Chapter 29
Dante
Dustin straightened. “Feeding tips?” He scratched his jaw. “What kind of tips?”
My eyes flicked to Noah, who sat watching me, saying nothing.
“Things like injuries. Anything someone can make a buck off of if they know before the line changes.” The words came out rough, but I didn’t stop. “Been doing it for a while.”
Silence dropped between us, heavy and suffocating.
Dustin’s controller slipped from his hand onto the couch. “You’re joking.”
“I don’t joke about this shit.” I leaned back, keeping my expression calm. “It’s controlled. There’s nothing written down, no paper trail. Just information that I pass on.”
Noah finally spoke, his voice low. “Why?”
I stared at the wall behind him. “Because . . . because I needed something.”
“You’re being blackmailed?” Noah guessed.
“Yes. No . . . Kind of.”
“Someone came after you?” Dustin asked incredulously.
I shook my head. “They didn’t come after me. I went to them.”
Noah’s hands stilled. Dustin swore under his breath.
I turned to look at them both, meeting their stares dead on. “My shoulder’s more than I said it was. It was really fucking wrong before the championship game and I knew I needed something to take to dull the pain, but—”
“Drug tests,” Noah said solemnly.
“Yeah. So I played through it. Like we all do with an injury.”
Dustin was leaning forward. “No, we play through a niggle, we don’t play through an injury that could fuck us up for our entire career.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not that bad.” I refused to look at either of them. “And then we won, so it was good, and we got our physical assessments and . . .” I tilted my head back. “It’s so stupid. I got one comment from one of the PTs.”
“What’d they say?” Noah asked me.
“I can’t even remember,” I told him honestly, meeting his eyes briefly. “But I remember the implication of what they said. That an injury that needed work went on Draft sheets and they didn’t want anything interfering with my Draft options.”
Dustin made a sound of disgust or disbelief, I wasn’t sure. “They said that?”
“Kind of.” Truthfully, I no longer knew what they’d said and what I’d filled in myself. “So I played down my shoulder.”
“And you self-medicated.” Noah’s voice was firm and offered no room for argument.
Dustin scoffed. “He would never,” he said with such conviction that I felt even more like shit. “Spence is a stickler for rules,” he said, looking over at me, and I saw his look of complete conviction morph into one of shocked disbelief. “Fuck off.” He was on his feet. “What the fuck did you do?”
There it was. The indignant anger. The look of betrayal.
“My sister Jiana was a user. It was getting pretty bad. She’s clean now.
Nicky, my nephew,” I supplied for Noah, “is three. But it’s been rough.
Her old dealer still hangs around, a low-level piece of scum who knows how easy it would be for Ji to fall.
” I looked down at the ground. “All I needed was some strong painkillers I couldn’t get at CVS.
That I wouldn’t be on the books for here. ”
“You took painkillers off a drug dealer?” Dustin looked ready to explode. “Are you out of your fucking mind?” He pointed at the door. “They’re paying people to shut the fuck up about injuries. You had access to a whole fucking pharmacy, you stupid son of a bitch.”
“I didn’t know that!” I roared back at him. “I didn’t know they did that, trust me, if I did . . .” If I did, I would have used them and not had to go to Knox, and I would be no better than the guys I threw a punch at on Saturday.
Fuck — I was a fucking hypocrite.
“You’d have used them?” Noah asked, and I turned to look at him. Something in his voice didn’t sound like he believed me.
I couldn’t hold his stare. “I . . .” No.
Maybe? I honestly didn’t know. What I’d been doing was stupid.
Would taking them from a professional, someone on my program, have made it any better?
Knowing there was no record of it? It felt sleazy.
But then, so did getting painkillers from a drug dealer. “I don’t know.”
Dustin grunted. “You wouldn’t. Despite being a fucking idiot, you wouldn’t have been comfortable knowing about it.
That’s the difference. Or your last week with us has been a very big fucking lie, but that seems to be what you do now.
