16. Unmuted #2
Reid came through first, with Sloane at his shoulder. The muffled roar of the arena spilled into the room until the door clicked closed. I stayed beside the table while Reid crossed toward me, his face red beneath the television makeup.
“You stupid, arrogant boy! Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
“I told the truth.”
“You just breached every agreement we spent years negotiating.” He pointed toward the door as if the stage still belonged to him. “The sponsors are going to come after you. The team is going to come after you. The league is going to bury you.”
“Then call the lawyers.”
That stopped him long enough for Sloane to storm across the room.
“What was that out there?” she demanded. “You humiliated me in front of every executive in the building.”
I kept my hands away from my jacket.
“I just told the truth, Dad. If the apparel brand wants someone to blame for the PR disaster, they should look at Sloane staging lap photos in my rehab room.”
Sloane spun toward me.
“Don’t you dare try to make me the scapegoat for this, Nolan! You know damn well Reid ordered me to post that photo to boost the engagement metrics!”
The room went still after she said it.
I looked at her. “So the post wasn’t your idea?”
“Ask your father.”
Reid turned on her. “I had to stage those things because you couldn’t keep his attention on your own, Sloane! I handed you a golden opportunity for a global campaign, and you ruined it.”
“I did everything you asked,” she shot back. “Every shoot. Every appearance. Every ridiculous public touch you said would trend.”
“And you still couldn’t keep him focused on the campaign.”
Their voices climbed over each other, each of them more interested in escaping blame than noticing how much they were giving away.
That was what I needed.
I didn’t move, letting the silence following their outburst stretch before I spoke again.
“You didn’t hand her anything. You just used her to harass my wife out of my house.”
Reid faced me.
For the first time since he entered the room, the anger in his expression twisted into something uglier.
“You think this is about your wife?”
“Wasn’t it?”
“She was a problem from the beginning, Nolan. She never understood what your career was worth.”
I said nothing.
His voice rose again as if silence itself offended him.
“I arranged that entire anniversary dinner at McGinnis’s to save your brand from that pregnant nobody! You were too weak to cut her loose, so I did it for you!”
Dead silence followed his admission.
McGinnis’s. Our anniversary. Piper waiting at home while I smiled for cameras because my father had decided my marriage was bad for business.
I stared at him across the room.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Reid demanded.
“Because you finally said it yourself.”
His expression shifted, but I was already moving.
I pulled the microphone free from my jacket, then reached beneath the fabric and removed the transmitter from my waistband.
Sloane stopped pacing.
The small red indicator blinked against my palm.
For the first time since she had stormed into the room, she had nothing to say.
I held the pack out.
Reid stared at it.
The mute toggle sat exactly where I had left it—unmuted.
I tapped the blinking light with one finger.
Sloane stepped toward me. “Nolan.”
I let the rig drop.
It hit the carpet, and a burst of feedback tore through the room, making Sloane recoil from the screech.
She stared down at the red light.
“Reid…” She pointed toward the floor. “His microphone is still hot. The audio feed is still transmitting.”
Reid looked from the transmitter to me.
“What?”
The fury she had carried into the room vanished, replaced by panic.
“Turn it off.”
I left the equipment where it had fallen.
Reid crossed toward it, then stopped before touching anything.
“What have you done?” he shouted. “The booth cuts the audio feed the second you walk off that stage!”
That was what he had counted on.
That was what anyone who spent years controlling live television expected.
I buttoned my jacket instead.
“You really thought I came back here to argue with you in private?”
Reid stared at me.
Behind him, Sloane hadn’t moved from the wall.
The arena remained somewhere beyond the closed door, reduced to a wash of voices and production noise. I had no way of knowing who had listened to every second or how long the feed would stay open.
It no longer mattered.
They had said it themselves.
Sloane had admitted Reid ordered the rehab post.
Reid had admitted he staged McGinnis’s.
Nothing I could have accused them of would carry the same weight as their own voices.
I walked toward the door.
Reid stepped after me. “Nolan, you fix this right now.”
I grabbed the handle.
“Not when I paid the floor tech a thousand dollars in cash to keep the channel open on the board.”
I opened the door and looked back at him.
“Enjoy the lawsuits tomorrow morning, Dad.”
The service corridor emptied into the VIP parking tunnel, and the first camera flash caught me before I reached the curb.
Then the rest came.
Photographers surged toward the exit barriers while reporters shouted over one another, recorders extended through the gaps. The humid Miami air replaced the arena’s conditioned chill, but there was no relief in it. Every lens had followed the story downstairs.
“Nolan! Are you really retiring from the league? Who is the pregnant wife?”
Another reporter pushed his microphone closer. “Give us her name, Nolan.”
“No.”
The questions kept coming.
“Was the marriage secret because of the campaign?”
“Did Reid know?”
“Is Sloane involved?”
I stopped near the end of the tunnel and turned toward the cameras.
The flashes continued.
“I am walking away. But let me make this absolutely clear to every single publication listening right now: if anyone sets foot near my family, I will bury you in crippling litigation.”
The barrage of questions pivoted instantly.
“Are you threatening the press?” one of them called. “Where are you going right now to fight the league lawsuits?”
“I have no brand left to protect, which means I will gladly spend every cent I have dragging you through the courts if you harass my wife.”
A photographer lowered his camera long enough to shout, “Is Reid still representing you?”
“Not anymore.”
My phone vibrated inside my jacket.
I pulled it out.
The screen was crowded with missed calls, messages, and alerts from people who had spent years deciding where I needed to stand, what I needed to say, and who I was allowed to love in public.
I turned toward a trash can beside the exit and dropped the phone inside.
That set off another wave of strobes.
Nobody followed when I stepped beyond the barriers and lifted a hand toward the street. A cab pulled to the curb, and I slipped directly into the back seat.
The driver glanced at me through the mirror as I shut the door.
“Where to?”
For one reckless moment, the answer was south.
Piper.
The Keys.
Home.
But the cameras were still outside the window, and whatever Reid, the team, and the sponsors did next would hit me first. If I ran straight back to Osprey Bluff tonight, I would carry all of it to her doorstep.
I had done enough of that.
“Take me downtown. I have a meeting with my lawyers to end my career.”
The cab pulled away from the curb.
The arena disappeared behind us as I headed into the city to start cutting the last ties so none of this could follow me home.