Chapter 37
Mauricio POV
The heavy mahogany double doors of the Athletic Director’s executive boardroom flew inward with a concussive bang that shook the brass fixtures.
Eight-fifteen on Thursday morning.
The room was bathed in the harsh, bleached glare of recessed fluorescent tubes, the floor-to-ceiling windows behind the conference table rain-slicked and dark with freezing sleet.
Around the twenty-foot polished table sat Arthur Vance, Coach Henrik Lindqvist, Dr. Warren Hayes, a university compliance attorney in a charcoal suit, and Julian Cross.
Cross was leaning back in a leather armchair, a cup of catering coffee in his manicured hand, looking like a man who had already divided the spoils of war.
Every head in the room snapped toward the entrance.
I didn't pause on the threshold.
I wore heavy work boots, dark denim, and a faded black t-shirt beneath an open leather jacket.
I hadn't shaved in five days; the dark stubble along my jaw was thick and rough, my eyes bloodshot, dark hollows carved deep into my cheekbones.
I moved with a cold, predatory precision that made the university attorney instinctively slide his chair back from the table.
I reached the center of the room, unslung the black laptop from my shoulder, and slammed it down onto the mahogany wood in front of Vance.
Beside it, I dropped the thick stack of university IT network logs with a violent slap that sent coffee sloshing over the rim of Cross’s porcelain mug.
The room fell into an absolute, suffocating quiet.
"Read the forensic report, Vance," I said.
My voice didn't rise. It was an ice-cold, gravelly scrape that sounded like two millstones grinding together in the dark.
Cross’s smile faltered, his eyes darting toward the printed sheets.
"Leal, what is the meaning of this?" Vance began, his jowls tightening with bureaucratic indignation. "We are in the middle of a confidential athletic oversight briefing—"
"Shut up, Arthur," I growled softly, my hands coming down flat on the mahogany table as I leaned forward, my broad shoulders blotting out the overhead light.
"The breach on the biomechanics server didn't come from Kiyomi Blake. It came from an external IP address registered to Cross’s marketing firm in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, at three-fourteen last Thursday morning. "
Dr. Hayes blinked, leaning over the table, his thin hands pulling the network logs toward his wire-rimmed glasses.
"The digital signature was spoofed through an unauthenticated relay," I continued, holding Cross’s widening, panicked stare.
"The audio on that laptop was pulled from Cross’s burner phone thirty-six hours ago.
It has him on tape in the university library, threatening Miss Blake with extortion, demanding she resign from her post or he would manufacture a compliance leak to destroy my draft position. "
I reached across the table, tapped the spacebar on the laptop with my thick forefinger, and let Cross’s oily, recorded voice fill the boardroom:
I want you off his compliance ledger, out of his apartment, and off this campus... or I detonate both of your lives before breakfast.
The university attorney’s face drained of color in three seconds. He looked at Cross like the man was carrying an open vial of nerve gas.
"Julian," the attorney whispered, his voice trembling. "Did you record this on university property?"
Cross stood up, knocking his leather chair backward against the credenza, his cashmere overcoat bunched in his fists. "This is an unverified digital file! It's inadmissible hearsay—"
"It's a Class C felony under Maine Criminal Code Title 17-A," I cut in, my voice dropping an octave into pure, lethal gravel. "And the Cumberland County District Attorney has an identical copy sitting on her desk right now."
* * *
Arthur Vance looked down at the forensic logs, then up at me, a bead of cold sweat running down the side of his neck.
"Mauricio," Vance said, his voice dropping into a frantic, hushed whisper.
"If this goes to the district attorney, if you take this to the press, the NCAA will open a full institutional audit.
They will subpoena your medical files. They will find the micro-fracture in your fibula.
Your draft status will drop out of the first round, and you will forfeit your entire ninety-five-thousand-dollar signing consideration. "
The threat of money, the threat of draft prestige, the threat of my future—it meant nothing.
It was dead ash under my boots.
I walked around the perimeter of the table, stepping past Dr. Hayes, stopping directly in front of Arthur Vance’s executive chair. I leaned down, planting both of my palms on the armrests of his seat, caging the Athletic Director within the width of my chest.
My pulse thudded heavy and hard against my ribs, my jaw clenched in iron resolve.
"Listen to me, Vance," I whispered, the words vibrating with a savage, unhinged clarity that made the older man press his spine flat against the leather.
"I do not give a damn about the first round.
I do not give a damn about the draft combine, and I do not give a damn about a professional contract.
You can take my scholarship, you can void my statistics, and you can strike my name from the record books. "
I leaned closer, feeling the heat of my own breath bouncing off his pale forehead.
