---- Chapter 27 The wedding was nothing like my first, phantom one. It wasn't a spectacle or a business transaction. It was small, private, held in the garden of our home at sunset. Nicky walked me down the aisle, his face beaming with pride as he placed my hand in Dante's. My parents stood beside us, their eyes shining with tears of joy. Sierra was my maid of honor, her fiery hair a beacon of friendship. We wrote our own vows. They weren't about forever, or possession, or epic, sweeping promises. They were about the small things. About partnership, and laughter, and committing to the wrist flick when making pancakes. About being teammates, in good times and in bad. As Dante slipped a simple, elegant sapphire band on my finger, | looked at his face, at the love and respect shining in his eyes, and | knew | was finally home. Our honeymoon was not a trip to an exotic island. It was a week spent at the Monaco Grand Prix. Not in the VIP box, but in the pit lane. We weren't guests; we were part of the Warner Digital sponsored racing team On the final day, the team's lead driver fell ill. There was a frantic search for a replacement. Dante and | looked at each other, a silent, gleeful communication passing between us. ---- Minutes later, | was suiting up. The familiar weight of the helmet, the scent of fuel and hot asphalt, the adrenaline singing in my veins. It felt like coming home in a different way. Dante was on the comms, my co-pilot, my partner. "You ready for this, Mrs. Mullen?" he asked, his voice full of laughter. "It's Warner-Mullen," | corrected him, revving the engine. "And you better keep up, old man." The lights went green. | hit the accelerator, and the world blurred into a streak of speed and color. | was no longer a ghost. | was no longer a queen on a lonely throne. | was Anya Warner-Mullen. A wife, a mother, a CEO, a driver. A woman who had been to hell and back, and had finally found her heaven not in a fairy tale ending, but in the beautiful, complex, and thrilling reality she had built for herself. And as | took the first turn, my husband's voice in my ear and a lifetime of open road ahead of me, | knew, with every fiber of my being, that this was a victory lap worth waiting for.