Chapter 11 #2
Diana and I exchanged a look. “We don’t know,” I told them both.
“We don’t know any details. We know Tiffany never told anyone who it was.
We believe she didn’t know. We think someone paid her off, and we—” I hesitated, not wanting to upset Diana, but, well, it wouldn’t be the first time.
“We doubt she knew that Mason was the one they were blaming until it was too late.”
“How?” Dante asked.
“An NDA,” Noah said gruffly. “If they gave her money, it was so she’d never talk about it or accuse anyone. Once the NDA’s signed, the money’s in her account because they effectively bought her silence. By the time she realizes, she’s screwed, and the damage has already been done.”
Jesus, where was Noah four years ago? He could see right through it all. He saw the system’s logic without needing to be told how it worked.
I shuddered. I needed to stop looking at him like he was something to figure out.
“But Mason could still have done something,” Dante protested.
I shifted my attention to the QB, seeing his frustration at my brother’s lack of reaction.
“Mason was in a car accident three days later.” I didn’t react to their shock. “He was coming back from seeing Tiff. He stopped at the stop sign. The other car didn’t.”
“Injured?” Noah asked.
“Broken leg.” I still felt sick when I thought about that phone call. “In two places.”
Noah tipped his head back and blew out a loud breath. “Jesus . . .” He looked back at me. “Accident?”
I met his stare, giving a half-shrug in reply, and watched his head nod slightly.
“Yeah, there’s not much in this life that’s a coincidence,” he grumbled. “So . . .”
Dante started to pace.
“Tiffany is attacked. Scared and reeling from the whole thing, as you would be, she goes to the only safe place she knows, and that’s Mason.
She tells him all she can. He reacts, rightly so, and tells a person of authority, which is also perfectly natural,” he reasoned as he paced.
“Coach tells him to take her to him. She gets . . .” He floundered for a moment.
“Interviewed, for want of a better term.” He looked over at Noah.
“We’ve seen Coach Sutherland at work,” he said quietly. “We both know what he’s like.”
Noah nodded in agreement.
Dante resumed pacing. “Coach tells the guy who brought her in, who broke his son’s nose the night before, to take Tiffany away — off campus — while they look into the situation.
” He stopped, his gaze on the street below.
“While they’re gone, he starts the smear campaign, but to everyone else, he reacts as any head coach would do, removes the ‘perceived’ problem from his books, from his school.
He’s already got the pattern of violence, aggression, whatever.
Doesn’t want his team associated with the likes of it. ”
Noah was nodding. “And while that’s happening, he, or someone else, is on the phone to the victim, who’s already vulnerable, probably tells her no one will believe her because of her reputation, and they twist it so she thinks it’s her fault.” He cursed. “What a bunch of absolute bullshit.”
I shared a look with Diana, but neither of them noticed.
“She does what she thinks is right,” Dante said, taking over. “They’d have told her something like the money will help her feel better, get her over it. They’d say take a nice vacation, and forget.” He snorted. “As if she could,” he added scornfully.
“Meanwhile, her friend, her safe place, gets into a car accident,” Noah continued, picking up Dante’s thread.
“And she knows, or is told, it wouldn’t have happened if she hadn’t made him take her home.
” He looked at me, and I felt the urge to defend myself from the hidden accusation.
“So she feels even more guilty, and he’s out for the season.
So while he has to stay off campus because of his injury, she goes back and realizes they’ve made him her villain.
So now she feels even guiltier, while still trying to accept what happened to her. ”
“Yeah.” Dante’s mouth twisted into a sneer. “And she’s already got the payout and thinks she has nowhere left to turn for help.”
“And before either of them knew it was even happening, they were both fucked.” Noah and Dante shared a long look, and I watched as the linebacker folded his arms. “We have to assume they’re all the same,” he told his QB tightly.
Dante didn’t break his stare. “Yeah.”
Noah closed his eyes briefly. “Fuck.”
“Yeah.” Dante looked as pissed off as Noah.
I hadn’t expected it to feel like relief. I’d been carrying this for three years, and I’d never said it all out loud in a room where anyone, except Diana, understood.
Dante turned to look at us both. “Sorry . . . we—”
“Are remarkable,” Diana said in awe. “I mean, that was . . . impressive.” She put her glass down. “That? That took us a year to figure out. And you two just, what? Ten minutes?”
Dante’s lips twitched. “To be fair, you gave us all the information.”
“Did we?” Diana looked at me with skepticism. “Did you see that?”
I had. It was impressive and fucking scary. Because neither of them sounded shocked anymore. They sounded like men deciding where to apply pressure.
“You’re either both very impressive guys, or you’re more familiar with Sutherland’s shenanigans than you let on.”
“Shenanigans?” Noah looked like he was going to laugh, saw my look, and thought again.
“Dante and I got hauled up for the fight a few weeks ago, I think, no, I know, if Dante hadn’t risked his ass for me that morning, I’d have been gone as quickly as the other five guys we fought. Like your brother was.”
“So it was like a wake-up call,” Diana sympathized.
“No.” Dante shook his head. “It was a harsh reality neither of us thought was possible,” he said quietly. “Added to what I’d already suspected, and what came after . . . Let’s just say, we’re aware of his shenanigans, and we’re not fans.”
“Or complicit.” Noah was looking right at me, and I was surprised at how easily he could read me.
“Hembry knows?” Dante asked Diana. “Doesn’t he? He knows who you are?”
Diana was shit at a poker face. Always had been. She nodded, then winced when she saw my glare.
Dante had already turned back to Noah. “He told me to keep my head down. He’s leaving—”
“He’s what?” Diana was on her feet.
Dante looked at her with surprise. “While everything was going down with Sutherland and me, Coach Sutherland told me Coach Hembry’s been interviewing for pro teams.”
Diana turned to me. “Did you know?”
I frowned. “How the hell would I know that?”
Her foot tapped off the floor, then she grabbed her wine, her phone, and closed my bedroom door behind her.
Dante looked between me and the closed door. “Should I not have said that?”
His phone started ringing before I could reply. He excused himself with the murmur of ‘Savvy’ and slipped out the main door.
Which left me and the linebacker.
I met his amused look with a roll of my eyes. “What?”
“‘How the hell would I know that?’” he mocked. “You knew.”
“I didn’t.”
He gave me a flat stare.
Damn him.
I looked around my apartment. “So . . . now what?”
His gaze dropped to my mouth for half a second before coming back to my eyes.
“Now,” he said, “you tell me why you’re still looking at me like you want a fight.”