Chapter Forty-Three – Fawn #2
He crosses the room without rushing. Pulls the office chair out, then lowers himself into it.
“You could.” He taps his phone once. “But by the time you get to a station, I’ll have sent it to someone in a different country, where the law is practically non-existent.
And once something’s online . . .” he shrugs, “it stays forever, even if it’s taken down. ”
Forever.
The word lands and sinks deep, heavy, until it feels like it’s pressing on my lungs. My heart feels like it wants to break out of my ribcage. I curl my fingers into my palms, nails digging hard enough to hurt.
He leans back in his chair, steepling his fingers. “And from what Dylan told me the other day, you’re a little short of funds. Your grandpa’s in a nursing home, isn’t he?” His eyes are sparkling. “Do you have any idea what a video like that might do to your reputation as an author?”
That does it.
The way he says author, like it’s already a joke, like he’s tasting how easily he could ruin me.
And then, there’s my grandpa, my poor, innocent grandpa.
My tears are burning and uncontrollable, sliding down my face, dripping onto my neck, soaking into my dress.
But maybe, just maybe, I can control this.
“Fine,” I whisper harshly. “I’m calling your bluff. Post it. Take everything out on me.” I raise my chin, though it’s shaking. “But I’ll go down there right now and tell them everything. They’ll quit the team. They’ll hate you forever and probably break every bone in your body.”
The coach laughs, and then he taps his screen again. “You won’t,” he says softly. “And here’s why . . .”
The video shifts. This time, it’s Dylan and Torin — kissing, sucking each other’s tongues before returning to my pussy.
“I didn’t expect them to swing that way,” Coach mocks sinisterly.
My breath shatters in my chest.
He looks at me over the phone, eyes sharp and cruel. “We wouldn’t want the team to see that, now would we? You forget, I hold all the cards, you stupid girl.”
And in that moment, I understand precisely how trapped I am.
Taking it out on me is one thing, but dragging Dylan and Torin into this?
Destroying them for something that isn’t even wrong?
Like he’s trying to expose a sin when really, he’s just trying to invent one, to ruin their lives just to prove he can, because he has the power.
If he posts the video, I imagine the guilt settling into me, knowing I could have stopped it and didn’t.
I can handle being broken. I can live with my own losses, but they don’t deserve it. Not ever.
“Now, if I were you, I’d sit and listen,” he orders.
I do as I’m told. My thighs quiver against the chair as I lower myself.
“You’re gonna end whatever thing you’ve got going with them. You hear me?” he explains flatly.
I stare at the wall behind him. My throat closes. No sound comes out.
“Don’t make it some big show,” he continues, like he’s giving advice instead of tearing my life apart. “You go quietly and move on. You live happily ever after with your grandpa and your books. Got it?”
I want to fight, scream, run downstairs, tell Dylan and Torin everything. I want to see them choose me and let the truth burn this place to the ground. But then I see it all at once: my grandpa’s care slipping through my fingers, my men’s names dragged through Ivywood like a joke.
There’s no version of this where I win.
The choice isn’t really a choice at all. It’s a sacrifice dressed up as mercy.
My face drops into my hands. “You’re an evil, vile man,” I spit through clenched teeth.
When I look up, my eyes burn. There’s nothing more I want than to climb over the desk and punch him, to lash out, to break his nose, but I know he could overpower me easily.
He rises from the chair and strides to my side. Too close. “You either go quietly, my way.” A beat of silence. “Or you take the boys down with you, destroying them, yourself, and even your grandpa in the process. Think logically. That’s a lot of lives you could fuck up right now.”
The edges of the room have moved in. Suddenly, I understand this isn’t a bluff.
Then, with one final blow, like a knife to the heart, he says, “They deserve better than you, let’s be honest. With you, they’re settling for less.”
The words slide neatly into the cracks I spent years trying to seal.
He’s right; they would be better off without me and the burdens I carry.
They deserve so much more than I can give, and knowing that hurts.
Something in me just shatters. It’s as if the center of my chest just collapses, like I’m being sucked into a black hole with nothing to grasp.
I rise to my feet but sway. He catches me by the arm before I can move, fingers clamping down hard enough that I feel the sting of pain.
“Remember the rules. You leave quietly. You break it off by text message or something,” he says, his grip increasing, his voice going sharp. “Or I’ll put the video online. Got it?”
“Yes,” I choke out, because one word is all I can say, all I can handle.
“Good,” he says, releasing me. “Use the emergency exit. Bottom of the staircase.”
And just like that, I walk out of the room knowing I chose their peace over my own, and I’ve just agreed to destroy my own heart to save theirs.