Chapter 38
RECKONING (EDEN)
The tunnel goes silent.
Max’s smirk wavers. “Good to see you too, Carverette.”
My throat burns. The words tear out before I can stop them. “It was you.” My stomach turns to stone. My knees want to give out. Seven years vanish, and I’m back in that room, back in that body that couldn’t fight. The Garden roar collapses to nothing, just blood in my ears.
He straightens, jaw tight. “Still dramatic, I see.”
No. Not dramatic. Remembering.
I step forward, shoulders locking, fury punching through shame. My voice rips out, jagged.
“You were at that party. You put something in my drink. You took what wasn’t yours. What I wasn’t ready to give.”
The iPad slips from my hands, hits the concrete with a crack. I don’t care. I’m moving, launching at him, slamming him back into the wall. My fists knot in his jacket, every muscle trembling with the years I buried the memory.
“You drugged me!” My voice shakes, then steadies, sharper. “You raped me!”
The word detonates, louder than the crowd, louder than the Garden. I’ve never heard it out of my own mouth before. The air itself recoils.
The finance bros freeze. One fumbles his phone, another has his camera up, recording. I don’t care. For once, I don’t care who hears.
Max stumbles, cursing, hands grabbing at my wrists. “Get this crazy bitch—”
Arms tear me back. Nate. Always Nate. Dragging me away from the one man I want to bury.
“Don’t—” My voice splinters, but then Nate’s fist connects with Max’s jaw. The crack echoes, sick and final.
Max goes down. Nate doesn’t stop. He’s on him, fists flying, knuckles splitting. Blood spatters, wall shaking with each hit.
“Nate!” My scream doesn’t reach him. He’s gone, lost to rage. He looks as if he’s killing him for me, but it isn’t for me. It’s his guilt that he wasn’t there to protect me, his fury, his need to fix. My pain turned into spectacle, my truth buried under his fists.
Dmitri clamps his shoulders, Liam grabs his arm, Finn yanks at his jersey. It takes all three to rip him off. Nate thrashes against them, chest heaving, face twisted, blood smeared across his gloves.
“Russo!” Coach Novak’s roar slices through the tunnel, sharp as a stick crack. Authority. Command. “Stand the fuck down! That’s an order!”
For a heartbeat Nate freezes, eyes wild, breath tearing in and out. Coach steps in close, eyes blazing. “You think this helps her? You think this makes her whole? Get your head on straight before you cost us all.”
The words land. Not enough to calm the fury burning out of him, but enough to halt his fists. His chest still bucks, but Dmitri and Liam tighten their grips, Finn dragging him back another step.
Max slumps against the wall, ruined and leaking red. His buddies gape, phones still raised, feeding the fire.
And then Rowan is there. Calm. Sharp. Cutting through the chaos. “You’ve had your show, boys. And now it’s over. Delete every photo. Every video. Now.”
The finance bros hesitate, one opening his mouth to argue.
Rowan steps closer, heels biting the concrete, her smile thinner than glass.
“Do you really want your firm’s clients seeing this?
” She flicks a glance at Max, broken at their feet.
“How do you think they’ll feel, knowing they’ve trusted their money to a company that employs,” she pauses, her gaze slicing them open, “rapists?”
The color drains from their faces. Max groans, spits blood.
Rowan leans in, silk over steel. “Delete it. All of it. Now. Because if even one image leaks?” She lets it hang, deadly quiet. “I’ll make sure your firm burns with your rapist.”
Phones lower. Screens dim. Fingers scramble.
And me, I can’t stop shaking. Not from fear anymore. From release. From the truth finally out in the air where I can’t bury it anymore.
The tunnel blurs. Shouts, cameras, skates clattering against cement. All of it muffled, like I’m underwater. My pulse is so loud, I barely hear Rowan’s last words.
Then a familiar voice cuts through. “Eden.”
Jessica. She’s there, coat half-zipped, her twins bundled in a stroller. They stir, tiny faces scrunching in the harsh light. She presses the stroller into Finn’s hands without ceremony.
“I had to wake them. Hopefully they’ll go back down easy,” she says, voice low, controlled, though her eyes are fire.
Finn secures the twins, tucks a blanket edge, and signals Liam. Together they angle Nate toward the back hallway. Nate resists, breath tearing, gloves streaked with blood.
“Easy, big guy,” Liam mutters under his breath, steady hand on Nate’s arm. “You’re scaring the rookies.”
Finn huffs a short breath, adjusting the stroller as one twin lets out a soft whimper. “Don’t mind him, kiddos. Uncle Nate just had a bad shift.”
The words are quiet, half for the babies, half for all of us, and the tension eases just enough to keep the hallway from snapping in two.
Jessica stays with me. One hand on my arm, grounding me.
And then Joy is there too, breathless, eyes wide. “What—what happened?” Her gaze darts from me to Max slumped against the wall, then back. “Eden…”
I can’t answer. My tongue feels thick, useless.
Coach Novak barks orders, voice a whipcrack. He and Rowan herd the rest of the team toward the locker room. The tunnel empties until it’s just Jess, Joy, Liz—where did Liz even come from? Did Jessica call her?—all of them forming a ring around me.
It feels like a dream. My knees want to buckle, but I can’t move. My brain is on rewind, dragging me backward.
I should’ve seen it sooner. I chose that college not knowing Max Miller was on the same campus.
He was the shadow that wouldn’t shake. When we were kids, he’d stare and vanish the second Leo or Nate showed up.
But they weren’t there to make him blink anymore.
He’d pop up at the library, the coffee shop, on the walk between classes.
He asked me out more than once, entitled smirk locked in. I turned him down every time.
And then he stopped.
Back then, I told myself he’d finally gotten the message. I was relieved that there were no more sudden appearances, no more hovering near the stacks or the cafeteria line. I didn’t connect it to the party. I was too wrecked to add it up.
Seven years later, I do. He didn’t stop because he learned respect. He stopped because he’d already taken what he decided he was owed. I just couldn’t remember it.
The bile rises in my throat. My chest tightens.
Jess squeezes my hand. “You’re safe. We’ve got you.”
Safe. The word feels foreign, but I cling to it anyway.
That night, I don’t even try to sleep.
I lie on top of the covers in my room, staring at the ceiling while the city hums outside the window. My body feels wrung out, every muscle trembling, but my mind won’t quit.
The tunnel keeps replaying. Max’s face. Nate’s fists. The phones. My own voice tearing free. “You raped me.”
Liz came in twice to check on me. “You’re not alone,” she said. She left tea by the bed that went cold before I touched it.
None of it reached me. Not really.
What does is the decision pressing at the edges of my skull. Filing a report with the police.
I don’t even know if it makes sense after all this time. Maybe the statute of limitations has run out. Maybe they’ll say it’s too old, too blurry. And God, what proof do I even have? I was unconscious, drugged. My memory is jagged pieces, not a full picture.
But the ones I do have are brutal and clear. His face inches from mine. The smirk I knew too well. The hot reek of beer on his breath. My body leaden, useless, while his weight pressed me down. His voice a low whisper I couldn’t answer because my throat wouldn’t work.
It’s enough. Enough to know. Enough to name him.
Max Miller.
Saying it is acid on my tongue.
Going to the police won’t undo any of it. Won’t give me back what he stole. Won’t make the years of silence and shame disappear. Justice—if it even comes—will never measure up to the damage done.
But still. It would be my choice this time. My voice. My record.
I close my eyes and whisper into the dark, rough and certain, “Tomorrow.”