Chapter 1
Chapter
One
LAS VEGAS—MICHELOB ULTRA ARENA, MANDALAY BAY RESORT AND CASINO—SIX YEARS LATER
Paisley Roberts felt energy brimming inside her.
She glanced around the dressing room of the Las Vegas Aces, seeing both determination and eagerness on the faces of her fellow teammates.
Today’s final game of the regular season with the New Jersey Hurricanes would decide which of the two teams moved on to the playoffs.
She was determined to lead her team to victory.
These women meant everything to Paisley.
They were the only family she had, just as previous teammates had been over the two decades she’d been playing basketball.
She had never known who her father was. Her drug-addicted mother’s parental rights had been terminated by a jury when Paisley was only four years old.
She had immediately gone into the foster care system, bouncing from house to house, never finding a home as she sprouted taller than any kid at school.
By the time she reached seventh grade, Paisley had reached her full height, an inch over six feet, towering over everyone in her middle school, including her teachers.
But she found a home on the basketball court that year.
Her first coach had seen Paisley’s potential, and while she had three children of her own, Coach Callahan still went through the prep of becoming a foster parent and fostered Paisley from the time she was twelve.
Coach Callahan was a tough woman, and Paisley had soon realized she was never going to be loved by the coach.
Their relationship was transactional. Paisley’s job was to make Coach Callahan look good.
In return, the coach gave her room and board.
She didn’t care. Having a permanent foster home with Callahan allowed her to stay in one place, honing her athletic skills.
She moved into AAU competitive basketball, and the rest was history.
Paisley had won two state titles in high school, with Coach Callahan being moved up to serve as the girls’ varsity basketball coach, riding her foster child’s coattails.
Paisley had been offered numerous athletic scholarships and chose to play at Baylor University in Waco.
The school already had several NCAA national championships under its belt.
Paisley led the school to another national championship her sophomore year and the NCAA championship game her senior year.
Then when she was barely twenty, she played in her first Olympics in Madrid, taking home a gold medal.
She had been named to Team USA again for the next two Olympics, as well, and it was assumed that she would also be on next year’s roster and compete for the gold in Rome.
She would be thirty-two by then and figured it would be her last Olympics.
She focused on the game at hand now. As a former number one draft pick in the WNBA, she’d had a lot riding on her shoulders from the moment she entered professional sports. Paisley had lived up to her hype and even exceeded all expectations, bringing new fans to the sport in droves.
You were only as good as your last game, however, and the Las Vegas Aces needed a win tonight to move to the first round of the playoffs. They’d been plagued with injuries this year, but everyone was back for tonight’s showdown, healthy and ready for a victory.
The team took to the floor for warmups, and her shot rang true. As it happened with any basketball player, there were nights Paisley was more on than off.
Tonight, she was definitely on—and with every three-pointer she made, the growing crowd settling into their seats cheered.
They returned to the locker room, and she downed a Gatorade to stay hydrated.
Coach Armstrong gave a pep talk, and the team went out to their home court, their enthusiastic fans cheering wildly during the player introductions.
As usual, Paisley received the biggest hand from the crowd.
Fortunately, her teammates never showed any signs of jealousy because they knew her to be the heart and soul of the Aces.
She had already taken them to the playoffs seven times since she’d joined the team, two of those resulting in championships.
The hope was that they would repeat that this year since the team’s starters were the same as last year’s.
They tipped off, and her pregame nerves dissipated as always, a calm descending over her. She liked to think of it as her Zen zone.
By halftime, the Aces were up by four. The locker room was quiet, but she could still feel the energetic buzz surrounding the players present.
She went over to Lisa Fowler, their center, and gave her a couple of notes.
No one minded that Paisley did this. It was something she’d started doing since she’d played her first game in seventh grade.
Her situational awareness was honed better than any other existing player’s, and she often saw things other players—and even coaches—didn’t.
