17. Hunter
Seventeen
Hunter
Ella’s chaos had steadily been spreading through the house, infesting it, like she had infested me.
Quite the neat metaphor, considering the only room she hadn’t unleashed her mess on was my bedroom.
She would soon, but for now everything was still the same. My desk was spotless. There wasn’t a speck of dust to be found on my keyboard. Every single cable was coiled and arranged with precision.
Just the way I liked it.
Yet, I couldn’t fucking wait for her to turn everything upside down in here, exactly how she’d done with the rest of my life.
In the distance, down the hall, I could hear her laugh on a phone call. Muffled. Familiar.
My fingers twitched on the trackpad, even though my body remained still. The scent of her detergent on my hoodie was slowly driving me to the brink of madness.
Maybe it’d been a mistake to start using it on my clothes as well, but it seemed less suspicious.
A secure folder opened with a few clicks, containing rows upon rows of receipts.
Redacted medical logs, backdated test results, a scan of Dom’s signature — forged, twice — surveillance screencaps.
And finally, a list of players. Some were marked clean, others expendable.
Coach had been slipping players substances without telling them and calling them “performance enhancers,” all the while hiding them from anyone who could stop him.
Dom had signed a few forms, mostly out of trust, but he wasn’t the mastermind; he was a pawn.
The school’s compliance office monitored programs to ensure players weren’t being taken advantage of and to keep the NCAA off their backs.
They checked medical logs, verified eligibility, flagged inconsistencies, and monitored unusual activity.
In theory, they were supposed to catch things like this. In this case, however, Coach had covered his tracks perfectly, forging signatures, backdating logs and mislabeling tests.
Compliance would review the files eventually, but nothing was raising a red flag yet. I had a window of opportunity, and I wasn’t about to waste it.
I leaned back, just enough to crack my neck as I stared at the screen unblinkingly.
They were going to let Dom burn for it, use him as the face of a “rogue accident,” or however they wanted to label this bullshit.
I had my eye on this for a while, but it took me a while to find out who was responsible.
If I didn’t intervene, the alumni would simply disappear, Coach would retire in peace, and she would fucking cry.
Unless I moved the board.
And I always moved the board, especially to my advantage.
I wouldn’t save the program. No, I’d save Dom. Because saving Dom meant I could nail her down. It meant I’d be able to collect on these favors without her making me the villain.
With practiced keystrokes, I re-encrypted the most damning pieces.
Then, I compressed a curated packet, which framed the booster and Coach, leaving Dom out of the central spotlight.
And since information was valuable, and getting rid of my insurance would be fucking stupid — which, for the record, I wasn’t — I filed all the info about Dom away in a secondary folder.
Now, I needed to find out if there were any other players in the game already. I logged into an internal drop zone on a protected network, making note of who was already trying to access this data.
Leaning forward, my brows furrowed as I flagged an account. It was definitely Compliance.
They were already digging through the school’s records, cross-checking athletes and flagging inconsistencies.
Fuck .
They had already identified issues with the player files. I was fairly confident they’d make a mistake I could exploit.
To be absolutely sure, though, I slipped in some fake information to keep them spinning in circles.
Everyone was playing defense, while I was already in the fucking end zone.
Dom’s name would never reach the report.
Not if she complied, at least.
Blaze didn’t see it yet, but every option she thought she had was gone. One by one, I’d taken them off the board. Quietly and efficiently.
Now, the last one left was me . Not the hero. Not the villain. Just her fucking destiny.
She would come to me the moment she realized the situation was beyond anyone else’s ability to fix.
And when she did — when she asked me for help — I would give her exactly what she wanted.
Dom would be safe, and her life would be intact. Everything would be swept under the rug.
All I’d ask for in return was her .
A simple deal, the kind she wouldn’t say no to because she knew I’d keep my word. Because she knew what I was, and somewhere, deep down, she wanted it.
I’d seen it on her face, fleeting but unmistakable.
I wouldn’t take anything she wasn’t offering, but I’d make sure the only thing she had left to offer was herself.
She thought I was a safety net, when in reality, I was her captor, ready to shut the cage I’d custom-built.
Digital manipulation only goes so far.
No matter how much I spun the Compliance files — medical records, eligibility reports, drug testing logs, eligibility clearances, flagged inconsistencies, cross-checked rosters, and internal audits — there were certain feeds I couldn’t touch: live access inside the system, real-time surveillance logs, and direct alerts.
This was where Sasha came in. If I wanted to stay ahead, I needed his eyes on the game.
Switching to the private, encrypted app, hidden away on my phone and protected with a passcode, I waited for the chat window to pop up on the blank screen.
There were no icons and no names. Just an “S” and a green dot flickering to life, indicating he was active.
S: Look who remembered I exist.
Hunter: Don’t get sentimental. I need something.
S: No “hello”? No “missed your stupid face”? Cold, Hunt.
S: So it’s a favor. Love that for me. Someone important?
Hunter: None of your fucking business.
S: Ah. One of those. The quiet ones always get dramatic eventually.
Hunter: You helping or not?
S: Always. You know the rules. A favor in return for a favor.
S: You better know what you’re doing, lover boy. Send me details via the other channel, I’ll get it done.
S: And Hunt? Next time, at least bring vodka.
[Chat terminated by user]
Calling in a favor from Sasha came at a steep cost, but it was a price I was willing to pay for her. A favor from Sasha was like selling your soul.
The question was, could I really sell my soul if it didn’t belong to me anymore?
I wanted Ella in my debt. Wanted the weight of this to settle on her shoulders like a collar. A collar I was already holding the leash to.
***
It was honestly almost laughable how easy it was to set up the final piece of my plan.
The hardest part was containing my excitement for the outcome, not letting my practiced mask slip and letting anyone see the deranged beast thrashing on the inside, waiting for its reward, its prize.
I didn’t have to nudge much. All I had to do was mention Compliance was sniffing around and let the wrong guy overhear at the right time.
The locker room smelled like sweat, antiseptic, and cheap body wash.
Seriously, why did these fuckers only use 12-in-1 shampoo-conditioner-face-wash-engine-degreaser combos? One of them had to have heard of soap that didn’t come in a barrel.
The guys were swearing, stripping tape from wrists, and talking over each other.
“Heard someone’s getting tested. They’re gonna start pulling names,” someone grumbled in the corner. Fucking score.
Knox, never one to know when to keep his mouth shut, chimed in. “Y’all better hope your blood’s clean.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Dom stiffen near his locker, halfway through unlacing his cleats.
He’d picked up on the discrepancies in the logs, the way the trainers flinched when he asked questions. Something wasn’t adding up.
Dom wasn’t stupid. But his loyalty was both his strength and his weakness. Loyal guys tried to hold everything together until they couldn’t.
He was already fraying. I just gave the thread a little tug.
The second his hands started shaking, I knew where he’d go. Not to Sierra and not to the team. To her .
Ella constantly played the role of the fixer. When it came to family, she always came running.
That was the thing about girls like her. They’d burn alive for someone they loved, which happened to be the part I liked best.
I knew exactly when she’d reach her limit and who she’d turn to when she did.
Ella didn’t even know she was already mine, that she’d walked into the snare weeks ago.