Chapter 18 #2
“You text me a single word from a burner phone. ‘NOW.’ That’s the trigger.
I’m watching the arena’s public livestream from my laptop at home.
I have the remote access portal open on a separate screen—I kept my login credentials from when I worked there, and they never revoked my access after I transferred departments.
The moment I get your text, I execute the broadcast. The recordings auto-play on the backup feed.
Twenty seconds of Brennan’s voice comes through the PA system.
The crowd hears it. The broadcast cameras capture it.
Venue management identifies the source and pulls the power cable from the backup truck. It’s done.”
“Twenty seconds is enough?”
“Twenty seconds is everything. Twenty seconds of compressed audio playing Brennan admitting to federal crimes. Enough time for the narrative to break, for the distribution to complete, for the live broadcast cameras to capture the moment the system falls apart. And it doesn’t matter if they shut it down at second twenty-one because the damage is done.
The crowd heard it. The live broadcast captured it.
The recordings are already spreading through social media. ”
“What about Derek?” I ask. “He’s supposed to be part of the coordination.”
“Derek doesn’t know about this. Derek can’t know.
Derek’s going to simultaneously push the same audio to three major media outlets the moment your hand is raised.
The PA broadcast is theater—important theater, the live moment that changes the narrative.
But the real insurance is Derek distributing the same recordings digitally in parallel.
That’s the redundancy. That’s what makes sure it spreads even if venue management isolates the backup feed immediately. ”
I understand now. This isn’t just one play.
This is layered protection. The PA broadcast is the live moment that captures everyone’s attention, breaks the narrative in real time.
Derek’s digital distribution is the backup—the simultaneous push to media outlets that ensures the story spreads beyond the arena itself.
Two trigger events. Two distribution paths. Redundancy in the way that matters.
“You understand the timeline?” Tracy asks.
“Thursday night, I test the access codes. Friday night, I’m in the arena.
You’re monitoring from home. The fight happens.
I win. The ref raises my hand. I text you ‘NOW’ from a burner phone.
You execute the broadcast. Twenty seconds of recordings.
Venue management locates and disconnects the backup system.
The crowd and broadcast cameras have already captured Brennan’s voice admitting to crimes.
Derek simultaneously pushes digital distribution. ”
“Exactly. And understand this: you’re the only person who knows my involvement. You’re the only person with my phone number. You’re the only person who can connect me to this. If federal agents investigate, you’re the person carrying that risk.”
“I understand.”
“Good. Because the moment this goes public, I’m claiming complete innocence.
I’m saying I had no knowledge of any broadcast system compromise.
I’m saying my credentials were stolen and accessed without my authorization.
I’m going to let you carry this. You understand?
Full protection for me. All the risk for you. ”
“I wouldn’t expect anything else.”
I disconnect the call and sit in the silent warehouse, my hands wrapped, the smell of mildew and industrial cleaner filling the space. The weight of what I’ve just done settles into my chest like a stone. I haven’t told anyone. Not Derek. Not Rogan. Definitely not Fallon.
Fallon would say it’s reckless. Would say it’s too risky, that it compromises the coalition’s strategy, that I’m playing a game I’m not equipped to win.
Would try to find a way to prevent it because that’s what she does—she manages risk the way she manages a fight, with calculation and precision and the complete authority of someone who’s built her reputation on never letting things fall apart.
But this is my contribution. Me doing something other than what I’m told to do—not following Fallon’s wisdom or Rogan’s experience or the coalition’s strategy.
Me making a choice about my own case, my own fight, what I’m willing to risk when the stakes are this high.
Me refusing to be a piece on someone else’s board, even if I trust the person moving the pieces.
Fallon would say that trust and independence aren’t opposed to each other. She’d say that trusting someone is different from surrendering to them. But right now, I can’t tell her. I can’t be in her confidence on this. I can’t let her carry the knowledge of what I’m about to do.
I can’t tell her. I can’t carry this and let her carry it too.
I test the access codes Thursday night. I drive to the arena parking lot at midnight and find the broadcast truck parked in the secure area.
Daniel—or whoever gave Daniel the codes—was thorough.
