FORTY NINE

"Well you were definitely not who I was expecting to see."

A dark cold voice spoke in surprise, a smirk stitched on to their face which showed no sign of disappearing.

"To what do I owe you the pleasure?"

"You have to leave Larissa alone. She doesn't need you in her life."

Andre Santos shook his head from side to side, a chuckle leaving his throat whilst his eyes seemed to light up in glee.

"She doesn't need you either." André shot a wink to the person opposite him, seeing how they did not back or shrink away from his cold glare.

"You murdered her father."

Max Verstappen glared the old man down angrily, his brows furrowed together in to a scowl whilst his eyes narrowed in to slits, his arms folded across his chest tightly.

"And you slept with her whilst she was drunk." André chuckled in glee, noticing how the Dutch man's face faltered as he seemed to know exactly what had happened.

"H-how did you know that?"

André shrugged his shoulders nonchantly with his bottom lip extruding outwards slightly.

"I know a lot of people, Maxie." Andre grinned, seeing the Verstappen boy clench his jaw in an attempt to hold himself back.

"I made a mistake." Max spoke in defiance. "And I will spend my life trying to make up for it. Whereas you, all you want to do is to escape and cause harm to her for no fucking reason."

"That's where you're wrong." Andre glanced down at his lap sadly, a single tear falling down his cheek.

"What? You want to make up for it?" Max frowned, leaning forwards across the table slightly.

"No." Andre lifted his head back up to lock eyes with the Dutch boy. "I had a reason. Money."

"You killed Luiz and tried to kill Larissa for money? Are you for real?" Max glared at the ageing man, clenching his fists tightly ready to punch him.

"Her father was loaded, and she inherited all of it. Which means that she is loaded." The Santos man leant back in to his chair, noticing in happiness that the boy in front of him was getting increasingly riled up.

"You killed the father of an eight year old child!" Max yelled, slamming his fist down to the table in disgust.

"And? What's your point? Are you here trying to defend her honor? Trying to get in to her good books? Or her pants?" Andre laughed loudly, his tone mockingly.

"I care about her! All I want is for you to leave her alone!" Max raised his voice even more with anger, hate and aggression bursting out from his lips.

"Get that Leclerc boy here and maybe I'll consider it, since he is so obviously the one who loves her properly."

Max found his eyes widening at the realisation of what the Cohen girls grandfather was saying and implying, his mouth slightly dropping open.

He had known that the two of them had been getting along very well and getting close, but he had no idea of just how close they had gotten.

He had no idea that Charles was actually in love with her.

Was she in love with him?

"No." Max shook his head from side to side as he puffed his chest out in an attempt to seem like he hadn't been affected by what the Santos man had said to him.

"You are done getting what you want, I will not allow Charles to come here just so you can mess with his mind or cause harm to him like you did with my Larissa."

The Santos man immediately burst in to laughter, lifting up one of his hands to clutch at his chest from how hard he was laughing, his chest aching.

"Your Larissa? Your Larissa?" Andre shook his head from side to side a couple of times. "She is not yours. If anything, she is Charles' Larissa."

"And she always will be."

____________________________________________________

"Hey Dutchie."

Larissa Cohen grinned as she found arms wrapping around her shoulders, lifting her own arms up to wrap around the waist of her friend.

"Hey there, stranger."

Nyck De Vries grinned in happiness, seeing his former crush staring up at him with a bright smile on her face, one that he was very happy to see.

"Are you coming to visit me or am I just lucky that I'm seeing you?" Larissa smiled, walking with him towards her garage as his arm resided around her shoulders.

"Well I'll always come and see you, my dear." Nyck grinned cheekily, shooting the Brazilian a wink.

"I'll take that as a no then." Larissa rolled her dark brown eyes at him, nudging him gently with her elbow.

"I came to see Lewis, because I was promised that I could meet him." Nyck giggled lightly, knowing exactly what was going to happen.

"By who?"

"Zahra."

"Of fucking course." Larissa leant her head back to release a loud laugh, knowing that recently a lot of her friends that weren't in Formula One were being introduced to the big and famous drivers by her best friend.

She swore that the Bailey woman had been making money from it.

"She has been getting paid by drivers from Formula Two and Three to introduce them to your uncles and Lewis." Nyck grinned, hearing the loud groan leaving the throat of the Cohen girl.

"Like who!"

"Uh, do you remember JM?" Nyck questioned, seeing the look of realisation fill on to the girls face.

"Correa?"

"Yeah that's him. I heard that he paid Zahra two hundred euros to meet Kimi." Nyck laughed whilst the two of them walked in to the Toro Rosso garage.