” He was angry, really fucking pissed. “A drug dealer? Are you out of your fucking mind?” He glared at me, his hands balled into fists.
“And in turn for your pills—” his sneer was deserved — “you gave him what?”
“I told him who was injured on a team, who was carrying a knock, it allowed him to make his bets, get better odds.”
Dustin was watching me, anger and disappointment clear in his eyes. “You are so screwed if anyone finds out.”
“I know.”
“You’re the next fucking Mason Sterling, man,” he carried on.
“Yeah, I didn’t remember him when you asked, but I went and I found out about him.
Or tried to.” He saw my look of alarm. “Please,” he scoffed.
“Don’t give me that look, I’m not as fucking obvious as you are.
He disappeared. He didn’t transfer, he didn’t take a gap year. I can’t find any trace of this guy.”
“What’d he do?” Noah asked.
Dustin shook his head again. “I don’t know. I can’t find a record of why he got shipped out, but I can guarantee you, you’re next if they find out what the fuck you’ve done.”
“Then we make sure they never know.” Noah stood slowly, his dark gaze on Dustin’s.
“It’s not like he’s an addict. He took a few extra painkillers for an ongoing issue that is now being seen to.
He has an MRI tomorrow morning. That solves the issue of the dealer, Dante doesn’t need him, he goes away. ”
Dustin wasn’t convinced. “He can hold this over him.”
“What? He gave someone else prescription pills that weren’t meant for them?” Noah shrugged. “The wrongdoings on his part first. He won’t say fuck all.”
Dustin’s gaze darted to mine before going back to Noah. “He’s giving him insider tips. The NCAA will hang his ass out to dry.”
“He stops.” Noah didn’t even look at me. “It’s on the guy to prove it, not Dante to defend it. We say nothing, Spence stops being stupid, it goes away.”
We shared a look. One of understanding, and I knew if they wanted to still have a friendship with me after this, I needed to learn more about Noah Matthews. My gaze flicked to Dustin, who was still angry, but he was worried about me, and that was only a good thing, right?
I decided to lay it out for them. “My sister.”
They both waited patiently. “She’s . . .” I inhaled deeply. “She’s done it before, relapsed, gone back to him for her fix. Nicky was one, maybe older, maybe eighteen months. Ji got high, ran the car off the road, and ended up in the ICU.”
“The boy?” Noah asked quietly.
“Nicky was with me.” I squared my shoulders. “Got the scare of my life the night I walked in and saw her in a coma. We thought we’d lose her.”
“And the dealer?” Noah pushed. “Is he the dad?”
“No. Thank fuck, no,” I told him. “Andy, the father, he’s a good guy, wasn’t expecting a kid at twenty-one, but he helps out a lot. They’re not together, but he isn’t absent.”
“How the fuck do I not know this?” Dustin asked me in bewilderment.
“Because I don’t share my shit.” I looked between the two of them.
“Which I’m realizing may be a me problem more than a you problem.
” They both looked like I’d told them something they already knew.
“But . . . I can’t sit here and tell you about a corrupt program and all that crap, when I’m just as fucking dirty as it. ”
“You’re not in on the cover-ups?” Dustin said more to himself than to me. “Which we think is program-wide. You’re just . . .” he glanced at me. “Stupid.”
“Appreciate you, Dust,” I mocked, and shut my mouth when his glare reminded me I was lucky he wasn’t punching me right now.
Noah ignored our back-and-forth, his attention on me, studying me. “You saw the hockey team’s fitness report,” he said with understanding, thinking back to the bar. “You told this guy—”
“Knox,” I supplied.
“You told Knox the team was fine, he made the bet, the team played like shit. He lost.” He gave a slow nod. “You didn’t know they were pretty banged up, because the injury report said they were all fine.”
Dustin was staring at him. “How do you even get to that?”
“He’s from Vegas, and he pays attention,” I told him, and I saw Noah’s mouth twitch.
