Edward
The Bugatti was silent.
That was the problem. It was always supposed to hum. Low, expensive, alive under my hands. But this morning it felt like a glass box I couldn't get out of.
I was parked in the underground lot of Chernyshevsky-Coleman HQ. Twenty minutes early. Twenty minutes late. Time had stopped making sense somewhere between the meeting with my sports manager and the drive here.
My chest hurt. Not the sharp kind. The dull, stupid kind that sat right under my ribs and refused to move. Like grief, but without a funeral.
I should have been upstairs already. There were meetings. There was a brand launch. There were a thousand people who needed Edward Chernyshevsky-Coleman to be decisive, sharp, untouchable.
But my hands were still on the steering wheel. And my body felt heavy in a way that had nothing to do with exhaustion. The meeting had popped the bubble.
I'd walked into it so sure. "I want out of the club contract. Buy me out. Whatever it costs."
