Chapter 32
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Maddox
The buzz of last night’s win hasn’t even worn off when my phone lights up with Peter’s name. I almost let it go to voicemail.
I’m halfway to the gym, windows down, music up, trying to get out of my head. But the second buzz hits and something in my gut turns.
I thumb the call. “Yeah?”
He doesn’t waste time. “It’s out.”
My whole body goes still. Had Jace said something after all?
“What’s out?”
“The Boston thing,” he says, voice tight. “Someone leaked it.”
The air in the car goes razor sharp.
“No names yet, but it’s bad. A blind item on some sports gossip site hit this afternoon, and now X is tearing it apart. They’re calling it Locker Room Loyaltygate.” A pause. “The way it’s worded? Someone knew details. Enough to point fingers.”
I grip the steering wheel like I might tear it off the column.
“You’re not mentioned—yet. But if it spreads, it’s only a matter of time. The rookie’s name isn’t in it either, but the timeline and team details line up too fucking clean to be a guess.”
“Who?” I rasp, throat tight. “Who the hell would say anything?”
Peter sighs. “I’ve already gone down the list. Boston’s front office hasn’t budged. Rookie’s been quiet. Josh could ruin his career if he said anything.”
“Only if Boston wants him to be ruined. He’s the golden boy.”
“What’s his incentive?”
I don’t have an answer for that. And that only leaves one variable.
Sloane.
The silence that follows eats a hole through my chest.
“Sloane knows,” I say flatly. “Not just what happened. The details. What it meant.”
“How the hell does she know?”
“I told her.”
Peter sighs long and hard. “Please tell me I did not just hear that.” He pauses. “Why and when did you tell her this?”
I suppose telling him I decided after I’d been between her thighs is not a good idea.
“It’s been a few weeks, and I figured she needed to know.”
“Hold on a minute. Are you and Carrington…?”
“No, Peter.”
But once again, I say it too quickly. And Peter’s not stupid.
He doesn’t respond right away, and he doesn’t press, but I can hear the gears turning. “Look, I’m not saying it was her. But this didn’t come from nowhere. And she’s got enemies on that board who’d love to leak something toxic.”
My jaw flexes until it aches. “If she told anyone—”
“If she did, she just put a target on your back and her own.”
I hang up without saying goodbye.
My blood’s buzzing like it did the night of the fight. The weight in my chest, that sharp push of betrayal—God, it feels the same.
Like a scar cracking open from the inside.
I try to breathe. Try to tell myself this isn’t what it looks like.
But every time I give someone the benefit of the doubt, I end up burned.
And this time?
I fucking told her everything.
By the time I pull into the Venom District garage, I’ve run through every version of this that doesn’t end with her name on the tip of someone’s tongue.
None of them hold.
Security clocks me at the private elevator, but no one stops me. They know my face now. Or maybe I just look pissed enough to make way.
The upstairs lights are low except for the corridor leading to her office. I hear muffled voices from a conference room—PR, maybe Legal—trying to get ahead of the wildfire.
But her door’s closed. No assistant. No cameras. Just silence and the click of my boots across the tile.
I knock once, sharp.
No answer.
I open the door anyway.
Sloane stands near her window, back straight, arms crossed over her chest like armor.
The room smells like printer toner and espresso. Her desk is a war zone—printouts, marked-up press releases, two phones side-by-side. One of them buzzes, unanswered. A hardcopy of the blind item lies open on her keyboard, my name circled in red ink.
She doesn’t flinch when I enter. Doesn’t even turn.
“You leaked it?” My voice comes out lower than I mean it to. Rougher.
Still, she doesn’t move. “Don’t come in here barking accusations.”
“Too late for that.” I shut the door behind me, the click like a gun firing off.
She turns then—slow and measured. Her mouth is painted sharp, her expression unreadable. But her eyes give her away. There's something cracked behind the frost.
“I didn’t leak a goddamn thing,” she says.
