16. Chapter 16 — Ava
Claire Osei is already at the back table when I walk in. She's younger than I expected. Late twenties, sharp eyes, a coffee she's barely touched. She stands when she sees me and extends her hand like she means it.
"You're exactly what I thought you'd be," she says.
I take the seat across from her. "Should I ask what that means?"
"Ruiz's daughter." She sits back down. "Prepared. Private. Completely over this meeting before it starts."
I smirk. "I'm here, aren't I."
She opens her laptop without making a production of it. Eighteen months, she tells me. That's how long the union has been building the file on Shore.
Grievance patterns. Rider language. A cluster of mid-tier contract renewals that went sideways in ways the players couldn't explain but the union could.
I put my own folder on the table.
She looks at it. Looks at me.
"How long?" she asks.
"Six weeks."
She exhales through her nose. "You did in six weeks what it took us eighteen months to see from the outside."
"You didn't have inside access." I open the folder. "I did."
We compare notes for fifty minutes. Her side is grievance filings and pattern recognition. My side is raw financial data and insurance language.
They don't just match — they complete each other. Shore wasn't just cutting costs.
He was engineering a franchise where my father would have less and less authority over the roster.
The insurance rider was the opening move. The financial anomalies covered the tracks. Every decision Shore made in the last two years pointed toward one outcome: a restructure that would leave the head coach with a title and no real power.
"He's been patient," Claire says. It's not admiration. It's a warning.
"Eighteen months of patient." I close the folder. "He's had help."
She looks up. I've said something she didn't already know.
I tell her about Martin Voss. The name buried in the email chain. The pattern of information moving from inside my father's personal network out to the consulting firm.
The same consulting firm Ty traced to the sedan outside the facility. The same firm that might have entered my apartment.
Claire is quiet for a long moment.
"So Shore's operation has a source inside Ruiz's own circle," she says.
"Has had one. For at least two years."
She looks at the wall behind me. Processing. "That's not in anything I have."
"It wouldn't be. It's not a union issue. It's personal." I keep my voice flat. "Someone my father trusts has been feeding his vulnerabilities directly to Shore."
I say it out loud and it still costs something.
My father has coached eleven years in this city. He's seen players betray contracts. He's seen front offices betray rosters.
He has never sounded like a man who thought it could happen inside his own circle.
That's the specific thing Shore counted on.
"You have the documentation?" Claire asks.
"On an encrypted drive. Someone got into the original folder — that's how I found the email chain. Everything's been moved since."
She nods slowly. "We need to move soon. Shore knows something is building — he's been tightening his communication since the first grievance filing I escalated in September."
"I know." I close my laptop. "I want your union filing ready to move the moment I have everything confirmed on my end. Simultaneous disclosure."
"Shore can't contain both at once." She nods once. "I can move when you're ready."
She looks at me for a beat. The sharp assessment of someone reassessing the person across the table.
"You planned this before you even called me back," she says.
"I planned it after your voicemail." I set the cup down. "I just needed to confirm you could move on the same timeline."
We exchange direct contacts and close laptops in the same motion. I'm already standing when she looks up.
"One more thing," she says, not looking up. "The consulting firm. You know they're not just Shore's operation."
I stop. "What do you mean?"
"Shore inherited it." She looks at me now. "Someone handed it to him. Someone who was already using it before Shore had his corner office."
I stand there with my bag on my shoulder and feel the shape of something larger than Shore.
"Someone on the old board," I say.
She holds my gaze. "That's what it looks like from our side."
I think about the insurance rider signature. The name I didn't recognize. The policy adjustment dated before Shore's tenure had fully begun.
I keep my face neutral. I'm very good at keeping my face neutral.
"I'll be in touch," I say.
Outside the coffee shop the city is loud and cold and completely indifferent. I walk half a block before I stop. Lean against the wall of the building beside me.
The consulting firm is older than Shore. The operation is older than Shore. Shore is not the architect.
He's the instrument.
Someone else is still out there.
I pull out my phone. Call Ty.
He picks up on the second ring.
I tell him everything — Voss's name, the union timeline, Shore's play against my father's authority. I tell him about Claire's last piece of information. The firm that predates Shore.
The presence underneath the surface that neither of us has fully mapped yet.
He listens without interrupting. I notice that every time. How he just listens.
When I finish, there's a beat of silence.
"What do you need?" he says.
Not this is bad. Not are you okay. Just: what do you need.
I close my eyes. The wall is cold through the back of my coat. "I need to confirm one more thing before I move. Then I can hand Declan something complete."
"I can help with that."
"I know." The admission costs less than it used to.
I hang up. Start walking.
Three blocks later my phone buzzes.
I can place him. I've seen Voss with Shore. Twice in the last three weeks. Not passing through — sitting down. I can confirm it's real.
I stop walking.
A beat. Then another.
You're sure? I type back.
Three dots. Then:
I notice everything, Ruiz. You know that by now.
I read it twice. Standing on a sidewalk in lower Manhattan with my bag cutting into my shoulder and the cold working through my coat.
He's been watching Voss for weeks. While running routes. While managing the team knowing about us. While doing everything I asked him to do quietly and without complaint.
He noticed. Of course he noticed.
I put my phone in my pocket and start walking again.
The consulting firm is older than Shore.
Voss has been inside this franchise for years, inside my father's circle, feeding information to people who want to dismantle everything my father built.
And the only person outside this coffee shop who knows the full shape of it — the only person I called — picked up on the second ring and already had the piece I needed.
I don't examine what that means. Not yet.
But somewhere underneath the pressure in my chest, underneath the fear of protecting someone who doesn't know they're in danger, there's something else.
The specific feeling of not being the only one paying attention.