“Send me whatever it is,” West says.
Blaze types out something on his phone and a few seconds later West’s phone buzzes.
“What’s going on?” Ashton comes around the corner. “Everything okay?”
“No,” I snap. “If he fucking hurt her…” I glare at Blaze. “It’s onyou. You understand me? If he hurt her, I will hunt your sorry ass down.”
Blaze nods, dipping his head. “I know. And I deserve it. I’m sorry. That’s why I brought this to you. I’m… worried about her.”
“How could you do something like this?” West demands.
“I was stupid,” he mutters. “I thought… he promised he’d help me in my career. Mold me into a superstar. Make sure I’m always on the first line, get me lots of press. I thought, fuck, I don’t know what I thought. I’m really sorry.”
“Fuck!” I turn to West. “What do we do? Because I’m not waiting to go get her. I’m not leaving her there.”
“Come with me.” He heads for the parking lot and then calls over his shoulder to Blaze and the others. “You guys go get ready for practice. You never saw us.”
“Right.” Blaze hesitates before heading in the opposite direction and Vik and Felix eventually follow, but Ashton jogs along with us.
“What’s going on?” he demands. “Let me help.”
“You close with your brother?” West asks him.
“Very. Our family is tight.” He nods. “What do you need? I can call him now.”
“Give us a minute.” We get out to the parking lot and head over to West’s SUV.
Then he plays the recording Blaze sent him and the words we hear fill me with dread.
“…but what will we do?” It’s Lourdes’s voice. “You know damn well Jayne won’t keep her mouth shut if she heard us talking about it.”
“Let me handle Jayne. You had a good idea. I’m going to send her away to school in Europe.” That’s Coach Morrison’s voice.
“She’s an adult, Hugh. You can’t force her to go anywhere.”
“I can. I will.”
“Well, I’m as entangled in this mess as you are. If the higher-ups on the Thunder figure out that it doesn’t take half a million dollars to buy samples and print business cards and brochures, I’m cooked. And if Jayne heard us the other night...” There’s a moment of silence before he continues.
“She’ll fall in line once I threaten to destroy Bodi. She won’t let me do it. She actually loves that little prick, and that’s our ace in the hole. And my buddy Ray is an accountant. He’s going to dummy up some invoices for us to cover most of the money we took.”
“Are you sure?” Lourdes sounds scared.
“Leave it to me, okay? But maybe you and Lindy should take a few days, go see your mom.”
“She has school.”
“Dammit, Lourdes, just do what I say, okay?”
The tape cuts off there and we all look at each other.
“Send me the recording,” Ashton says quietly. “And I’ll send it to my brother. He’ll know what to do next.”
“You guys do that—I’m going to get Jayne.” I turn toward my SUV.
“Not without me, you’re not.” West motions to Ashton. “I just sent you the file. Do what you need to do, but we have to go get Jayne. Now that it’s turned violent, we can’t afford to wait.”
“Go get her. What do you want me to tell Coach about where you are?”