“Dustin’s right. If they catch you, you’re gone,” Noah said, his tone still steady and even.
“Not for the pill popping, or even the tips. They’ll lose you because you know too much, you’re giving them the reason to do so, just makes it easier for them to do it, and keep doing whatever the fuck they’re doing. ”
“I know.”
He nodded. “And?”
“I won’t do it again.”
He looked like he agreed. “It’s not just you and your sister,” he reminded me gently. “You’ll bring me and Dustin into this too.”
“I know.” And I did, and that realization was enough to wake me the fuck up.
“So, what happened this afternoon?”
It was my turn to gape at him. “That’s it?”
He shrugged. “You get caught, you lose big. It’s stupid, but I get it. You didn’t know the program was crooked. You had a moment of weakness, happens to us all. And . . . she’s your sister. It fits.”
Dustin was looking between us, his eyes wide. “It doesn’t fit.” He marched over to the kitchen area, anger vibrating in his every step. He reached into a cupboard and then glared at Noah. “Stop eating my stuff.”
Noah stood and walked over to him, his bigger frame making Dustin look small, when Dustin was anything but small. The linebacker reached into the cupboard and brought down a bag of chips. “Stretch more, shortass.”
“I’m six foot!” Dustin protested.
“Shortass.”
They both sat back down and stared at me. “Go on,” Dustin instructed, opening his bag of chips.
“What if I stop and he goes after her again?” It was my darkest fear.
One I’d never been brave enough to say out loud.
Never been too disloyal to admit that I didn’t trust my sister not to be tempted.
“I have one more year before I can take my family and put them far out of his reach.” I looked between them.
“I’m not there with her. I’m not asking for help, I’m not asking for anything, but I really didn’t expect cover-ups like this from the program.
It’s really knocked my belief in everything we’ve achieved, but .
. . Am I any better?” I sighed long and loud.
“I can’t sit here and be a hypocrite, so I refuse to be one. ”
“I don’t like this any more than you do,” Dust grumbled. “Does Jiana know?”
“No.”
“Tell her,” he said, leaning forward in earnest. “C’mon Dante, I’ve met your sister; she adores you. Tell her what you did, what you are risking for her.”
“She never asked for this,” I snapped.
“No, she didn’t, and she never asked for you to sacrifice your whole life because you didn’t trust her,” he countered. “Give her some credit.”
I thought about it. Really thought about it.
“I did that,” I said bitterly. “She ended up in the ICU, and I thought she was dead and my nephew would grow up with no mom.”
“You weren’t the only one who got a wake-up call when she woke up,” Noah murmured. “What scared you would have scared the shit out of her even more.”
I met his look. “I hope so,” I told him honestly. “I really do.”
The silence sat heavy between us until Dustin leaned forward and rubbed his hand over his head. “Tell us about this afternoon.”
“Hembry took me to PT. A new trainer came in, young, capable,” I said, remembering her strength.
“She told me what she planned to do for my recovery,” I added.
“It’s more than Doug told me. She scheduled an MRI for the morning.
Ran through her recommendations, told me I was getting an injection and a massage, and then . . .”
Dustin rolled his eyes. “I can do without the dramatics.”
“I thought I was going to sneeze, asshole.”
“Can we get to the point?” Noah muttered.
“Then she asked if I wanted a chaperone in the room with me, but she wasn’t asking if I wanted a chaperone; she was telling me she wanted one.”
Noah whistled low. “Wow. That’s really sickening that she doesn’t feel safe.”
“Yeah.” I leaned back in my seat. “When we left, Hembry said she was still too new to be tarnished by Wrighton.”
Dustin grimaced. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“I have a pretty good idea.” I slid my phone over from side to top, against the arm of the chair, as I thought about it. “Then he said he knew why I was fighting, and that it sucks, but he told me not to rock the boat. He said I’ve one more year here, keep my head down, and stay out of it.”
When I was done talking, both looked as pissed off as I felt.