The podium ceremony was surreal. Marco stood on the top step, holding a cheap plastic trophy that probably cost less than the fuel he'd burned during the race. Alessandro Bruni was on his right, professional and gracious in defeat, though his jaw was tight. On the left was Pellegrini, looking confused about how he'd ended up behind someone in a rental kart.
The small crowd applauded. A local official made a speech about sportsmanship and dedication that Marco barely heard. Someone took photos. Elena was there with her camera, capturing everything.
But Marco's eyes kept finding Tedesco, who was now off the phone and speaking with a woman in a sharp business suit. They both looked at Marco, nodded to each other, and then the woman left, typing something on her phone as she walked.
When the ceremony ended and Marco climbed down from the podium, Tedesco was waiting.
"Congratulations," he said simply. "That was impressive driving."
"Thank you."
"The call I made was to Valentina Rossi. She runs the Apex Academy—the development program I mentioned. She's interested in meeting you."
Marco's throat went dry. "When?"
"Thursday. In England." Tedesco handed him a folder. "Flight information, hotel reservation, everything you'll need. The meeting is at 10 AM. Don't be late."
"England. Thursday. That's—" Marco's mind raced. "That's four days from now."
"Yes. Is that a problem?"
A problem. Four days to convince his father to let him fly to another country to chase a dream Giuseppe had spent twenty years trying to kill. Four days to arrange travel, to prepare, to somehow become the kind of person who got invited to things in England.
"No," Marco lied. "No problem."
Tedesco's expression suggested he knew it was a lie but chose not to challenge it. "Good. One more thing—the academy is selective. Very selective. They see hundreds of candidates every year and accept perhaps ten. You'll be tested on everything: fitness, technical knowledge, race craft, mental resilience. Raw talent got you this meeting. Everything else will determine if you stay."
"I understand."
"I hope you do." Tedesco extended his hand. "Good luck, Marco Venturi. I'll be curious to see what you do with this opportunity."
Then he was gone, leaving Marco holding a folder that weighed almost nothing and somehow felt heavier than any tool he'd ever held.
Luca appeared at his elbow. "What did he say? Please tell me it's good news. Your face says it might be good news."
Marco handed him the folder. Luca opened it, his eyes going wide.
"England? Thursday? Marco, this is—this is insane. This is incredible. This is—" He paused. "Your dad is going to lose his mind."
"Yeah."
"Like genuinely, completely lose his mind."
"I know."
They stood there for a moment, watching the paddock slowly empty. Families packing up their expensive karts, loading them into expensive trucks, heading back to their expensive lives. Marco's rental kart sat abandoned in the pit area, probably already scheduled for its next user.
"You should go home," Luca said quietly. "Talk to him. Better to do it now than wait."
Marco nodded but didn't move. Going home meant confronting Giuseppe. Confronting meant choosing. And choosing meant accepting that everything was about to change, one way or another.
Elana found them before they could leave. "Marco Venturi, champion. Can I get a quote for the article?"
"I don't know what to say."
"Try the truth. How does this feel?"
Marco looked at the trophy in his hands, at the folder with the plane ticket, at the track where he'd just done the impossible.
"It feels like standing on the edge of something," he said finally. "Like looking down from a height and knowing you have to jump, but you can't see the bottom."
Elena smiled. "That's perfect. Don't change." She handed him a business card. "Call me if you need anything. Or if you just want to talk. This world—racing, professional sports, all of it—it can be overwhelming. It helps to have someone who understands the story behind the stats."
Marco took the card. Elana Marchesi, journalist. But the way she'd said it made it sound like something more. An offering of alliance, maybe, or just recognition that he was about to need all the friends he could get.
The drive back to Castellana felt longer than the morning's bike ride. Luca drove, Marco silent in the passenger seat, the trophy on his lap catching sunlight through the window.
"You know," Luca said as they descended from the mountains, "whatever happens with your dad, whatever happens in England—you won today. Nobody can take that away. You beat them all."
"I know."
"Do you? Because you look like someone heading to a funeral, not someone who just became champion."
Marco didn't have a good answer for that. Yes, he'd won. Yes, he'd proven something. But the winning had opened a door he couldn't close, had set in motion events he couldn't control. And on the other side of that door was his father, waiting in a garage that suddenly felt like a prison he'd been trying to escape his entire life.
Luca dropped him at the edge of town, where the main road met the narrow street that led to Venturi Auto Repair. Marco got out with his trophy and his folder and his racing suit that smelled like fuel and sweat and victory.
"Good luck," Luca said. "Call me after. Or during. Or if you need an escape route."
The garage came into view as Marco walked down the street. Sunday afternoon, but the bay door was open. Giuseppe was inside, bent over an engine, working even though the shop was officially closed. Always working.
Marco paused at the entrance. The trophy suddenly felt absurd in his hands, a child's toy in a place of serious work.
Giuseppe looked up. His expression went through several stages—surprise, confusion, recognition of what the trophy meant, and finally something harder to read. Not anger, exactly. Something colder.
"So," Giuseppe said, setting down his wrench with careful precision. "You won."
"Yes."
"In Montebello. The championship I told you not to enter."
"Yes."
Giuseppe wiped his hands on a rag, that automatic gesture Marco had seen thousand times. "Come inside. We need to talk."
