I didn’t look at him. Didn’t need to in order to know what he was about to say.
“I could have a word,” he said calmly. “Shut it down.”
Bad idea. “No.”
His smile was mild. “No?”
“You shut it down, it becomes a story. You comment, it becomes astatement.”
“Right now, it’s arumor. A damaging one.”
“So let it burn out.”
He turned to face me more directly, his posture casual but sharpened. “You’ve been compromised, Wren.”
I felt it then, like a nerve had been pulled tight just under my skin. Too hot. Too fast. I should have had another week. But I couldn’t ignore the changes surging through me. My blood hummed. My scent shifting inexorably.
I shouldn’t want to snarl at him the way I suddenlydid.
I kept still. I always did. But my voice dropped lower. Colder. The calm I’d perfected over a decade of suppression. “The only person in that box,” I said, “with motive, opportunity, and access to that photo wasyou.”
Marchand’s eyes narrowed. Slightly. “Careful.”
“No.” I finally turned to face him. Met him head-on. “Yoube careful.”
The air between us vibrated. Not loud. Not visible. Butcharged.
It wasn’t alpha to omega anymore.
It was something else.
He straightened just a hair, and it felt like the kind of shift that preceded either a boardroom war or a blood-scented fight.
“Fire me,” I said, voice still even. “If you think I’m compromised. Go ahead. Make that call. Leakthatto the press while you’re at it. Or—” I leaned in just enough to lower my voice further, just enough that it would reachonlyhim, “you listen to the one person in this organization who knows how to manageyourmesses.”
Silence greeted my challenge, though his jaw flexed.
It wasn’t capitulation. Not yet. So, I pressed harder.
“They’re going to speculate. That’s what they do. They’re going to say Rylan’s leaving the Vultures, that he’s signing with us, that we’re offering him part of the fuckingbrandingpackage. They’re going to pitch stories and slap on fake sources and chase whatever headline gets the most clicks.”
I stepped past him, slow and precise, until we stood side by side again.
Calm. Poised.
“Do you know what we don’t do, Adrien?”
He didn’t answer.
“We don’t give themanything else.” I looked straight ahead, toward the rink. Toward the weight of the playoffs pressing against the boards. “We stay quiet. We stay steady. We talk aboutourplayers.Ourwins. We let the Vultures spin out, not us.”
His silence continued, however, it was no longer passive. Instead, it had turned calculating.
The press lingered fifty feet away, still pretending they weren’t trying to see our dynamic or hear what we were talking about.
From the outside? We probably looked like two professionals discussing media angles and sponsorship deliverables.
No raised voices.