I input the first code into the backup feed’s remote access portal on my phone.
The system acknowledges it. No alarms. No lockdown.
No alert sent to arena IT. Just a quiet digital door opening in the infrastructure, a technical acknowledgment that I have clearance I shouldn’t have.
I navigate the backup feed’s audio interface.
Everything is exactly as Tracy described.
The audio input system, the auto-play function, the compression protocols.
I don’t execute anything. I don’t change any settings.
I just verify that access works, that my credentials are recognized, that the system is exploitable the way they described.
I send Tracy the confirmation text with the specified format she provided. She responds immediately from her laptop at home: “I’m in position. Portal showing live connection from your login. See you on the other side.”
See you on the other side. Like we’re soldiers. Like we’re crossing into occupied territory together. Maybe we are.
Friday night, the night before the fight, I drive to the hotel where the coalition has booked the fighters and Fallon.
I knock on her door at 11 PM. She opens it still dressed, a pen behind her ear, her notebook open on the bed with fight notes spread across it.
Villarreal’s wrestling patterns. His defensive positioning.
The tells that will signal when he’s about to shoot.
Everything compressed into strategic notation that she’s created over weeks of study.
“Pre-fight routine adjustment?” I ask.
“Villarreal’s corner is planning something with his wrestling pressure. I want you to remember the step-back instead of driving into his sprawl. It’s cleaner on your hips. The angle protects your knees.”
She pulls me inside and closes the door. The hotel room is small, generic, everything about it designed to be forgettable except for the fact that we’re in it. I’m about to make it unforgettable.
I can see the exhaustion in her. She hasn’t slept properly in nine days.
Her shoulders are tight with tension. The weight of training a fighter for the most important fight of his life is visible in the way she carries her body.
But her mind is sharp. Her focus is absolute.
She’s exactly where she needs to be mentally, even if her body is running on fumes.
This is what I’m about to do. I’m about to walk into the cage and fight for exactly what she’s trained me to fight for.
And after I win—which I’m going to do because I’ve prepared for exactly this moment—I’m going to let the recordings play and let the system fall apart and let her understand that I made a choice she didn’t authorize.
I’m about to break her trust and earn it back in the same moment.
I kiss her hard and she responds immediately, like she’s been waiting for this exact moment, like the pre-fight routine of notes and strategizing was just something to fill the time before this.
Her hands find the hem of my shirt. Mine find her hips, pulling her against me, needing the feeling of her there, real, present, solid.
Tomorrow I fight. But tonight, the only fight that matters is this one—the intimate collision of two people who’ve chosen each other against everything else.
We move to the bed. She’s deliberate. Each touch calculated but not cold, precise but not distant.
She traces my knuckles where the hand wraps have left marks.
I trace the scar on her shoulder, the one that never really faded—the one she got at sixteen, the night her father put their car into a bridge support.
That scar is part of her story. Part of why she coaches with such absolute commitment.
Part of why she needs to win as much as I do.
“Whatever happens tomorrow,” I say into her neck.
“Whatever happens.” Her fingers tighten in my hair.
It’s not reassurance. We both know reassurance would be a lie. It’s a declaration. Whatever happens, we’re choosing this. We’re choosing each other against everything else—the system trying to destroy us, the sport trying to use us, the world pressing down on the space between us.
She falls asleep in my arms, her head on my chest, her breathing evening out into the rhythm of actual rest. I lie awake and catalog the feeling: her weight against me, her left hand curled on my shoulder, the smell of her hair, the specific heat of her body.
I memorize it. I need to memorize it. Tomorrow I fight, and if everything goes wrong—if the recordings don’t play, if Tracy gets caught, if the federal agents connect me to the broadcast system compromise—I need to have this moment locked in my memory.
This moment when everything was still possible.
When we were still just two people in a hotel room, holding each other before the storm.
Tomorrow I fight. But tonight, in this forgettable hotel room, I’m not a fighter or a piece in someone else’s strategy.
I’m a person who’s going to fight for exactly what he’s earned—a woman who knows him, chooses him, corrects his form even when she’s angry at him, especially then.
A woman who trusts him even when he’s not telling her everything.
I fall asleep holding that.