"Twenty minutes—"
"I texted you immediately."
I looked at the photo again. My own face in the dim hallway light. The way I was holding him—tender, careful, like he might break. The most vulnerable I'd ever been with another person, and someone had turned it into a file on a phone.
The anger came slow. Not the usual kind —not the hot, instant detonation that made me swing at things. This one started deeper. In my gut. In the place where I kept the things that actually mattered to me, the small list of things Liam Moore gave a shit about in this world.
And someone had reached in and taken one.
"It's happening again," I said.
Alex was leaning against the door.
"The video. The illegal race. Anonymous sender." I set the phone on the desk. "Same pattern."
"I know."
"We risked everything to delete that video."
"I know." His face hadn't changed.
"Stop sayingI know."
"What do you want me to say?"
"I want you to be pissed off!"
"I threw my phone across the room before you got here." His voice was quiet. "I'm past pissed off."
That stopped me. I looked at the cracked screen. Looked at him. The fracture in the corner suddenly meaning something different. I'd never seen Alex angry before and the thought of the possibility of him losing control kind of scared me.
Then it came to me.
"It's Braden," I said.
"Maybe."
"He was at the mixer. He's been making comments all month. He's got the access, the motive—"
"Or maybe it's not him. If Braden wanted to destroy us, he'd go straight to Eldridge. Straight to my father. He doesn't need to play games."
"Maybe he likes games."
"Or maybe we're looking at the wrong person."
I stood up and now I was getting pissed.
"I'll go to his dorm. Right now. Tonight—"
"And confirm everything." Alex put himself in front of me. "You show up at Braden's room at midnight? You're telling him the photo is real. You're handing him whatever he's building."
"He already has it. He has a photo of us—"
"A photo he sent to me. Not the team. Not my father." Alex held my gaze. "He's holding it. Which means he wants something. And we don't find out what by putting your fist through his door."
I stopped. My anger screaming at me to move, to act, to do the thing I always did—swing first, think later, let the rage carry me past the fear underneath.
But Alex was right. The part of my brain I hated right now knew he was right.
