CHAPTER THIRTY
Dublin
The text comes in just after nine.
I’m sitting at my kitchen table, doing my best to make my report as comprehensive as possible regarding Cole’s innocence in this matter, and the name on my screen is unexpected.
Marcus.
That’s odd. My boss hates texting. He calls—even when he summons someone.
MARCUS: Meet me at the offsite Rebels facility at 10.
Rebels facility? He’s here in Austin? What the—
I scroll up through his other texts and then open up my email to see if I missed anything from him saying he was going to visit.
Nothing.
My stomach drops instantly.
I’m too afraid to ask why he’s here.
DUBLIN: I’ll be there.
Analytics could’ve come back with a break in the case and he’s here to back me up during a press conference he expects to turn ugly.
Or maybe something major has surfaced that I somehow missed.
Or this has nothing to do with the investigation at all, and he simply wants an in-person status update like he occasionally does.
Then again, maybe this is my opportunity to come clean about Cole and me crossing the line.
All the possibilities race through my mind while I’m getting ready and continue to tumble while I’m driving to the offsite facility.
But I refute each one, over and over.
I don’t miss things. That’s the one constant I’ve established my career on.
And in-person status report comes with a heads-up that he’ll be in town.
And while it could be a myriad of other things, guilt is the only other one I can think of, front and center—Cole and I crossing the line.
My nerves riot as I walk into the quiet of the building. Marcus is already in the conference room waiting for me. His arms are crossed, his posture is rigid, and his expression . . .
Oh, I’ve never seen that expression directed my way. Shit.
“Marcus. Hi. What a surprise.” I infuse cheer I don’t really feel into my tone.
His mouth doesn’t flicker anywhere near a smile.
“Is there something you wanted to tell me?” he asks, voice hard as steel.
No greeting. No lead-in. Just that.
My pulse kicks up. “What do you mean?”
The muscle in his jaw pulses. “I expected more from you, Dublin. That’s on me.”
The words hit me like a sledgehammer, because Marcus doesn’t do vague disappointment. He deals in facts, in precision, in control. This feels personal.
“I don’t understand,” I say, although I can damn well assume.
His gaze doesn’t waver at the break in my voice. “In about two hours,” he says evenly, “a story will break.”
My stomach drops. “A story?”
“Yes. I was contacted to see if I wanted to give a comment before it was published.”
My stomach drops.
Oh. Fuck.
“Marcus—”
He flicks his hand up almost as if to say it’s not your turn to talk. I shut my mouth.
“A story,” he continues, “about how the lead investigator from Gridiron Integrity Analytics is sleeping with the NFL quarterback she’s investigating.”
The room tilts and I have to lock my knees to stay upright. Marcus doesn’t look away or give me a second to recover from the blow he just landed.
“Is it true?” he asks.
There’s a moment—a single suspended moment—where I could deflect and try to control the narrative the way I’m desperate to.
While it’s so very tempting to stop the way he’s looking at me, I don’t. Because not only will he know, but it’s also disrespectful to him, the man who saw my potential and fostered it.
“Yes.” The word is barely a whisper and coated in shame like I’ve never felt before.
His exhale is slow. Measured. Controlled. And somehow that’s ten time worse than if he’d yelled.
“I was going to tell you,” I say. “I should have but was worried—”
“And that’s somehow supposed to make things better?”
“No. Yes. It just happened, Marcus.” It’s the kind of lame excuse I’d tear apart in someone else’s report, but it’s all I have.
There is a long, foreboding stretch of silence. “I can’t believe you did this.”
The disappointment in his voice eviscerates me. Tears well in my eyes. Yes, I’m fully at fault. Yes, I knew this was a possibility every moment I spent with Cole. And yet . . . holy. Shit.
“It wasn’t intentional,” I blurt out, trying to save face that’s already lost. “It just—”
“Please don’t.” He lifts his hand again almost as if the gesture will help him process my actions.
But it’s his tone that gets me, that guts me, because I’ve never heard that tone from him directed at me.
“Do you have any idea how this looks?” he asks, voice a rubber band being stretched tight.
My throat constricts. “Yes.”
“Especially after everything we went through with the Murdoch shit?” he asks.
He doesn’t have to explain it. The case. The fallout. The league’s reaction. The way he defended me and the tough lesson I learned about how credibility can disappear overnight.
There’s so much I want to say but it’s best if I keep my mouth closed.
