Chapter 26 #2
The rest of me didn’t care.
Didn’t matter.
I shoved the phone into my pocket, zipped my jacket, and walked out of the hotel room like I was walking onto a pitch. My heartbeat slowed, my vision tunneled.
This wasn’t PR. This wasn’t a storyline.
This was someone hurting her in public.
And I was done sitting still.
I turned the ignition, engine growling under my hands, and pointed the car toward the studio.
Whatever waited for me there, I’d deal with it.
But Ryder Blake wasn’t going to finish this segment thinking he’d won.
The studio looked sterile and smug—white lights, glass doors, modern art that tried too hard.
I didn’t slow down.
The receptionist started to say something, but I dropped my name like a weapon. “Kieren Walker. Stevensville.”
That alone opened doors. The rest I bulldozed open myself.
Someone shouted after me—security, maybe. I didn’t care. I used the tone athletes only pull out at press junkets when they’re done playing polite. “Where’s Blake?”
She stammered something. I caught the word “East wing,” and I moved.
The corridors blurred. My cleats weren’t even on, but my legs moved like I was mid-match. Muscle memory. Fury turned kinetic.
Outside the glass, I saw him.
Ryder Blake.
Still on-air. Still talking. Still smirking.
The cameras hadn’t cut yet. His mic light blinked red.
I hit the lobby just as the segment was ending. A producer saw me and swore. Another yelled into a headset, eyes wide. One guy grabbed a walkie and shouted for security.
Too late.
I pushed through the studio door hard enough it slammed into the wall. Inside, it was chaos: fluorescent lights buzzing, the chemical sting of too much coffee, people moving like ants under fire.
The sound of Blake’s voice filtered through the studio glass—sharp, smug, still spitting whatever garbage he thought made him clever.
He was being rolled off set in a chair, mic still clipped to his blazer. The producer tried to block me with a clipboard.
“Sir—this is a closed set—”
“Move.”
My voice cut clean.
He hesitated—because I was me. Because the cameras were still rolling.
I stepped past him, into the ring of light where Ryder turned just in time to see me coming.
His smile froze.
“Oh, look,” he said, smug cracking. “Didn’t know they let players do drop-ins—”
I grabbed his mic off his lapel and tossed it to the floor.
“Say one more word,” I told him, voice low. “About her. About us.”
He stood, but I didn’t flinch. He was taller on TV.
“You think you’re some kind of hero?” He sneered. “I was with her, you know? She didn’t even like soccer until me.”
I blinked.
This was her fiance?
The one who cheated on her.
My gaze narrowed.
“No,” I said, stepping closer, “I’m the proof that she’s worth going to war for.”
Behind us, the producers scrambled to kill the feed. One of them yelled, “We’re still live!”
I should’ve walked away.
I should’ve let the statement come from the team. Should’ve let the PR machine spin their version. Should’ve trusted that justice and public opinion would work it out.
But then Ryder opened his mouth.
On live TV.
“I guess we all know what she’s willing to trade for access,” he said, voice slick as oil.
Then he laughed.
Mocking. Loud. Like the world was in on the joke.
My vision snapped.
I didn’t remember moving. One second I was outside the studio door—next, my fist collided with his face.
A satisfying, sickening crack.
He staggered back, one hand to his mouth.
The studio erupted.
Voices everywhere—shouts, gasps, the unmistakable clamor of panic trying to keep up with chaos. Someone yelled my name. Another shouted for security.
But all I saw was him.
Ryder’s face twisted, blood on his teeth. “That all you got, old man?”
He lunged back. His elbow caught my side. I shoved him, hard. He slammed into the wall.
Not a clean fight. Not cinematic.
Messy. Hands grappling. Elbows flying.
We were scuffling like idiots in a glass hallway, framed by fluorescent light and studio glass.
I tasted blood.
I felt hands pulling at my jacket, someone trying to wedge between us. Phones were out. Cameras flashing. Pedro, the guard I’d brushed past earlier, was shouting something, but it didn’t register.
All I could hear was the pulse in my ears and the echo of that laugh.
That damn laugh.
It wasn’t about me.
It was about her.
And I’d warned him.
“She’s not yours to speak about,” I growled as someone finally yanked me back. “Not now. Not ever.”
The last thing I saw before they dragged us apart was Ryder’s smug expression cracking for the first time—fear behind the fake bravado.
And I knew, deep in my chest, this wouldn’t be the end of it.
But I didn’t care.
Because the world had heard me loud and clear.
The sirens cut through the shouting before I even processed what was happening.
Somebody must’ve called them the second I swung.
I was still breathing hard, shoulders heaving, when two uniforms pushed through the glass doors. Not movie cops. Real ones. Cold eyes, clipped voices.
“Hands where we can see ’em.”
I froze, palms out. Still staring at Ryder sitting on the floor dabbing his lip with a napkin like some wounded king.
One of the cops was already turning me, wrists caught, metal sliding home.
Not cinematic. Not heroic. Just cold steel and fluorescent light.
I heard a camera whir somewhere behind me.
Not the big broadcast rigs — a smaller one, probably a field producer, indifferent as a drone.
A thousand little LEDs blinked as phones went up.
I knew exactly what it would look like: Kieren Walker, the guy kids lined up to watch, now being cuffed in a lobby that smelled like burnt coffee and spilled sanitizer.
“I want my rep. Call Reid. Call Cam.” My voice sounded strange — too loud, too rough.
One officer guided me toward the exit, one hand on my arm, like I was already a case file. Another voice behind me, “Assault on private property. Misdemeanor. We’ll sort it at the precinct.”
I twisted my head toward Ryder. “You're a pussy, Blake.”
He smirked, holding an ice pack to his jaw. “You're the one leaving in cuffs.”
Phones everywhere now. Producers in headsets trailing behind. Someone on the show’s staff whispering, “We’re still rolling.”
I caught sight of my reflection in a glass panel as they walked me out: shirt rumpled, lip bleeding, hair a mess. The same hands that blocked a hundred shots now locked behind my back.
“Call Cam,” I barked again. “Tell him—”
The door slammed. The cruiser pulled away.
And for the first time since I’d put on a Storm jersey, I had no idea how I was going to get out of this one.