The garage office was small and cluttered with paperwork, catalogs, invoices dating back years. Giuseppe sat behind the desk that had belonged to Marco's grandfather. Marco stood, still holding the trophy because there was nowhere to put it down that felt right.
"I know you're angry," Marco began.
"Angry." Giuseppe said the word like he was testing its weight. "No, Marco. Angry is when you forget to lock up. Angry is when you break a tool. This—" He gestured at the trophy, at Marco, at everything. "This is something else."
"Papa—"
"Let me speak." Giuseppe's voice was quiet but had the force of stone. "When your uncle Stefano died, I was there. Did you know that? I was at that race. I watched him crash. Watched the ambulance, the hospital, all of it. He died three days later, and do you know what his last words to me were?"
Marco shook his head.
"He said 'It was worth it.' Three days of pain, knowing he was dying, leaving behind debts and broken promises and a family that had begged him to stop. And he said it was worth it." Giuseppe's hands were trembling slightly. "I've spent twenty years trying to make sure you never understood what he meant. Trying to keep you safe from that kind of madness."
"I'm not Uncle Stefano."
"No. You're better than he was. That's what terrifies me." Giuseppe pulled something from his desk drawer—an old photograph. He slid it across. "That's me. Twenty-three years old. Motorcycle racing championship."
Marco picked up the photo. A younger Giuseppe, lean and intense, standing next to a racing bike, holding a trophy not unlike the one Marco held now.
"I was good," Giuseppe continued. "Really good. Had offers, opportunities. And then Stefano died, and I realized something—the people who make it in racing, who actually succeed, they're not the most talented. They're the ones who can afford to fail. The ones with money, with connections, with safety nets. Everyone else? They're just fuel for the machine."
"Things have changed—"
"Nothing has changed!" Giuseppe's voice rose for the first time, then fell again, controlled. "You think because you won a local championship, because some ex-driver showed interest, that you're different? Marco, I've seen this story. I've lived this story. You'll sacrifice everything—your education, your future, your family—chasing something that's designed to chew you up and spit you out."
Marco set down the trophy on the desk, reached for the folder. "I have a meeting. In England. Thursday. A driver development academy wants to see me."
Giuseppe took the folder, opened it, read the information. His expression didn't change, but something in his eyes dimmed.
"England," he said finally. "And what happens when you don't make it? When they tell you you're not good enough, or you're too old, or you don't have the right background? What do you come back to? A career you abandoned? A father you defied?"
"Then I lose you to something that will never love you back." Giuseppe closed the folder, pushed it across the desk. "This is your choice, Marco. I won't stop you. You're twenty years old, an adult. But I won't support it either. You go to England, you chase this dream—you do it alone. No money from me, no safety net, no coming back when it gets hard."
The ultimatum hung in the air between them. Marco had expected anger, expected a fight. This cold finality was somehow worse.
"You're asking me to choose between you and racing."
"I'm asking you to choose between a life and a fantasy." Giuseppe stood. "I've said what I needed to say. The decision is yours."
He walked out the office, back to the engine he'd been working on, back to the real and tangible work of fixing things that were broken.
Marco stood alone in the office, trophy in one hand, folder in the other, feeling like he was being torn in half.
His phone buzzed. A message from Elena: Article goes live tomorrow. Tried to be fair. Hope it helps.
Another message, from a number he didn't recognize: This is Valentina Rossi from Apex Academy. Looking forward to meeting you Thursday. Your performance today was noted.
Marco looked at the trophy. Then at the folder. Then through the office window at his father, who was working with his back turned, shoulders tight with tension and disappointment.
Twenty years Giuseppe had spent building this garage, building a life, trying to protect his son from the thing that had killed his brother. Twenty years of sacrifice and work and love expressed through oil changes and careful lessons and fears that Marco had never fully understood.
And Marco was about to throw it all away for a dream that might be just as impossible as his father believed.
But standing in that office, watching Giuseppe work, Marco realized something. His father had made a choice twenty years ago—safety over passion, survival over dreams. It had been the right choice for Giuseppe.
It wasn't the right choice for Marco.
He picked up his phone and typed a message to Valentina Rossi: I'll be there. Thank you for the opportunity.
"Papa," Marco said. "I'm going to England."
Giuseppe's hands stilled on the engine, just for a moment. Then continued working.
"I love you," Marco added. "And I'm sorry."
Giuseppe said nothing. Just kept working, because work was what he did, what he'd always done, what Marco was now choosing to leave behind.
Marco went upstairs to the small apartment above the garage, to his room that still had posters from when he was fourteen, and started figuring out how to pack a life into a suitcase and board a plane to a future that terrified and thrilled him in equal measure.
Outside, the sun was setting over the mountains. The garage light stayed on below, the sound of tools on metal a steady rhythm that had been the soundtrack of Marco's entire life.
Soon, that rhythm would fade into memory, replaced by the scream of engines and the roar of crowds and the thousand sounds of a world Marco had only ever dreamed about.
If he was lucky.
If he was good enough.
If his father was wrong about everything.
Marco looked at the trophy one more time, then set it on his shelf next to a collection of small things that had once seemed important—model cars, old photographs, certificates from school.
Thursday couldn't come fast enough, and couldn't come slow enough.
Everything was about to change.