"Here is what is going to happen," I growled softly.
"You and Hayes are going to draft a signed administrative decree exonerating Kiyomi Blake of all academic, scientific, and compliance misconduct.
You will certify that her research was pristine, and Hayes will write a personal letter of highest recommendation to the United States Olympic Training Facility in Colorado Springs. "
I looked across the room at the heavy oak doors, where two armed campus police officers stood waiting in the hallway.
"And then you are going to let those officers put Julian Cross in handcuffs for computer invasion and criminal extortion," I finished.
"Because if that exoneration isn't stamped and sealed within fifteen minutes, I walk down to the student plaza, I call the Boston Globe and ESPN, and I will burn St. Jude Athletics to the ground before noon. "
The room remained motionless for five long seconds.
The university attorney swallowed hard, reached into his briefcase, and pulled out an official institutional legal pad. "Draft the exoneration, Arthur. Immediately."
Lindqvist stepped toward the door, motioning the officers inside.
Cross began to shout, his voice shrill, clawing at his cashmere collar as the steel handcuffs ratcheted around his wrists with sharp, metallic clicks. He was hauled through the double doors, his shoes dragging along the parquet floor, his threats dying into the hallway.
I stood in the center of the boardroom, looking down at Arthur Vance as the director signed his name to the executive clearance document.
I reached inside my leather jacket.
I pulled out my black Sentinel captain’s sweater, the heavy wool folded tightly around the gold number four, and dropped it flat across the center of Vance’s desk blotter.
"Choke on your banner," I rasped.
I turned on my heel and walked out of the room, leaving the administration behind in the wreckage of their own making.
* * *
The freezing drizzle outside the athletic complex felt like needles against the raw skin of my face.
I strode down the granite steps toward the student plaza, my breath pluming in thick white bursts, my mind racing with a singular, desperate focus that drowned out the campus around me.
Standing beneath a concrete archway near the bike racks, her black USA Swimming parka pulled tight around her throat, was Chloe Zhang.
She had watched the police cruisers pull up to the administrative doors ten minutes ago. Her dark eyes were watchful, guarded, and hard as tempered steel.
I stopped three paces in front of her on the wet pavement.
I didn't square my shoulders. I didn't posture.
The six-foot-four enforcer, the captain who had dismantled opponents against the glass for four years, simply caved inward. My head dropped forward, my shoulders sinking under an unbearable, crushing weight, my large, calloused hands trembling at my sides.
"Chloe," I rasped.
My voice cracked on the single syllable, raw with a butchered, weeping agony that stripped away every remaining shred of male pride.
Chloe’s expression didn't soften, but her chin lowered a fraction of an inch as she took in the bloodshot ruin of my eyes, the hollow lines of my face, and the desperate, shuddering breath tearing from my chest.
"I cleared her name," I whispered, the words torn from the deepest marrow of my ribs. "Cross is in cuffs. Her fellowship recommendation is signed by Hayes. Her academic record is clean."
I lifted my head, looking into Chloe’s unblinking stare, my hands coming up in a posture of total, absolute surrender.
"Where is she, Chloe?" I begged, my throat raw, tears burning hot against the cold drizzle on my cheeks. "Please. I'm not going to force her. I'm not going to demand a damn thing. I just need to get on my knees and let her tell me to go to hell. Tell me where she is."
Chloe watched me for three agonizing seconds, listening to the desperate, broken rhythm of my breathing in the freezing rain.
She reached into the pocket of her parka.
She pulled out a small piece of folded yellow legal paper and held it out between two fingers.
"Ocean Cliff Road," Chloe said, her voice dropping into a lethal, quiet warning that vibrated against the pavement.
"Ogunquit. The gray shingle cottage at the end of the point.
If you raise your voice to her, Leal, if you cause her one more second of pain, I will make sure you never walk on two good legs again. "
I took the paper from her hand, my fingers shaking as I pressed the wet ink against my palm.
"Thank you," I choked out.
I turned and broke into a dead sprint across the asphalt toward the parking lot.
I threw myself into the cab of my F-150, slammed the door, and twisted the ignition key. The engine roared to life with a violent rumble. I slammed the transmission into drive, the tires spinning on the slush before gripping the wet macadam.
I swung out of the gate onto Cottage Road, hitting the access ramp for Interstate 95 South.
The speedometer needle climbed past seventy, the wipers thrashing against the gray sheets of freezing rain, the gray asphalt stretching empty beneath my headlights.
My knuckles were bloodless around the steering wheel, my heart hammering a savage, frantic cadence against my ribs.
Sixty miles to Ogunquit.
I was coming to lay my life at her feet.