Chapter 2 Damage Control

Four rings in, I finally dragged myself out of sleep and answered. "Vale. It's barely six in the morning." "Get to Apex," Lena said. Her voice was clipped, stripped of anything I could read. "Use the garage entrance. Stay out of the lobby." I sat up. Sheets shifted, my bare feet hit the hardwood, and in two seconds of dead air I already knew. "The photo," I said. It wasn't a question. "Yes." "On my way." I pulled it up on my phone before I even found my shoes. Me, her, the parking lot, my hand hovering at her back. I remembered that exact moment. She'd dropped her stylus, I'd picked it off the wet asphalt, and we'd parted with a nod and a tired sigh. We'd been arguing about weak-side screens. Some stranger with a long lens had turned that into a secret romance, and the whole country had bought it. The worst part was how easy it was to believe. I threw on yesterday's charcoal joggers, a black team hoodie, and sneakers I didn't bother to lace. Two-minute shower. Hood pulled low. Twenty-three minutes later the elevator opened on the executive floor, and Lena was standing in the corridor in a charcoal suit, pale, her hair pulled back, her shoulders set like she was bracing for a hit. I looked her over the way you check a teammate who just hit the floor hard. She was in one piece. Good. "Marcus is ready," she said quietly. I stopped a foot in front of her. At six-foot-six I blocked out the downlights, and she still didn't back up. "You look like you're heading to a funeral," I muttered. "If this meeting goes sideways, it will be mine," she said evenly. "Then we make sure it doesn't." I shoved open the glass door without waiting to be invited. Marcus didn't look up from his tablet. "Sit." I didn't. I walked to the middle of the office with my hands buried in my hoodie and stared at the wall monitor. There I was, magnified, my shadow swallowing hers, the touch that never happened lighting up the internet. The HVAC hummed. The legal team kept typing. I let out a quiet scoff, dropped into the armchair across from Marcus, and crossed my ankles like I couldn't care less. I've had a lot of practice acting like I don't care. Lena came in after me and stayed on her feet near the edge of the desk, right between Marcus's power and my temper. "Your agent has a solution," Marcus said, setting the tablet down with a click. "She's going to explain it. You're going to listen. Then you'll decide whether you want to save your final championship run or keep making the kind of headlines that destroy franchises." I kept my eyes on Lena. "Go ahead, Vale. Enlighten me." She stepped into the line between us, voice steady and crisp. "A flat denial guarantees our mutual destruction. Nobody will believe it. You have two technical-foul suspensions this season, ownership is already looking for an excuse to void your incentive clauses, and the press wants you framed as a liability. If we call the photo purely professional, the media will say Apex is covering for misconduct, the league will open a formal tampering and ethics inquiry, and you'll spend the next twelve weeks answering questions about your personal life instead of running sets." "Get to the punchline." "We claim the photo. We tell the league, the media, and your ownership that we've been quietly dating for a month. We turn a late-night scandal into a controlled sports romance." The room went still. The typing stopped. I leaned back until my jaw flexed. "You want us to lie to the entire country." "I want us to survive," she said, not flinching. "A scandal wrecks your brand and gets me fired under the anti-fraternization clause. A relationship changes the story from misconduct to lifestyle PR. It explains our late nights, calms your sponsors, and shields the locker room from outside investigations." "And when does this fairy tale end?" I asked, dripping sarcasm. "The day the season ends. The second the final buzzer sounds on the championship game, or the moment you're eliminated, we put out a joint statement that our careers made a future impossible. We part amicably. We go back to being agent and client. The story is closed, your reputation is intact, and my job is safe." I stared at her for a long time. I was looking for an angle, a tremor of ambition, any sign she was working me. My whole life I've been surrounded by handlers and coaches and suits who see an investment vehicle. I trust almost no one, and sports executives least of all. "And if I say no?" I turned toward Marcus. "If I tell you to take your fake circus and find another way out?" Marcus leaned over the desk, his eyes bright with real malice. "Then by noon the board approves a formal reprimand. The league opens an independent review into whether Miss Vale gave you preferential treatment on your fines and arbitration hearings. Your shoe deal invokes its morals clause and suspends quarterly payments. And management benches you for conduct detrimental to the team before the trade deadline. You'll rot on the sidelines, Reyes. And Lena gets walked out of this building by security before lunch." My shoulders tightened under the hoodie. I didn't care what the suits did to me. I cared about the title, with a singular obsession that ate everything else in my life. This was my last contract year, my only window before the luxury tax broke the roster apart. I turned back to Lena, and the sarcasm drained out of my voice. "Your idea or his?" "Mine," she said cleanly. I stood. The office suddenly felt too small. I looked down at Marcus, then at her. "One condition." "Name it." "It ends the second the clock hits zero on our last game. No bonus press conferences. No victory media tours. No dragging it out so your PR friends can get magazine covers. Win or lose, the lie dies that night. We sign the release and never speak about this arrangement again." "Agreed," Lena said, no hesitation. Marcus pushed back his chair with the satisfaction of a man who'd just dodged a seven-figure disaster. "Legal will draft a memorandum with the exact operating rules, and you'll follow them to the letter. No uncoordinated statements. No stray posts on social media. No deviations from the script. Your first appearance as a couple is the annual sports charity gala on Thursday night. Until then, radio silence." I ignored him. I gave Lena one last long look, heavy with warnings and a reluctant yes, and walked out. My sneakers squeaked on the polished border of the floor. I didn't look back. But I stopped at the elevator and glanced through the glass. Marcus had stepped up beside her and was speaking low, only for her, one finger raised. I couldn't hear a word. I didn't need to. Lena held her ground and didn't give up a millimeter. I took the elevator down and sat in my car in the damp concrete garage with the engine off. Ten minutes later she came out. She walked to her car, got in, and didn't start it. She just sat there in the dark for five full minutes. I watched her through the windshield and knew the easy part was over. The lie was alive now, and it was going to be the hardest defense either of us had ever played.