Chapter 25: Consequences
The silence after her words was a void, sucking all the sound from the room. Sergio stared at her, the hope in his eyes so raw it was painful. Then the door to the strategy room opened again.
Enzo stood there, his expression carved from granite. The paternal frustration from earlier was gone, replaced by something colder, infinitely more dangerous.
“Get out, Sergio,” Enzo said. His voice didn’t rise. It was flat, final.
“What?” Sergio’s hands were still on Alma’s waist.
“You heard me. Out. Now. Go to your driver’s room. Cool off. We’re done for the night.”
Sergio’s protectiveness flared. “I’m not leaving her.”
“She works for me, not you,” Enzo snapped. “And you’ve done enough. The photo of you and the Italian journalist’s wife is currently trending in three time zones. You promised me, no more scandals before Monaco. You swore. And now this.” He gestured vaguely at the room, at Alma’s state of undress. “This is exactly the kind of careless bullshit I’m tired of cleaning up. You’re a child with a fucking race car.”
Sergio flinched. The public scandal was a vulnerable point, a mark against the pristine focus he was supposed to embody. “That’s not— This is different.”
“It’s all the same. You take what you want and expect me to make the world okay with it.” Enzo stepped fully into the room, his presence expanding to fill the space. “Go. Now. Or I call the team principal and recommend medical leave for exhaustion. Try winning from your couch.”
The threat was nuclear. Sergio’s career, his entire identity, balanced on Enzo’s willingness to navigate the politics. Sergio looked at Alma, a silent apology in his eyes. He was helpless.
“It’s fine,” Alma said quietly, pulling her discarded blouse against her chest. Her voice was steadier than she felt. “Go.”
Sergio dressed with furious, jerky movements. He shot Enzo a look of pure hatred as he passed, but he left. The door hissed shut behind him.
The silence he left was heavier. Alma felt exposed, not just physically. Enzo didn’t look at her. He walked to the table, picked up the champagne bottle, and studied the label.
“He’s in love with you,” Enzo stated, pouring himself another glass. “Pathetically. It makes him weak.”
“I don’t think—” she began.
“I didn’t ask for your thoughts.” He took a sip. “He’s a liability to himself right now. You’ve become a variable I can’t control. And I hate uncontrolled variables.”
He finally turned his gaze on her. It wasn’t lust she saw. It was calculation. A dark, simmering intent. “You think you know what this world is. You don’t. It’s not champagne and podiums. It’s consumption. You are either the consumer or the consumed. Sergio would consume you and spit out the bones, wondering where you went.”
“And you?” The question left her before she could stop it.
A slow, mirthless smile touched his lips. “I’m here to teach. He needs to learn the cost of his appetites. He needs to see what it looks like when something he wants is taken apart in front of him.” He set the glass down. “Take off the blouse.”
Ice flooded her veins. “Mr. Bellini—”
“Enzo. And I’m not asking.” The calm in his voice was terrifying. “Consider it a professional development seminar. Lesson one: you are not special. You are a convenience. A clever, pretty convenience. Now take it off, or I will have security escort you from the paddock and void your contract for insubordination.”
Her mind raced, clawing for a foothold. There was none. The contract was ironclad, the confidentiality clauses immense. He could end her career with a phone call. Hands trembling with a humiliating tremor, she let the blouse slip from her fingers. It whispered to the floor.
“Good.” He unknotted his tie, pulling it off with a slow, deliberate drag. “On the table. Bend over it. Just like you were for him.”
“Please.” The word was a breath.
“Now.”
Her legs moved as if belonging to someone else. The polished surface was cold against her bare stomach. She heard the rustle of his clothes, the clink of his belt buckle.
“He thinks love is a feeling,” Enzo said, his voice closer now. A large, warm hand settled on the small of her back, possessive and firm. “It’s not. It’s a transaction. He doesn’t know how to pay.” His other hand gripped her hip, his fingers digging in. “You’ll understand by the end of this.”
She felt the blunt, thick press of him against her. He wasn’t hard, not fully, but he was massive. A sob caught in her throat. She wasn’t ready. Her body was clenched tight with fear.
“No,” she whimpered, trying to straighten, to push back.
His hand on her back pressed down, inexorable. “Yes.”
He pushed. The stretch was immediate, agonizing. A dry, burning撕裂. She cried out, a sharp, animal sound of pain.
“Stop! It hurts, please, stop!” Her fingers scrambled against the slick table, finding no purchase.
He laughed, a low, ugly rumble. He didn’t stop. He pushed deeper, an inexorable, brutal invasion. “I know it hurts. That’s the point. Look at the door. Look.”
Tears blurred her vision. She turned her head. The door’s rectangular window. Sergio’s face was there, white with shock, his fists clenched. He was watching.
“He can see you,” Enzo hissed into her ear, his body lodged deep inside her, stretching her unbearably. “He can see every tear. He can’t help you. This is the cost of his mistake. You are the cost.”
He began to move. Short, vicious thrusts that made her gasp with each one. The friction was searing. She wept openly, her body fighting his, her muscles clamping in protest. She felt raw, split open.
“Such a tight little cunt,” Enzo grunted, his pace increasing marginally. “Fighting me. Good. Fight. It’s better.”
Her pleas dissolved into fractured sobs. The horror of it, the violation, was absolute. Sergio’s agonized stare from the window was a second violation. Yet, beneath the pain, a traitorous heat began to spark. Her body, stressed beyond reason, began to lubricate. It was a biological betrayal that filled her with shame.
Enzo felt it. He groaned, his rhythm losing its jagged edge, finding a smoother, deeper stroke. “There it is. There’s the wetness. Your body’s smarter than you are. It knows what it’s for.”
Her crying softened into ragged moans. The pain was shifting, mutating into a shocking, dense pleasure. Her hips twitched, a minute movement she didn’t command.
“Feel that?” he mocked, driving into her with renewed force. Now she was wet, and the slide was filthy, obscene. “You’re taking me. All of me. Deeper than he’s ever been. Your cunt is dripping for it. Look at him. Let him see you take it.”
She couldn’t help it. Her eyes met Sergio’s through the glass. The devastation on his face mirrored her own. But her body was moving now, meeting Enzo’s thrusts, a low moan building in her throat.
“That’s it,” Enzo rasped, his hands gripping her like a vice. “Moan for me. Let him hear you. Tell me you want it.”
“I…I…” She couldn’t form the lie or the truth.
He slammed into her, hitting a place that made her vision fizz. “Say it.”
“I want it,” she gasped, the words ripped from her. “Oh god, please.”
Enzo laughed, the sound triumphant and cruel. He pounded into her, his balls slapping against her, the table rattling. She was mindless, a creature of sensation, her orgasm detonating without warning—a convulsive, shameful wave of pleasure that wracked her as she screamed into the polished wood.
He followed instantly, grinding deep as he came, a harsh groan expelled against her neck. He stayed there, buried inside her, for a long moment. Then he pulled out.
He dressed in silence. Alma slid from the table, her legs buckling. She caught herself on a chair, trembling violently.
Enzo tucked his shirt in, smoothed his hair. He looked at Sergio, still frozen at the window, and gave a small, cold smile. Then he looked at Alma.
“Clean yourself up. Media pen at nine. Be professional.” He walked to the door, opened it. Sergio was gone from the window. “And Alma?” he said, pausing. “Welcome to the big leagues.”
He left. She was alone with the smell of sex, cigar smoke, and her own shattered understanding of what she was.