Race With a Heart
Chapter 160: No Secret Remains a Secret Forever

Chapter 160: No Secret Remains a Secret Forever

"Where...?" Don stammered. "Where did this idea come from?"

"Answer!" Martin demanded.

"Will you believe me if I say ’no’?"

"I will believe you."

It wasn’t an empty promise on Martin’s part. Alston may have rebounded due to hormones, but the thirst for sexual pleasure is quite different from the plotting between GP2 drivers. He had neither the capacity nor the resources to do so. And the motive? Someone like Don might not have been the nicest man, but he was always fair in sports. So if Don tells him he has nothing to do with Steve’s case, Martin will believe him.

"Shit, Martin!"

Two simple words and the tone Alston spoke them in were enough. Martin felt an unpleasant pressure in his dimple.

"So you have something to do with this ?!" It wasn’t quite a question. Don’s evasions convinced Martin that Alston was indeed involved in the case. "If you denied it, I would really believe you. At least you did not lie."

Fear and the self-preservation instinct are really powerful forces, but at this point, Don Alston was standing between Scylla and Charybdis, and every exit was equally dangerous for him. Not knowing what to choose, he chose to remain silent.

For Martin, however, the silent confirmation from Don was not enough.

"Why?" he asked feeling anger and despair overwhelm him. He could forgive Don’s wrongs toward him without a problem, but the fact that someone had hurt his Steve... "Steve didn’t do anything wrong to you. Why did you abuse him?"

"I... had to perform on the track. It was just like with you. I had to..."

"There are other ways!" Martina was seized with rage and... despair. "Didn’t you even care that you hurt Steve? That you really hurt him? You thought what you were doing didn’t make any impression on him ?! Christ, Don!"

"It’s okay, Martin, it’s okay" out of nowhere, surprising them both, Jack Lambert appeared and put his hand on Martin’s shoulder. The boy shuddered and looked at him, but noticed that there was someone else standing a few paces away, someone Martin had not expected.

"Steve ..."

Paxton stood still. His face seemed to be carved in white marble, which made a rather ghastly impression with his dark hair. But his eyes were truly terrible, the expression of which could frighten the bravest of people.

Martin was terrified too. Steve heard their conversation, found out that his assumptions were not unfounded. Now he was standing face to face with the man who had caused him so much suffering, and why? Because he wanted to perform on the track.

"So what am I going to do with you now, Don?"

***

It was all one great absurdity that had no right to exist. Steve was looking at Martin, he was looking at Don, and he couldn’t believe his eyes or his ears.

Paxton had a brief phone call with Jack that morning. The men decided to talk face to face about what Alston had done. They also felt they had to let Karl know about everything, because it was about the safety and reputation of the stable. After all, they couldn’t let Don, who was a threat to his friend and sexually harassed him, not suffer any consequences for it.

Jack and Steve met in the parking lot. As they talked, they noticed Martin and Don standing nearby. The sight of these men annoyed both Paxton and Lambert. They were both convinced that Alston was trying to convince Martin to keep it quiet. They walked towards them and heard Don’s first confession. A admission in which he confessed that someone had done to him exactly what he intended to do to Martin.

Steve immediately stopped as if his legs had been digged into the ground. Jack took two steps forward, noticed Paxton stop, turned, and returned.

"What is the matter?" Lambert asked.

Steve grabbed his jacket, suggesting that he stay. He himself couldn’t take his eyes off Alston.

Jack realized that Steve wanted to hear everything without disturbing his colleagues. Lambert had a problem with it, he didn’t want to eavesdrop, but actually Steve and Jack weren’t hiding anywhere, they were completely visible, only the other two, busy talking, didn’t pay attention to them.

The moment Martin asked about Don’s involvement in the anti-Paxton action, Jack shuddered. Busy talking, the boys still didn’t know Steve was hearing them.

He hears every single word of them.

Steve should probably be furious at this point. He should have lunged at Don and talked out of his sick ambition, but... he couldn’t. There was no anger in him, there was... nothing in him. This boy was twenty, maybe twenty-one. As much as Martin. They were very young adults who were starting to face this world. Steve wasn’t much older than them, but the experiences of his life in his own mind made him old at times.

Maybe Steve was old enough, because he couldn’t understand the generation that was entering adulthood. One kid blamed Steve for not being able to go on a trip to Switzerland and considered that reason enough for him and his buddies to beat up Paxton and try to kill him, the other kid instead of working hard for a chance went so far as to get dirty on the track to remove an obstacle to the advancement of his career. He did not care that the obstacle was a living man.

The first boy was waiting for a trial in a juvenile court and, due to the nature of the crime committed, the prosecutor will demand full sentence, and the second ...

"So what am I going to do with you now, Don?" Steve asked in a calm, expressionless voice, but the question sounded heavy, like a tombstone.

The boy stared at him terrified. He must have remembered the fury with which Steve had beaten him. He had to remember the strength of these blows.

"Steve, I ..."

Alston was really scared. He was pale, his tongue tangled, and his legs seemed to buckle under him. His eyes were filled with tears.

"I’m asking seriously, Don, tell me what am I going to do with you now?" Steve repeated. "Do you think I’m a generous enough person to forgive you? Would you forgive me?"

"The old me would never forgive you," admitted Alston shakily. "But now I’m a completely new man ..."

"Really?"

Now something began to move in Steve’s heart. It was something very unpleasant. It looked like a gigantic snake asleep and began to move its coils and spread its wings. It wasn’t just a snake, it was a huge black dragon.

"You gave someone your ass and you think you’re a completely different person? Everything has been forgiven and forgotten because you have gone through a purifying initiation? Is it so easy for you?"

The dragon moved faster, more restlessly. He opened his mouth and gasped as he prepared to spit the flames out of his mouth. The flames were already in his eyes. Through those flames, Steve could see Alston’s dim, hazy or obscured by smoke figure.

"Steve ..."

The familiar, wonderfully beautiful voice broke into Paxton’s ears, and a clear, dear face, the face of a person whom he valued above his own life began to break through the blurred image in front of his eyes.

"Steve ..." that face repeated, and suddenly Paxton saw only her. There were no more flames, no more rising dragon, but Steve shivered at the thought that he might appear if he saw Alston now.

"Let’s get out of here," he said, taking Martin by the wrist and leading him towards his car. The boy followed him obediently, without a word.

After a dozen paces, Paxton realized his grip was very tight. He slowed his pace, looked back at Martin’s wrist, and slowly, with difficulty, loosened his grip.

"Sorry," he said. "Are you okay?"

"I’m fine," confirmed Martin, although his wrist was clearly red. "And you?"

"It will be fine. Thanks to you."

Martin smiled with relief.

"You know what you’re going to do with Don?" he asked Paxton.

Steve shook his head.

"What can I do with him?" He asked. "If you hadn’t stopped me I would probably have broken his nose and jaw, but now that my rage is over, what can I do to him?"

"I don’t know... Maybe you can accuse him of giving bribes, unsportsmanlike behavior ..."

Steve shook his head again.

"If Fergus’s Stable challenges the investigative committee’s earlier decisions, we’ll be in trouble. Drivers from different stables were involved in the whole matter. Do you have any idea what a scandal might break out about it? This case won’t do us any good, neither to me nor to the Fergus Stables. "

"So what?" Martin asked. "I don’t understand anything? Don broke the ethics of sports, bribed athletes from other stables to prevent you from winning the race and even endanger your health and life and... nothing? No punishment for him? Now I wish I hadn’t stopped you. He deserved a decent beating. "