The center took the advice in stride, and the team returned to the court.
By mid-fourth quarter, the game was tied, the Aces having lost the lead they’d held up until that point. Paisley took the ball down the court, running the offense like clockwork, and the Aces moved ahead of the Hurricanes again. With three minutes to go, they now led by three points.
Nikki Jones fouled her soon after the next time Paisley dribbled down the court, something which had gone on all game, though the refs had seemed to turn a blind eye to it.
Jones was the new golden child of the WNBA, and it seemed she could do no wrong.
Paisley had learned not to complain to refs.
Instead, she kept her head down and played to the best of her ability.
She moved to the foul line and made both her free throws.
Paisley was the most consistent free throw shooter in the league, and it surprised her that Jones had fouled her when she did.
Then again, the refs hadn’t been calling anything against the rookie, and Jones probably thought she could get away with the foul.
The Hurricanes came back quickly, Jones hitting a three-pointer. The Aces only held the lead by a single basket. It wasn’t enough, especially with what time was left on the clock.
Coach Armstrong called a time-out, and the team huddled around her as she diagrammed the play to be run, looking to Paisley, who nodded in agreement.
Paisley knew it was up to her to execute the play flawlessly.
If she did, their shooting guard would be in a perfect position to attempt a three—and the Aces needed those three points desperately.
As she brought the ball down the court again, Nikki Jones was all over her.
Fortunately, Paisley handled the ball with ease, running the play exactly as Armstrong had outlined.
When Rashida Roundhouse sank the basket, the arena erupted.
Paisley couldn’t help it. She shot a smug grin at Jones, who looked ready to explode.
And then all hell broke out.
Jones rushed her, something Paisley was unprepared for.
She knew just how physical a basketball game could be.
Most sports fans believed football, with all its hard hits and tackling, was the roughest American sport.
She would love for those casual, armchair fans to play in one professional basketball game and suffer the elbows to ribs and temples alike.
She knew some players played dirtier than others, but this rookie caught her off-guard, especially because Paisley didn’t even have the ball and the play was already over.
Just as Nikki Jones reached her, Paisley threw up an arm to protect herself, but Jones shoved her. Hard. Somehow, Paisley managed to keep her balance, stumbling back several steps. As the Aces fans jeered, she turned to see if the closest ref had witnessed the attack the entire arena had seen.
That’s when it went from bad to brutal.
Suddenly, Paisley was hit in her back, completely caught off-guard by the hands that slammed into her.
The unexpected blow caused her to pitch forward.
She fell to the court, both knees slamming the hard surface.
Immediately, she knew something terrible had happened by the pain reverberating through her.
Then someone was on her back, as if they were in a wrestling match, and a free-for-all brawl broke out on the court.
She found herself buried, a pile of players atop her.
By the time the weight of the others had been lifted from her, Paisley knew she was in serious trouble.
Lisa and Rashida lifted her to her feet, ready to help her back to the bench.
The refs were ordering teams to opposite ends of the court as fans howled in displeasure.
But Paisley couldn’t even manage a single step.
She cried out, a loud gasp escaping her lips.
Sagging, her teammates threw her arms around their shoulders and carried her off the court.
While she finally was able to put weight on her left foot, her right knee screamed in agony.
The trio reached the Aces bench, and as tears filled her eyes, she shook her head at Armstrong.
“I’m in trouble,” she got out, biting back a scream because the pain was now magnified, radiating through her.
Her knee throbbed viciously. A wheelchair was brought, and Paisley was settled into it. She found she couldn’t even bend her knee and had to flex her foot, keeping the leg stiff as she was rolled away and taken immediately to the medical facility within the arena.
Everything after that became a blur.
An hour later, she had been taken by ambulance to the nearest hospital. The Aces team doctor had accompanied her, and she now listened to the head of the emergency room and a surgeon as they gave her the bad news. Through her haze of pain, Paisley understood that she had a fractured patella.