maybe take a breath—”

“I want a rematch,” Oscar says, wild-eyed now. “Same rules. New sheet. Just me and Max.”

Max sets down his glass.

“Oscar,” he says gently. “You did good.”

Oscar doesn’t answer.

“You were ahead for two whole days ,” Max continues. “No one’s ever gotten that close. You should be proud.”

Oscar swallows hard. He hates that. Hates the way it feels like consolation. Like pity. Hates how true it is.

“You can play again next year,” Max says.

Oscar mutters, almost inaudible: “Yeah, but…”

Max tilts his head. “But?”

Lando, who’s been uncharacteristically quiet, finally speaks.

“Is it because he’s not playing?” he asks.

Oscar looks at him.

“What?”

Lando shrugs, but his voice is low. Careful. “You’re not upset because you lost. You’re upset because this is your last chance to beat him , and now it’s gone.”

Oscar’s face tightens. “That’s not—”

Lando leans in, eyes narrowing. “You don’t see me as a threat. You never did.”

Oscar blinks. “What?”

“You only ever wanted to beat Max,” Lando says, not angry, just tired. “Because he’s the legend. The ghost. You don’t care about me.”

Oscar opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it again.

“No,” he says finally. “That’s not—it’s not like that.”

Lando raises an eyebrow.

Oscar exhales. The words come slow.

“Everyone wants to compete against Max. That’s how you prove yourself. If you can hold your own against him , you know you’re real.”

Max doesn’t interrupt. He just watches.

“And I think,” Oscar finishes, voice quieter now, “I have proven myself.”

Lando stares at him. Then laughs. Once. Sharp. Not cruel, but it hurts anyway.

Oscar turns back to the screen.

Ricciardo’s still leading. Laps ticking down. Monaco coiling in on itself like a joke that ran too long.

Oscar presses his knuckles to his mouth and sits still.

He’s not losing anymore. But it doesn’t feel like winning either.

Oscar doesn’t respond.

He sits there. Still. Watching cars circle a track he doesn’t care about, next to people he’s already halfway resenting. The suite is too bright, too quiet, and suddenly everything feels sharp-edged.

Lando’s words won’t stop echoing.

"You don’t see me as a threat. You never did."

Oscar wants to say that’s not true. But it’s not entirely false either.

He does like competing with Lando. He remembers last year—how they went neck and neck until the final hours. How Lando, for all his chaos and tequila, always managed to pull out some miracle finish. How Oscar came in last, even after all the planning.

It lit something in him.

He’d worked so hard since then. Rebuilt everything from scratch. Wrote the algorithms, prepped the maps, trained his voice to sound older, colder, smoother. He broke himself apart and stitched it back together in angles that matched power and wealth and precision.

And still—he's second.

Because of Max .

Oscar glances at him now. Calm, unreadable Max. The champion. The reason the game exists. The older brother who once wrapped a bleeding hand in a sock and told him, “You’re not made for this. You’re better than us. Stay in school.”

Max paid for his engineering degree.

Told him to stay legit.

Told him don’t follow me and Lando .

And Oscar didn’t listen. Of course he didn’t.

Because this— this life—was what he always wanted.

The thrill. The stakes. The scoreboard. The attention.

But it also meant living in Max’s shadow.

Always.

Because if Lando was effortless charisma, Max was divine execution. The half-god older brother who carried him out of a burning room once and has never let him forget it.

Oscar clenches his jaw.

He doesn’t cry. He doesn’t break.

He just stews —in silence, in memory, in the static hum of second place.

Ricciardo crosses the line. The checkered flag waves. Monaco erupts in polite applause.

Oscar is already on his feet before the race ends. He doesn’t cheer. Doesn’t flinch when Ricciardo crosses the line. He just stands. Cold. Silent. And walks out of the suite like he's got something lethal to prove.

He checks the Sheet again. He scrolls. Scrolls again. Knows what he’s looking for. Sulayem. Still unclaimed. Still a backdoor to victory.

He's doing the math in real-time. His fingers shake. He’s already halfway to the paddock before he realizes his heart is racing. His mind running numbers his body can’t keep up with.

If he cuts through the side access, he might intercept Sulayem’s aides. If he gets one of them alone—no, if he leverages the FIA fund from earlier—no, if he—

“Oscar.”

Lando’s voice stops him.

He turns sharply, like he’s been caught trespassing. Because he has— into territory he knows better than to enter.

Lando steps in front of him, breathing hard.

“You can’t.”

Oscar says nothing. His jaw tightens. Eyes sharp. But Lando’s not afraid of that look. Not anymore.

