Chapter 28 The Paddock Break
Kian immediately stepped forward, placing himself slightly between Rhys and me, though his tone was professional and conciliatory.
"Rhys, hey. We were just finishing up," Kian said, gesturing toward the screen. "Ellie just found us two hundredths in Sector 3 with a diffuser adjustment. She's a miracle worker. We need to implement this before the car hits the track."
Rhys didn't move an inch. His eyes, fixed on me, were colder than the Monaco sea. "I heard you, Hayes. My team's telemetry is more than capable of confirming Doctor Winslow’s findings."
He finally acknowledged Kian, but only to dismiss him. "The strategist role does not extend to direct collaboration with the drivers, and certainly not outside of designated review periods. Your data is being processed, Hayes. You have five minutes until your briefing."
Kian frowned, sensing the tension. "Wait, what? We're partners on this, Rhys. She's the one who sees the pattern. You know that. It's about getting the absolute maximum from the car, and she's integral to that right now."
"She is integral to Apex's unassailable margin," Rhys stated, stepping fully into the room. He ignored Kian’s attempted appeal to logic. He walked past Kian as if the younger man were furniture, stopping directly beside me. The possessive heat that had been absent all morning returned, radiating off him in a dangerous wave.
He lifted my laptop from the table, closing the lid with a decisive snap that echoed in the silent bunker. He placed the computer under his arm.
"The analysis is finished," Rhys told me, his gaze dropping to my mouth before snapping back to my eyes. "The collaboration is terminated. Effective immediately. You are needed."
Kian’s voice rose, edged with genuine annoyance now. "Needed for what? To stand in your office? That's ridiculous, Rhys. You're pulling her out in the middle of a crucial setup tweak over procedure?"
Rhys turned his head slowly, leveling a look at Kian that was pure, undisguised CEO fury—amplified by the night’s trauma.
"You may be a driver, Hayes, but you do not dictate my operational structure. Doctor Winslow is my employee. Her value is determined by my parameters, not yours," Rhys said, his voice dangerously soft. He didn't wait for a response.
He reached out, his large, hot hand closing around the bare skin of my wrist. The touch was not rough, but it was undeniable: an explicit, physical claim of ownership.
"We're leaving, Ellie."
I pulled my arm back slightly, but his grip was immutable. I looked at Kian, who looked genuinely shocked and confused by Rhys’s blatant, public display of territorial control. Kian only saw the ruthless boss sabotaging his own team out of sheer, jealous ego. He certainly didn't see the volatile, complicated hatred I recognized in the grip around my wrist—the feeling that Rhys would rather destroy everything than let me be free.
"Rhys, I can stay and confirm the data," I insisted, my voice tight, forcing myself to stand my ground one last time.
"No," he clipped, his eyes giving me a silent, iron-clad warning: Do not argue here. Do not make me show you how much control I truly possess.
He began to pull me toward the door. I had made my statement; I had risked his wrath. Now, to avoid a spectacular public collapse in the middle of the paddock, I had to comply.
As we reached the door, Rhys paused and looked back at Kian, who was still standing by the screen, slack-jawed.
"Good luck with your briefing, Hayes," Rhys said, his tone dripping with cold triumph.
Then, he hauled me out of the data bunker and back into the labyrinthine chaos of the Monaco paddock. My wrist was still buzzing where his hand had been, and the full, terrifying weight of his possessive rage was now wrapped around my professional life.
Rhys didn't slow down. He marched through the narrow corridors of the paddock with the rigid, controlled fury of a man forcing his body to obey a psychotic command. His grip on my wrist was not painful, but the physical constraint was absolute, hauling me through the throngs of mechanics, engineers, and media personnel.
The Monaco paddock, usually a whirlwind of focused, clinical efficiency, dissolved into a canvas of shocked faces and whispering speculation as we passed. A cluster of journalists from a rival Italian newspaper immediately snapped photos. I felt their gazes—sharp, intrusive, and delighted. They didn't see the depth of his psychotic control; they saw the Apex CEO, Rhys Vance, openly and violently asserting ownership over his female employee, sabotaging his own team in a fit of rage. This spectacle was a gift to his enemies. By hauling me through the paddock like a captive, he was handing them authentic, high-resolution evidence for their campaign. The sheer, destructive scope of his emotional break paralyzed me more than the grip on my wrist.
The humiliation was a hot, stinging mask across my face. My careful professional armor, the black suit and disciplined hair, meant nothing when pinned next to Rhys’s towering, possessive fury. I was reduced to a prop, a symbol of his territorial claim, forcing every onlooker to acknowledge that I was his to command and his to remove.
The air was thick with the smell of high-octane fuel and sweat, but all I registered was Rhys’s strained, shallow breathing right beside my ear. His body was a column of granite, his shoulders rigid, every muscle corded beneath the thin material of his shirt. He was fighting for control, and failing. The raw, irrational emotion guiding him was a jarring, terrifying contrast to the clinical precision of the Formula 1 environment, and I realized with sickening clarity the massive professional risk he was taking purely out of spite and rage.
I tried once to pull my wrist free. "Rhys, let go," I hissed, my voice barely penetrating the noise of the power tools. "You are making a spectacle."
He tightened his grip, pulling me around a stack of fresh tires with brutal efficiency. "That's the point, Doctor Winslow," he murmured, his voice tight and dangerous. "Let everyone in this paddock know that you answer to me, and only me. Let them know what happens when you attempt to betray the parameters of your employment."