The Bull Prince | Max Verstappen

SEQUEL - Chapter 34

Hello there, so I decided to update. I hope you all enjoy it. Life is hell, I don't get why it's always so much stuff to do before Xmas but yeah whatever. It's a shorter chapter than usual, but I think it's rather important. Next up, the summer break. I'm always happy about comments, so if you want to leave me a few, makes my day. 

And I have a little announcement to make. I will talk about it some more again, I think I will send out a notification to my followers or something like that with more information soon. I hate Xmas so I thought about how to make it better and decided that I will make a calendar thingy, where you guys can read a short story each and every day. I'm not done with every story just yet, but I'm sure it will be great. So yeah. That's my plan for the hell people call before Xmas. 

Cheers! 

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Austria, July 2019

Sitting in her father's office on the floor, boxes standing all around her, Joanna exhaled slowly. She should have just listened to Adrian and allowed him to pack away her father's things, but she had been stubborn and claimed it was important for her to look through it all, all his mail and books before she would decide where to bring them.

Moving up on her knees to reach out, only to pull one of the pillows from the couch, which was standing in her father's office, Joanna leaned the pillow against the front of the couch, so she could rest against it, her broken arm coming to rest on her baby belly while her eyes stayed on the handwritten words in the book she was holding.

Taking a moment to look around the room, her eyes landing on all the little journals laying around, Joanna took another deep breath before pulling a pile of books she hadn't looked at closer to herself.

The first time Joanna had found one of these, she had to laugh at the fact that her father, Niki Lauda would never do something as ... normal as writing his thoughts down but then started to read. Each of them was dated going back to the very beginning of his career. The Austrian couldn't quite believe what treasure she had found. Niki Lauda's deepest and darkest thought for the last over 50 years. There were books from a time in which neither Joanna nor any of her halfsiblings were born.

She had found a journal for the year she was born, so she couldn't help herself but to go and search for her birthday in the hope there would be some more notes, an explanation of how things have happened because the story she had been told was so clearly wrong. She knew that thanks to Diana.

Joanna had allowed her fingers to brush over the writing for a long moment after finally finding the day she was born. It would have been a lie to say she knew what she would have liked to find there, but what she found was clearly not expected.

"6th of January. Today my daughter was born. Johanna Elisabeth Lauda. She is beautiful, her stormy and intelligent eyes, I'm sure they looked right into my soul. Her tiny hands were holding onto my fingers so strongly, I knew at that moment she would be someone great, but I also realised that the foundation could never get a hold of her. Not her, not my only daughter...."

The entry went on and on, about how intelligent Joanna must be. Looking around, all curious about the world she was born into. Niki wished she would have been born into a better world, a kinder one, but the girl had his blood after all. She would endure, Niki was sure of it. All proud dad.

Reading these lines Joanna couldn't deny that all her memory felt tainted now. She always only had half of the story, and never knew how her father felt, but apparently, he liked her more than Joanna ever thought he did. He only wanted to protect her from things better than her, things she couldn't understand and now, looking back at it, Joanna forgave him, even though she swore she never would. There was also regret, regret that Niki would never meet Joanna's son.