“I know what you’re trying to do,” Lando says quietly. “But it’s not going to work. ”

Oscar tries to step around him. “Move.”

“Just—just stop for a second,” Lando says, putting a hand on his chest.

Oscar shoves it off. “Why? So you can win ?”

“This isn’t about the game anymore,” Lando says, low and level now. “You’re not okay.”

Oscar falters. Just slightly. That’s all it takes for Lando to gently steer him to the side—into a quieter corridor behind the garages, past a row of storage crates and sponsor tents.

They stand in the shadow of a hospitality trailer, where the noise fades.

Oscar leans against the metal wall like he’s run a marathon.

“I was so close ,” he says, voice barely holding. “I did everything right. I planned. I executed. I was ahead for once. And he still—he still—”

His face is blank but his voice cracks: “I have to try.”

“Try what?” Lando says. “There’s nothing left. It’s done.”

Oscar yanks his arm free. “You don’t get it.”

“Yes, I do,” Lando snaps, sudden heat in his voice. “I do get it. You think I don’t care? I do. But you’re spiraling, man. It’s just a game. ”

Oscar rounds on him. “It’s never just a game.”

Lando flinches.

Oscar presses forward.

“Not for you. Not for me. We don’t play . We survive. We compete. Because it’s the only way we know how to feel like we matter .”

Lando doesn’t speak.

“This—Monaco—this is the only place I feel like I belong ,” Oscar says, voice rising. “The one time of year I’m not just some freak who stares too long and talks too little. I get to win something. I get to be something.”

He looks away, breathing hard.

“And now Max is leaving,” he says. “And you’ll leave too. Because you always do. Everyone always does.”

“Oscar—”

“I’ll be the one left behind. Again.”

It lands like a gut punch. Because it’s not about the money anymore. It never was.

It’s about them .

The game is how they stay connected. The game is how they say they love each other—quietly, violently, competitively.

Oscar’s chest heaves.

Lando just stares at him.

Not angry. Not smug.

Just… sad.

Then, gently: “I’m not leaving you.”

Oscar doesn’t answer.

Oscar doesn’t answer right away.

His voice, when it comes, is quiet. Brittle. “That’s what he said too.”

Lando tilts his head, confused. “Who?”

Oscar looks away. “Max. That night after the fire. When they split us up and I had nowhere to go. He said, ‘I’m not leaving you.’”

Lando flinches. His hand drifts up, unconsciously brushing the thin ridge of a keloid scar on the bridge of his nose—just a ghost of that night, still etched into skin.

“And he didn’t, not technically,” Oscar says. “He paid for the schools. The dorms. Sent me fucking organic trail mix like that was the problem.”

His laugh is hollow. “You sent money too. I know. But none of you called. None of you stayed.”

Lando shifts, uncomfortable.

“I figured my life out alone,” Oscar says. “While Max was building offshore companies and you were charming your way through Europe. I was fourteen. And I didn’t want money. I wanted—”

He breaks off.

Lando doesn’t push.

Oscar swallows hard. “I know we’re older now. I know Max has a family. He has every right. I just… I don’t get why we can’t have this. Why we can’t keep this one thing for us.”

His voice cracks. “Why does growing up always mean growing apart?”

Silence stretches.

Then Lando—softly, painfully honest—says, “I don’t know.”

They stand there. Not winners. Not rivals. Just what’s left of the kids who thought they’d always have each other.

—

When Oscar makes it back to the suite, Max is gone.

So is Lando.

The champagne has gone flat. The screens are off. The pit lane below is being broken down piece by piece—mechanics and millionaires and hangers-on all dissolving into the Monaco twilight.

Oscar just stands there for a second, staring at the half-empty table like it might give him answers.

It doesn’t.

He checks his phone. No messages.

No one waited.

And that familiar feeling curls back in—low and cold and ancient. The kind of aloneness that doesn’t come from being abandoned. It comes from being expected to survive it.

To be fair to Max, he did warn him.

Back when he first joined the game—fresh-faced, sharper than he should’ve been, full of ideas and reasons and plans. Max looked him dead in the eye and said, "this life doesn’t come with trust. It comes with profit margins. And if you’re lucky—if you’re very lucky—it comes with tradition."

Now he gets it. The game. The rules. The sovereign clause. None of it meant security.

It was just scaffolding for the loneliness.

—

The walk back through the paddock feels endless. People are everywhere—laughing, crying, posing for photos, pretending to care about results they didn’t bet on.

Oscar moves like a ghost among them. Unseen. Uninvited.

The game starts with a dinner and ends with a dinner. Same restaurant. Same stupid, glittering view. Same seat facing the bay.

