Chapter 15 #2
I had won. I had beaten my father. I had found the one variable that made the equation work.
"I'm going to get some water," Heather murmured after a while. She kissed my chest and sat up, wrapping the blanket around herself like a toga. "Do you want some?"
"Please," I said, watching her stand up. She looked like a goddess in the dim light.
She walked to the kitchen island.
I reached for my phone, wanting to check the time.
It was 10:15 PM.
There were seventeen missed calls.
My stomach dropped. Seventeen calls? In the last hour?
Twelve from my agent. Three from Coach Miller. Two from my father.
And forty-six text messages.
The notification banner was a solid wall of panic.
TANK: Dude. Don't go online.
TANK: Call me right now.
AGENT: Jerry, pick up the phone. It's a disaster.
UNKNOWN: Did you really pay her? Disgusting.
My blood turned to ice. The warmth of the afterglow evaporated instantly, replaced by a cold, prickling dread.
I sat up. "Heather?"
"Yeah?" She was pouring water from the fridge pitcher. Her back was to me.
"Something's happening," I said. My voice sounded hollow. Distant.
I unlocked my phone. I went to Twitter.
It was the number one trending topic.
#SaberScandal
I clicked it.
The headline screamed at me from the screen of The Sterling Falls Gazette, re-tweeted by ESPN, Barstool, and every major sports outlet in the country.
AUDIO LEAK: VANE HEIR CAUGHT IN "SUGAR BABY" SCANDAL WITH SCHOLARSHIP STUDENT
Exclusive audio obtained by The Gazette reveals Sterling Falls Captain Jerry Vane and student Heather Bloom discussing their illicit financial arrangement in the university library.
In the recording, Vane can be heard discussing "payment" and "contracts" while engaging in sexual acts in a public space.
My hands started to shake.
I clicked the link. The audio player loaded.
It was muffled, echoing slightly. But the voices were unmistakable.
My voice: "I'm efficient. I paid your tuition. I gave you this apartment."
Heather's voice: "You paid for a service. But you didn't buy me."
It was cut. Edited. Spliced out of context from our conversation in the penthouse—wait. No. This wasn't the library. This was...
I listened closer.
Bianca: "Did you get what you needed?"
Heather: "I got exactly what I needed."
It was a montage. A Frankenstein's monster of out-of-context clips, stitched together to sound like a transaction. It sounded like I was a John and she was a prostitute negotiating a rate.
And then, the kicker. A video.
Grainy footage from the library stacks. Me pinning her against the shelf. My hand up her shirt.
The caption read: The "Tutoring" Session.
I felt like I was going to throw up.
"Jerry?"
Heather’s voice was small. Terrified.
I looked up.
She was standing at the edge of the living room. She was holding her own phone. Her face was the color of chalk. The glass of water had slipped from her hand and shattered on the floor, but she didn't seem to notice the shards around her bare feet.
"You knew," I whispered.
It wasn't a question. It was a realization.
The way she had been acting all night. The fear. The desperation. Would you still want this if everything went wrong?
She knew this was coming.
"Jerry, please," she choked out. "I... I tried to stop it. I met with her. She blackmailed me."
"You met with her?" I stood up. The blanket fell away from me. I didn't care that I was naked. I felt exposed in a way that had nothing to do with clothes. "When?"
"Yesterday," she sobbed. "She wanted me to break up with you. She said if I didn't, she would release the tape."
"And you didn't tell me?" I roared. The sound echoed off the glass walls. "You let me sit here? You let me plan a future in Seattle while you were holding a grenade?"
"I thought I could fix it!" she screamed back. "I thought if I stalled her... I didn't want you to worry before the playoffs!"
"You didn't trust me," I said. The words felt like knives in my throat. "I told you we were a team. I told you I handle the variables. And you hid the biggest variable of all."
My phone rang again. It was my father.
I stared at the screen. Silas Vane Sr.
This was it. The end.
I answered it. I put it on speaker.
"You are finished," my father’s voice said. It wasn't angry. It was cold. Dead. "The NCAA has suspended you pending an investigation. The team has been disqualified from the playoffs. The Krakens have pulled their offer."
"Father—"
"Do not speak to me," he cut me off. "You have humiliated this family. You have destroyed your legacy for a piece of... for a girl."
The line went dead.
I stood there in the silence. The silence of the grave.
I looked at Heather.
She was sobbing, her whole body shaking. She stepped toward me, crunching on the glass.
"Jerry, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. We can fix this. We can tell the truth."
"The truth?" I laughed. It was a broken, jagged sound. "The truth is that you lied to me. The truth is that everyone was right. You were a distraction. You were a liability."
"Don't say that," she begged, reaching for me. "Please, Jerry. I love you."
I stepped back. I couldn't let her touch me. If she touched me, I would break. And I needed to be stone right now. I needed to be iron.
"Get out," I said.
She froze. "What?"
"Get out," I repeated. My voice was devoid of emotion. It was the voice of a stranger. "Pack your things. And get out of my apartment."
"Jerry, no. Please. Let me explain."
"There is nothing to explain," I said. "The contract is void. You breached the confidentiality clause. You are terminated."
"Terminated?" She flinched as if I had hit her. "I'm not an employee! I'm the woman you love!"
"Not anymore," I lied. "Now, you're just the reason I lost everything."
I turned my back on her. I walked to the window and looked out at the city.
I heard her gasp. I heard the sound of her bare feet running down the hall. I heard the slam of a door.
And then, silence.
The view from the top wasn't beautiful anymore.
It was just a long, long way down.