"He might let Lydia contact us," Libby finished. "Or make a mistake."
"Exactly. Expose him. Make him panic. Make him desperate. Desperate people make mistakes."
After they hung up, Libby spent three hours preparing. She drafted talking points, organized her thoughts, practiced her delivery until her voice was steady and strong.
Her phone buzzed.
Georgia
Mark's team tracked Wickham's phone. He ditched Lydia somewhere around Providence hours ago. She's alone but safe from him. Do the interview. Make him panic.
Libby stared at the text. Lydia was alone somewhere, but Wickham wasn't with her. The interview wouldn't put her in danger.
Libby
Understood
That afternoon, she was in an Uber to ESPN's Boston studio, her notes on her phone, her hands shaking.
The ESPN studio was smaller than she expected, but the lights were blazing and the energy was intense. Stewart Phillips met her in the green room, reviewing the segment structure one final time.
"We'll start with the allegations against your family, give you space to respond, then you'll walk through the evidence. Six minutes uninterrupted. Ready?"
Libby nodded, not trusting her voice.
Minutes before air, she was seated across from Phillips, mic clipped to her blazer, the red camera light turning her nerves into focus.
"We're live in thirty seconds," the producer said.
Libby's phone buzzed one final time. Liam: Show them who you are.
The red light went solid.
"Good evening, I'm Stewart Phillips, and we begin tonight with a developing story that has rocked the NHL," Phillips said. "Earlier this week, allegations surfaced suggesting that Boston Herald reporter Elizabeth Bennet-Cross and her sister Dr. Jane Bennet-Cross may have been involved in sharing insider information for gambling purposes. Tonight, Elizabeth Bennet-Cross joins us exclusively to respond. Elizabeth, thank you for being here."
"Thank you for having me, Stewart."
"Let's address this directly. Your younger sister Lydia created an OnlyFans account claiming to offer insider NHL information from you and your sister Jane. What's your response?"
Libby looked directly into the camera. "My response is that my sister Lydia is a victim of fraud and manipulation, and I have evidence that she accidentally exposed a much larger criminal operation."
She watched Phillips's eyebrows rise fractionally.
"That's a serious allegation," Phillips said carefully.
"And it's backed by a serious pattern." Libby leaned forward. "For the past three years, there has been a coordinated gambling ring operating in multiple cities. The pattern is consistent: young women become the public faces of what appear to be 'insider betting tip' businesses. They believe they're running legitimate operations. They post on social media, they sell subscriptions, they take all the public risk. But behind them is a silent partner who set up the infrastructure, who profits, and who disappears when investigations begin—leaving these women to face federal charges alone."
"And you're saying your sister was part of this pattern?"
"My sister was supposed to be the next public face. The OnlyFans account was orchestrated by Gray Wickham, a former Portland Mariners player. Wickham has been connected to at least four of these operations spanning three years. Same structure, same methods, same pattern of manipulation."
"What Wickham didn't count on was that my sister craved attention more than she feared consequences. She posted photos with him on Instagram. She tagged him on TikTok. She name-dropped him in promotional material. Everything she was supposed to keep secret, she made public—because she's twenty years old and didn't understand she was being used as a disposable front for a criminal organization."
"So you're saying your sister's social media activity accidentally exposed this operation?"
"Exactly." Libby met the camera straight-on. "Lydia made mistakes. But she inadvertently became a whistleblower. The other women in this pattern unknowingly protected his anonymity because they didn't realize there was anything illegal happening. They kept quiet when investigations started because they were scared. My sister, because she had no idea what she was actually involved in, posted everything publicly and exposed him."
Phillips leaned forward. "What's your message to the NHL, to the federal investigators, and to viewers watching at home?"