Oscar doesn't know how Max does it—how he gets this table on a race night, during the most oversubscribed weekend on the planet. Doesn't ask.

Because it doesn’t matter.

He sits. The seat is still warm. Max got there first.

Of course he did.

Oscar exhales—bone-deep. Not angry. Not bitter. Just… exhausted.

Like this was always the ending.

They sit across from each other like it’s a standoff.

But it’s not.

It’s just sad.

Oscar leans back in his chair, arms folded, staring Max down like he’s waiting for the verdict.

Max—Max looks like he’s about to speak three separate times. Opens his mouth. Closes it. Looks away. Tries again. Fails.

Oscar doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t move. But the look in his eyes says go on, then. Say it. I dare you.

The fourth time, Max doesn’t try to talk. He just pulls out his phone. Slides it across the table.

Oscar glances down.

A photo. A new one.

Max, in the middle, blurry and off-guard, wearing some cartoon tiara. A little girl—Penelope—sits next to him, clearly thrilled, pouring invisible tea into plastic cups. A baby—Lily—nestled in his arms, asleep and impossibly tiny.

There’s another photo. Penelope grinning, holding a sign with glitter glue letters: WELCOME HOME LILY.

Max clears his throat, like it physically costs him something.

“P’s six now,” he says quietly. “Loves tea parties. Pretends she’s royalty. She kept saying she wanted a sister. And when Lily came, it was like—like she’d been waiting for her this whole time.”

Oscar doesn’t interrupt. Doesn’t blink.

Max exhales slowly. “They make sense to me. I don’t know how, but they do.”

He lifts his eyes.

“You’d both make good uncles, you know,” Max says. “You and Lando.”

There’s no performance in it. No angle. Just something vulnerable and half-raw.

“The girls would love you,” he adds. “Eventually. Once it’s safe.”

Oscar looks at the phone again. The image still glowing between them like a truce.

He doesn’t smile.

But he doesn’t look away either.

Oscar stares down at the photo for another beat before sliding the phone back across the table.

“I’m sorry,” he says, voice low. Honest. “You did a great job. Like always.”

Max doesn’t say anything, just watches him.

Oscar shakes his head, a small, crooked smile tugging at his mouth. “I planned for everything. I was ahead. I ran the numbers a thousand ways and I still couldn’t beat you.”

“You almost did,” Max offers, quietly.

Oscar huffs. “Almost doesn’t count here.”

A pause.

Then Oscar looks up—really looks at him.

“I’ll miss this,” he says. “Next year. I’ll miss you.”

Max’s jaw tightens.

Oscar adds, soft: “But I get it. If you’re stepping away… you’ve earned that.”

And Max—he nods. Just once. Quiet. Like he’s accepting a medal and mourning it at the same time.

Then—

The door slams open.

“YOU’RE NOT GOING ANYWHERE,” Lando yells, bursting into the restaurant like a high-speed crash in human form.

Both Max and Oscar flinch.

Lando’s holding something above his head, waving it like a trophy.

It’s a watch .

A big, gaudy, absolutely unmistakable gold watch.

Oscar blinks. “No—”

Lando’s grin is feral. “Yes.”

He slams it onto the table with a dramatic flourish.

“SULAYEM,” he crows. “I GOT HIM.”

Oscar stares in disbelief. “That’s… that’s the watch?”

Max’s eyes are wide. “You’re kidding.”

“Do I look like I’m kidding?” Lando beams, breathless. “Do you know how hard it is to pickpocket a guy with fifty security guards and a ceremonial sword?”

Max picks up the watch slowly, as if expecting it to explode. It’s unmistakable—custom, FIA logo engraved on the back, tacky in a way only Sulayem can afford.

“Oh my god,” Oscar breathes.

Lando throws himself into the third chair like a conquering warlord. “Sovereign clause, baby. That means I win.”

He’s glowing. Disheveled. Euphoric.

Max blinks at him. “You weren’t even—how did you—”

Lando points at Oscar without missing a beat. “ He distracted security.”

Oscar’s mouth falls open. “That wasn’t on purpose!”

“Still counts,” Lando sings. “Clean overtake.”

There’s a stunned silence.

Then Max leans back, exhales slowly, and starts to laugh.

Not a chuckle.

A laugh .

Deep, resigned, helpless.

Oscar watches him, then joins in—shaking his head, dizzy with the madness of it all.

Lando? Lando just sits back smugly, sipping from someone else’s water glass like it’s champagne.

Outside, the bay glitters like nothing ever happened.

Inside, three idiots grin like they’ve finally remembered what this was all about.