“Control,” I said simply, “of a narrative that was about to spiral into freefall.”
“You humiliated me.”
“No,” I said, calm but firm. “Youhumiliated you when you started this little game. I stopped the bleeding.”
He glared at me, glass still in hand. “You could’ve given me a heads-up. You didn’t even loop me in this morning.”
“You told me to fix it,” I reminded him. “It’s fixed.”
His eyes blazed and his jaw tightened. Power punched the air around him, and ballooned outward like he wanted to choke me with it. “Have you forgotten who you work for?”
Surprisingly, I remained unmoved. Then, I’d never let him bully me. Normally, I’d take a gentler tack first, but that ship sank when he kept escalating in my absence.
“Have you forgotten what my job is?” Because both of us could play this game. “I’m not here to cater to your ego or your pride. I’m here to protect this team from all threats—even those that start at the top.”
“Why didn’t you call me on your way in? Why didn’t you brief me?” He rapped his knuckles against the tabletop, the sound echoing in the hush.
I could have pointed out that he was already in a meeting with them when I arrived. I could have told him that I came straight up here to do exactly that andfoundhim in the middle of that meeting. Instead, I just went for his jugular. “Because I knew you’d be too busy trying to save face to think strategically.”I arched a brow. “Which is exactly how we got here in the first place.”
Nostrils flared and eyes blazing, heglaredat me.
“I warned you about Rylan,” I went on. “When he was on the team before, when he was cut, and when his agent approached us two years ago in the off season. You didn’t want to hear it then and based on your ambushing tactics with him last week, you didn’t want to hear it now. Then you let him think he had negotiating power in the middle of a playoff push and dangled me as the bait.”
“You’re accusingmeof blowing this up?”
“I’m accusing you of not knowing how to pick your battles. You’re trying to strong-arm a player you never had a handle on, and you let your ego write checks your strategy can’t cash.”
Marchand’s mouth twisted in an ugly scowl. “Don’t give me that tone, Wren. I brought you in to manage PR, not run this team.”
“You brought me in to clean up your messes,” I snapped. “That’s exactly what I’m doing. But let me be perfectly clear—if you keep treating me like your secretary instead of your Director of Public Relations, this team won’t just lose face. We’ll lose the locker room. The sponsors. The playoff momentum. All of it.”
He slammed the glass down on the edge of the bar cart hard enough that I thought it might crack.
But he didn’t argue.
I folded my arms, letting the silence stretch.
“You’re rattled,” I said finally, voice softer but no less steady. “The Howlers are in the playoffs and instead of celebrating that, you’re trying to maneuver new players into position, butyoudon’t control the pieces on the board.”
His eyes snapped to mine.
“You thought Rylan was leverage. You thought a power play would win this. But it’s not about chess anymore. It’s poker. And you just showed your whole damn hand.”
A muscle ticked in his jaw.
“Do you want to win, Marchand?”
He didn’t answer right away. But his chest rose and fell once, then again, and his gaze dropped to the drink he hadn’t finished.
“Yes,” he said. Gritted out like he hated that it was me asking the question.
“Then stop making it personal,” I said. “Use what I gave you. Get control back. Let me do what Ido.”
He looked up at me again, and this time, there was no anger. Just a resigned kind of awareness. I’d won this round—and he knew it.
“Make sure it doesn’t happen again,” he said.
“Then don’t put me in a position where it can.”
