4. Chapter 4 — Ava
Sienna Hart moves like someone who owns every room she walks into.
I like her immediately.
"Finance is here, analytics is there, and that door at the end goes to the film suite — which you'll never need, but I'll give you the code anyway." She hands me a laminated badge on a lanyard without breaking stride.
She glances at me sideways. "I read your capstone proposal. The franchise operations angle is sharper than what we usually get from Stern."
"Most students are interested in the salary cap structure."
"Most students want to look like they're interested in the salary cap structure." She stops outside a glass-walled office the size of a generous closet. "This is yours for the twelve weeks. I had IT set you up this morning."
It's small. It faces the main hallway. There's a window into the analytics bullpen on the left side, which means anyone walking past can see exactly what's on my screen.
I make a note to reposition the monitor.
"Ground rules," Sienna says, leaning in the doorway. "Staff interactions are open — anyone in finance, ops, or analytics is fair game for interviews. Player interactions stay to professional necessity. If you need something from the roster side, come through me first."
"And the rest of the building?"
"Full access. Badge gets you everywhere."
She studies me for a half second. The look of a woman deciding whether she believes what she's hearing.
I hold her gaze.
"Good," she says. "Tour's not done. Come on."
***
The film room door is open.
I know before I look up. I don't know how — maybe it's the way Sienna's pace slows by half a step, or maybe it's just the specific frequency of bad timing that has followed me since Saturday night.
I look anyway.
Ty Knox is inside. Headphones around his neck, not on his ears. Leaning forward with both forearms on the table, eyes on the screen, rewinding the same few seconds of footage over and over. He hasn't noticed us yet.
On screen, it's a route. A wide receiver cutting inside, then pivoting out. The same sequence, again. Again.
He pauses it. Tips his head. Rewinds.
I watch him for four seconds longer than I should. He looks different like this — the grin is gone, the forward momentum quiet. Just focus. Just a person who takes their work seriously when no one's watching.
I didn't expect that.
Then he looks up.
His expression doesn't change at all — just goes still in a way that's somehow more direct than a smile would have been. His eyes find mine, hold, and then move to Sienna.
"Morning." Flat. Professional.
"Knox." Sienna keeps walking. "Don't let us interrupt."
He doesn't say anything else.
I follow Sienna down the hall and do not look back.
***
My monitor faces the door now.
Anyone walking past sees a spreadsheet and nothing else. I've pulled the first layer of franchise financials — two seasons of operating reports, player contract summaries, and the front office budget breakdown that Shore's team submitted to the league last October.
It's organized. Coherent. Exactly what a franchise of this size should look like on paper.
I'm twenty minutes in when there's a knock at the open door.
Ty Knox. Two coffees. He extends one toward me without stepping fully inside, like he's waiting to be invited.
I look at the cup. Then at him.
"Truce," he says.
"You researched how I take it."
"You've been here four times." A beat. "You always get the same thing from the cart."
He's not wrong. Two sugars, oat milk, the medium size because the large is too much before noon.
I take the coffee. Because I need the caffeine.
That's what I tell myself.
The truth, which I'm not going to examine, is that something about him already knowing catches me off guard in a way I wasn't ready for. Nobody notices things like that. Or when they do, they make a production of it.
He just says it. Like it cost him nothing.
"This isn't a truce," I say. "This is coffee."
"Whatever helps you sleep."
He leaves. No follow-up. No waiting to see if I'll smile. Just turns and goes.
I stare at the doorway for three seconds.
Then I pull up the next report.
***
Clean numbers aren't suspicious on their own. Franchises this size have full accounting teams. Their job is to make it look clean.
I'm not looking for irregularities yet. I'm building the baseline — what normal looks like here, so I can recognize when something isn't.
I cross-reference the operating reports against the injury data from the previous two seasons. One name keeps showing up in a column I didn't expect. I pull the contract summary. Check the dates. Go back to the operating report.
The numbers are still clean. But the timing is off.
Not wrong, exactly. Just off in a way that makes me open a new document and start a list.
***
At six-fifteen, I'm the last one on the finance floor.
I've been here eleven hours. My notes run four pages. My list has items on it, ranging from confirm with Sienna to do not mention to anyone yet.
I save everything. Twice. Close the laptop.
The hallway is quiet. The main lights have dimmed to the evening setting. This deep into December, the building empties fast once the afternoon sessions wrap.
I'm at the elevator when my phone buzzes.
Unknown number. But the message is one line.
You took the coffee.
I stop walking.
I don't know how he got this number. I don't know when he put it together. I stand in the dim hallway of the NYC Empires facility on the first full day of twelve weeks and look at four words on a screen.
For a second — just one — I want to smile.
Then I step into the elevator.
I don't reply.
But I don't delete it either.