"Was he able to meet him?'

"Yeah, for about ten minutes. Zahra's got a good business going, I'm telling you."

The two friends laughed together in disbelief, shaking their heads from side to side as the Dutch boy recounted the other people who he could remember that had paid the Bailey woman to meet drivers.

"Tatiana was able to meet Fernando a while back, and Callum and Jehan paid to meet Sebastian but Jack met Lewis yesterday, which is why I'm here." Nyck smiled sheepishly at the woman, seeing the girl roll her eyes once more before she lightly punched him in the shoulder.

"Well, it's a good job that I'm not charging you to meet all four of them, isn't it?" Larissa pulled him towards the garage where her uncles and brother were currently, not bothered by the stares that she was recieving from other drivers.

"You're the absolute best, oh my god!"

The De Vries man found his eyes widening as they approached a group of four men, instantly blabbering with nerves.

"Wait, where are you going? Are you not staying with me?" Nyck raised his voice as he noticed how the Cohen girl was walking away from him now that she had placed him right in front of four world champions.

"You're a grown man, Nyck! I'm not babysitting you because I've got to meet my uncle Micky!" Larissa laughed loudly, running out of the Mercedes garage to run in to the Mclaren one.

She still didn't want to go in the Ferrari garage.

Not unless it was a matter of life and death.

"Hey Uncle Micky."

Michael Schumacher forced a smile at his niece, seeing how different she looked since he had last seen her, since there had been multiple weeks inbetween their last meet.

Her past few practises and her qualifying had not gone great, so she was looking at starting in the position of tenth, though it was expected that she would be recieving a grid penalty due to some last minute changes that needed to be done on her car since she had been sandwiched between Stroll and Pierre.

She just couldn't wait to join Mercedes next season.

"You have this race left. Then you are at Mercedes."

Michael gripped a hold of his nieces hand, since it was the very last race of the season, Abu Dhabi.

He had, with her help, been able to walk for a couple of metres, which was a hell of a lot further than he could do last time, and that made him very happy.

He hoped that some day he could fully recover.

But for now, that was an impossible dream, since for now all he cared about was making sure that his niece did well in her very last race of the season.

"Yeah I know, but it just feels weird, doesn't it? It's the end of my very first season in Formula One, and all I'm really known for is either crashing and nearly killing myself or breaking down whilst on the podium in Brazil. Oh, and fainting in Monaco."

Larissa breathed out as she sat on the ground in front of her Uncle, holding his hands whilst the Schumacher man squeezed them since it would help him gain his strength back.

"You won a race, in y-your rookie season. Not many c-can say that." Michael smiled gently and lovingly at the young girl, watching closely as she smiled up at him with tears in her eyes.

He was eternally grateful for all that his beloved niece had done for him and his recovering, since he had stuttered a lot less when he was talking and was slowly improving in strength.

She had refused Corinne to pay for a rehabilitation centre in São Paulo that she had found, and payed herself, even going as far as accompanying him whilst he was there to act as moral support as well as the translator.

She acted as if he had been able to look after her like her other uncles had since they lost Luiz, and not like the truth.

Where he had let both her and her father down by not staying true to his promise to help raise her if Luiz died.

And he hated himself for it.

____________________________________________________

"You've been given the grid penalty that we thought. Not ideal, but we just have to push hard."

Her radio engineer, Matthew, spoke calmy through the radio as she was busy doing her warm up laps.

"Do I push them off the track?"

"What? No! Keep it clean, get as high up as you can, because then we can celebrate at your leaving party later."

Matthew responded to her as she rolled her eyes, slowing down her speed so that she could line up and start in fifteenth place instead of tenth due to her penalty.

"Tell Lucy that I'll be late to the party anyway. I don't like most of you guys, so no offence if I don't turn up."

"Understood. Good luck kid, you've got this."

Larissa nodded her head up and down as she prepared to race for the final time in a Toro Rosso, before she went to Mercedes.

"It's lights out and away we go!"

The commentator screamed as Larissa pressed her foot down on to her gas pedal, causing the car to jolt forwards.

Her tyres spun incredibly quick as she surged up two places, up to thirteenth place, overtaking her friend that was Kevin Magnussen.

For once, she didn't actually want to win.

She wanted Lewis to win the final race of the season, so that he could win his fifth World title and equal her father's amount.

But it was also his very last race.

She had still not forgotten that her own brother had decided to retire to allow her a chance to get a good car and hopefully get world titles.

She doubt that she ever would forget.

He was of course, still going to be around since he had decided to manage her and train her so that she could beat her father's and his title of having five championships, but quite frankly it would not be the same.