I stare at her. Waiting. Daring her to blink first.
She doesn’t.
She exhales through her nose, sharp. “I’ve spent the last twelve hours putting out fires you don’t even know about. Three calls with Legal. Two with PR. Our lead sponsor wants a meeting tomorrow. The board is circling like vultures.”
She throws a file folder onto the desk, the contents spilling out—internal memos, clipped news articles, half a dozen flagged emails.
“You think I had time today to casually sabotage both our careers?” she says tightly. “You think I wanted to put myself in the crosshairs of my own board for fun?”
“Then how did it get out?” I step closer, heat pounding under my skin. “You’re the only one outside Boston who knew the whole story.”
“I didn’t tell anyone.” Her voice breaks, just slightly, at the edge. “You think I’d do that? After what you told me? After what it cost you to say it?”
I stare at her, lips parting, but the memory hits too fast: her curled into me on that hotel bed, fingers resting over the scar on my chest like it meant something.
Like I meant something.
“I don’t know what to think,” I bite out. “Because I haven’t heard from you in two days. Not after the video. Not after the fallout. Not after I opened my fucking chest and handed you the pieces.”
Her chin lifts. “And what, you wanted me to say thank you? That I’m fixed now? That I know how to be yours?”
“That’s not what I—”
“You want to talk betrayal?” she cuts in, eyes gleaming now. “You didn’t text. You didn’t call. You didn’t warn me that Finn was about to set the team on fire from the inside. And now you’re standing in my office acting like I’m the one who lit the match.”
The silence between us stretches, raw and ugly.
I want to yell. I want to pull her into my arms. I want to smash every wall between us. But all I can do is breathe hard through my nose and clench my fists.
“I told you I needed space,” she says quietly. “That’s not the same thing as saying I didn’t need you.”
The second she says it—“That’s not the same thing as saying I didn’t need you”—it slams through me like a puck to the chest.
And still, I can’t let go of the anger curling around my ribs.
“You don’t get to play semantics with me, Sloane,” I grind out. “You said you needed space and then went radio silent. What the hell was I supposed to think?”
She steps back, folding her arms tighter, like she’s physically holding herself together. “That maybe I was scared. That maybe this—us—isn’t something I’ve ever been allowed to want before.”
Her voice cracks again, but she doesn’t look away.
And I can’t look away from her.
The weight of what’s happening—the leak, the fallout, her silence, my silence—sits heavy between us.
But under it, something more fragile flickers.
Something like pain. Regret. Maybe even longing.
But the damage is done. We’re both standing in the wreckage now.
“You think I wanted to be the one who leaked it?” she says softly. “You think I wanted this?”
I shake my head. Not because I believe it. But because I don’t want to believe she could ever betray me like that.
She crosses to her desk and rests her palms flat on it like she’s bracing for impact.
“Dean already thinks I’m compromised because of you.
The board’s looking for a reason to clip my wings.
So no, Maddox. I didn’t leak your past to the press.
Because I’m not stupid enough to hand them the knife they’re dying to use on me. ”
I watch her, heart pounding, throat dry.
And suddenly the anger in me buckles, cracking open something colder.
“I came here thinking you’d deny it,” I say. “Thinking maybe I could still believe you.”
“You still can.”
But the silence afterward feels like a void.
I step toward the door. My hand closes around the handle.
I don’t leave.
“You can hate me all you want,” I say quietly. “But if you didn’t leak it, you’d better find out who did. Fast.”
I look over my shoulder one last time. She’s staring down at her desk, shoulders rigid, like she’s trying not to shake.
“Because if the league runs with this the way Boston did,” I add, “they won’t just take me down this time. They’ll come for you, too.”
A knock slams against the door before I can open it.
I jerk it open, jaw still tight and chest heaving—
And Dean’s standing there.
Wide-eyed.
Listening.
And with a smirk that can only mean trouble.