Chapter 35
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Sloane
I should be getting ready for the game. Press walk-throughs, media roundups, pre-ceremony meetings with sponsors.
Instead, I sit in the dark in my office.
Just me, my laptop, and the power-hungry glow of the screen as I open the file I promised myself I’d never touch again.
PLAYER ACQUISITION DOSSIER – M. LASKER
My chest tightens.
It takes a full minute to double-click. Not because I’m indecisive. But because it feels like slicing open a wound just to check if it still bleeds.
Spoiler alert: it does.
The first slide flickers into view.
A headshot of Maddox in his Boston jersey, jaw tight, eyes flat.
He looks like he hasn’t slept in a decade. I remember staring at that photo for hours, analyzing every detail.
Trying to figure out if I could trust a man like him to represent everything I was fighting for.
HIGH RISK, HIGH REWARD.
That’s the title of the second slide.
God, I was so clinical. So strategic. So in control.
"Potential captain material if emotionally stabilized."
"History of altercations, but team-first loyalty."
"Fanbase response: Polarizing."
I scroll through it slowly, one slide at a time, the corner of my mouth twitching in something that might be a laugh if it didn’t feel like a knife scraping against bone.
Everything here was meant to guard me.
To keep this exactly what it was supposed to be: business.
But somewhere between puck drops and center ice kisses, I lost the plot.
And now I’m sitting here like some heartbroken idiot, rewriting a presentation no one will ever see.
My fingers hover over the keyboard. I start a new slide and type:
REALITY CHECK
– Manipulative
– Untrustworthy
– A threat to legacy
– Unprofessional
– Liability
Each bullet feels like a punch. Not to him. He’s none of those things.
But every single one of those is me.
I try to blink away the sting in my eyes, but my vision blurs anyway. I swallow the lump in my throat and reach for my water bottle, like that’s going to fix anything.
Why is it people ask if you want water when you’re hurting or panicking?
Is hydration stronger than heartbreak or anxiety?
The cursor flashes in the corner of the slide like it’s waiting for one more truth.
— Irreparable.
I type it slowly. Each letter a confession.
The silence around me is heavy, suffocating. The kind of silence that makes you feel the emptiness in your own skin.
I should be downstairs, shaking hands and making smiles.
I should be plotting something for Dean’s removal. Prepping press statements. Watching warmups from the catwalk with a face made of steel.
Instead, I’m here. Alone. Making PowerPoint poison out of the only thing I ever let myself want.
My phone buzzes on the desk.
I don’t check it.
I just press my fingers to my eyes and will myself not to fall apart.
Not yet.
Not until I know there’s nothing left to salvage.
I don’t know why I’m doing this.
Maybe because it’s the only place I can bleed where no one will see. Maybe because the slideshow hurts less than walking into a rink filled with whispers and cameras and Maddox’s face on every damn poster.
Or maybe because if I control the narrative—at least in here—then I can pretend for five minutes that I still have power.
I click back to the beginning of the presentation.
The first slide loads again, that haunting headshot staring back at me.
I drag the image into the trash bin.
The empty gray box where his photo used to be feels like a hollowed-out organ.
Good.
Let it match the rest of me.
My nails tap against the keys—agitated and erratic. I scroll down to the slide that used to say “Long-Term Viability.” I retitle it:
Unrecoverable Losses
The words blur.
I blink hard and tighten my grip on the mouse, like squeezing plastic can ground me.
He didn’t even flinch.
He said it in front of the entire boardroom like it didn’t cost him a piece of his soul.
“It’s over.”
Not I’m sorry.
Not I had to.
Not even This is killing me, too.
Just final. Brutal. Irrevocable.
The sharp, clean kind of truth you don’t walk back from.
My throat thickens, raw and burning. I press the heel of my hand against my chest, like I can push the pain back into place.
Keep it from cracking through the seams of my composure.
But it's already leaking. Into my breath. Into my bones. Into the space where his voice used to echo.
“I want all of you, Sloane.”
He said that once.
Now I sit in the wreckage of what it meant.
I hover over another slide.
Projected Impact.
It used to be about fan engagement and defensive rankings.
Now, all I can think is how many pieces of myself I handed over to a man who never promised to keep them safe but I assumed he would.
A knock sounds faintly against the door.
I don’t move.
Let whoever it is knock until their hand falls off.
Let the whole world bang down my door. I’ve already lost the only thing that mattered.
My hand shakes on the mouse as I drag another slide into the trash. Then another. Until all that’s left is a blank deck and my reflection in the screen, eyes red, lips trembling, mascara smudged at the corners like a confession I forgot to swallow.
My phone buzzes again. Another notification. Maybe a news alert. Maybe the board. Maybe Maddox.
I don’t look.
If it’s him, I’ll break.
If it’s not, I’ll break anyway.
The soft knock comes again, more insistent this time.
I don’t answer.
But the door creaks open anyway, and Tessa steps inside like she’s walking into a room where something already died.
She takes one look at me and shuts the door quietly behind her.
I swipe at my face, but it’s pointless. The damage is obvious.
She doesn’t say anything right away. Just walks over, sets her phone facedown on the table, and lowers herself slowly into the chair across from me.
I brace for her to say something comforting. Or worse—something kind.
But she surprises me.
“I have something you need to hear.”
Her voice is tighter than usual. Strained. Not bossy or brisk or clinical like normal. Tessa only sounds like this when something is about to detonate.
I frown. “What is it?”
She flips the phone over and taps a message. A voice recording starts to play, already queued up.
Two voices.
Dean’s.
And someone else I don’t recognize at first—until I do.
Joshua Leonard.
The Boston Freeze Golden Boy asshole veteran who went after the rookie Maddox saved.
The one player Dean always wanted on the team, but even my father refused to try to acquire him.
The one with no love lost between him and Maddox.
“…told you it would work,” Josh says, smug and low. “You leak the story, he spirals. Carrington’s credibility tanks. They’re both out by playoffs, guaranteed.”
Dean’s reply is colder. “It’s not just about getting rid of them. It’s about restoring order. Maddox was never going to fall in line. And Sloane…she’s dangerous when she thinks she’s untouchable.”
The room tilts.
I stare at the phone like it might bite me.
“They planned this,” I whisper. “They—Jesus, they planned this.”
Tessa pauses the recording and ger voice goes sharp. “There’s more. Including how Dean’s been feeding rumors to a media contact for months. It’s all on here. Time stamps. Identifiers. Enough to bury him.”
I blink, barely absorbing the words. “Where did you get it?”
“Total fluke. He has his assistant record their meetings to dictate later. She left her phone in his office by accident and never shut off the recording. When she heard it, she came to me for advice.”
I shake my head. “This doesn’t make sense. Why would he—?”
But the question dies before I finish it.
Because I know why.
Power.
Control.
Legacy.
The same reason men like him always pull the strings.
And the same reason I’m sitting here now—half undone, fully exposed and with nothing left to hold onto but a broken heart and a handful of truth too late to change anything.
Tessa watches me carefully, as if she’s expecting me to explode. To rage. To scream and demand retribution.
But none of that comes.
I fold forward instead, elbows on my knees, face in my hands. My body shakes, a sob strangling in my throat like barbed wire.
It isn’t Dean’s betrayal that guts me.
It’s Maddox’s voice in my head, breaking all over again.
It’s over.
I choke on a breath. “I told him we’d ruin each other.”
Tessa kneels in front of me and grips my wrists with steady hands. “Then un-ruin it, Sloane. Fight for him. Hell, fight for you.”
But all I can do is cry.
I don’t know how to fight for someone who already walked away.