He wouldn't be around like he had been this season, where he would come to her after a bad race to hug her and let her cry in to his shoulder.

Where he would send Roscoe and Coco to her with small camera's called GoPros strapped on to them so that he could spy on her to see what she was feeding the two dogs, because she had a tendency to give them extra treats on the sly.

Where he would try to compete with her on a treadmill and win easily since she hated running so much.

Where he would distract photographers and journalists away from her if he knew her to be upset or overly emotional so that she would not have to deal with them.

He wouldn't be Lewis Hamilton, the world Champion, the Mercedes Formula One driver, her brother and best friend.

He would be Lewis Hamilton, her manager.

"Jesus Christ, kid! You nearly took out Gasly!"

"SHIT!"

Larissa Cohen cursed as she was forced to swerve to avoid a wall, having become distracted whilst driving and had clipped her team mate, nearly sending the both of them in to the barrier.

Her eyebrows immediately furrowed upon regaining control of her car, since she had not remembered having to battle her team mate since he had been a couple of places behind her.

"Is he alright?"

"Yes. He says you've got more pace so you need to stay ahead of him."

"No, let him overtake me."

Larissa spoke in to her radio, hearing her radio engineer relaying the message to the Gasly boy, which she knew had been accepted as his car approached her.

She gently turned her wheel, leaving more than enough space for him to get past, which he happily did, with a small wave aimed at her, to which she responded to, happily.

She figured that because it was her last race with the French man, that she could help him get a higher place up the grid, and whilst there were not many laps left, she figured that he should overtake her whilst he was still able to.

Call it a goodbye gift from her.

Pierre had helped her countless times during the season, barely bothered that she was in her rookie season and apparently better than due to their results being very different.

Pierre had tried to help her each time that she had crashed.

He had even been prepared to give up his own seat when Franz Tost was prepared to fire her.

"P10 for Gasly, well done on P11. It's been fun to be bossed around by you for the whole season."

Her radio engineer, Matthew, spoke to her as the two Toro Rosso's crossed the finished line, with emotion sounding in his voice.

"Yeah, thanks Matthew. It's been fun to boss you around and I'm gonna miss screaming abuse at you when you annoy me."

"I won't."

"I didn't ask."

Larissa laughed as she brought her car to a halt, climbing out to congratulate her team mate on getting in the points on their final race together.

"I'm going to miss having you as my team mate, you know?" Pierre Gasly smiled sadly as he pulled her in to his arms to hug her, as if it was the last time that he was going to see her.

"I know. I'll miss walking in to the garage in the morning to see your face waiting for me with a double espresso every day." Larissa rested her head against his chest as the two of them hugged each other tightly.

"Do you think that you and Zahra can sweet talk Toto in to getting rid of Valterri so that I can replace him and join you?"

"I highly doubt it considering you're going to Red Bull and will be one of my biggest rivals." The Cohen girl wiggled her eyebrows teasingly at him, watching as he released a scoff.

"I'd still let you take my position if you were behind me. Red Bull or not." Pierre shot the girl a wink, seeing how she pushed his shoulder backwards with a sickly sweet smile on her face.

"Yeah? Well I'll believe it when I see it."

Pierre raised both of his arms in to the air as he released a cheer, followed by another, which made the Brazilian girl mentally facepalm at his actions, even more so when he yelled loudly so that the whole paddock could hear him.

"2019 is going to be the best year ever!"

____________________________________________________

A/N

ITS NEW YEARS EVE, GOODBYE 2022

this book was created in June 2022, and now December 31st, it has 152k reads and I can not actually believe just how much you have all loved and appreciated my invention.

This year has been an absolute roller coaster in so many ways, I had multiple mental breakdowns, lost friends, lost family, moved to a different country, made friends, came out as asexual, been bridesmaid at my besties wedding, become friends with so many of you, released so many books that I'm worried for my sleep schedule, planned so many books that I am once again worried for my sleep schedule and so much more

I could not have done all of this without all of you and I love you so much for it, I hope that some of you will stick by me and support my writing and my future books

Thank you so much for having my back, I will never forget the love that you have given me❤️

ALSO YES, I DID MESS UP THE 2018 SCHEDULE BY ACCIDENTALLY ADDING AN EXTRA RACE INBETWEEN BRAZIL AND ABU DHABI BUT I GOT OVER EXCITED IM SORRY, ILL PLAN 2019 BETTER I SWEAR

I hope you all have the best new years eve and an even better 2023!

I'll see you all in 2023 ;)

I'm so proud of all of you, my loves

Love you all so much,

-RUBY