“I’ve had a lot of employees over the years,” he says. “A lot of great ones.” He pauses, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “You’re the last person I ever thought would cross that line.”
Each word he says is another twist of the knife. I deserve every one of them.
“I didn’t plan this,” I say quieter now. “But I know it doesn’t change the facts.”
His eyes narrow. “What facts?”
“Cole is clean.” I say with certainty because it’s the only leg I have left to stand on. “I’ve seen everything. The accounts, the betting patterns, the timing. He didn’t do this. He was unknowingly relaying a ‘tell.’ Someone’s caught it and is using it to their advantage.”
Marcus studies me, lips pursed and eyes unforgiving. “Well, your actions have pretty much ensured that no one will believe that.”
“I can prove it. I’ll show you everything I have. I was in the process of composing the report for you. Once you read it, you’ll see he’s clean—”
“Who’s doing the betting?”
“What?” I startle. “I don’t know yet, but—”
“But you were compiling a report to prove Valor had nothing to do with it before you even finished the investigation and all avenues associated with it.” His lips pulled tight.
“We never do that—report findings before all angles are resolved. That’s not our protocol and you know it.
The report is the report when all is said and done.
And here you are making adjustments to it for the man you were sleeping with, but I’m not supposed to think you’re not giving him favorable treatment or are jaded in your analysis? ”
“I didn’t. I wasn’t. Marcus, you have to believe me,” I beg but it falls on deaf ears. “The data. The . . .”
“Dublin.” His voice is calm. Too calm. “The lead investigator sleeping with the subject of the investigation doesn’t get to present a credible conclusion—and especially not when it’s half-assed.”
He walks toward the window, head shaking and disappointment palpable. I feel every single step as he does.
“You compromised the case,” he says and just like that, everything I’ve built . . . fractures. “And now, even if you’re right, it won’t matter because it looks like you were protecting him.”
“I’m not protecting him. I was doing my job just like I always do without bias. I am telling the truth.”
“Well, no one will be able to separate the two.”
Silence crashes down between us. It’s heavy and unforgiving.
Guilt creeps in, slow and insidious.
Because he’s not wrong.
“We have to find out who’s responsible,” I say, pushing for the sake of redemption. “That’s the only way to clear him completely.”
Marcus’s expression remains unchanged. “That’ll look like a fishing expedition to cover your ass and my company’s reputation.”
“It’s not. There’s a pattern. Someone on the inside—most likely someone in the Rebels organization—is using Cole’s tell to profit. It still matters that I close this case. To stop the insider trading. It still—”
“It doesn’t matter.”
It’s like a door slamming.
“It matters to him that his name is cleared,” I say.
“It matters to you,” he says, and the rebuke stings.
“And that’s all anyone will see, Dublin.
Either he seduced you to skew your opinion—which in that case makes him look even more guilty and more of a slimeball.
Or you slept with him and compromised your investigation, which is just as damning to you and your reputation.
There is no way to walk this back and save face. For him. For you. For the company.”
The first tear slips over. “Just tell me what I need to do to make this right,” I whisper.
He shakes his head. “You can’t.” The finality in his voice makes it hard to breathe. “I’m taking you off the case effective immediately.”
“I’m sorry, Marcus.” The words are practically a plea. “I made a mistake. I put you in jeopardy.”
“I believe every word you’re saying, Dublin. I do because I know the person I thought you were, and while that person clearly made a mistake, I don’t doubt that your work is impeccable. But that still doesn’t give me a choice in how to move forward.”
“You know my track record,” I say evenly, knowing the fight is already lost. “You know how hard I work. I mean”—I run a hand through my hair in frustration—“I can work behind the scenes so you can save the relationship with the NFL. I can . . .”
“You’ve been nothing but gold for me,” he says solemnly. “That’s why this is the last thing I ever expected.”
I swallow over the lump in my throat because that’s the part that hurts the most.
“I’m sorry,” I say for what feels like the tenth time. Every part of me means it.
He nods once, but it doesn’t undo the disaster, and it sure as hell doesn’t change what’s coming.
“Go home,” he says, dismissing me with a finality I don’t want to accept.
I don’t move right away because if I do, this becomes even more real. Irrevocably so.
For the first time in as long as I can remember, I didn’t follow a pattern.
Didn’t stay objective.
I chose something else. Someone else. And now everything I’ve built is about to break because of it.