The command hits the room like a slap. Adrian blinks, his mouth half-open. Declan stops pacing.
“Zoë,” Gio murmurs, a low warning in my ear. “You don’t have to—”
“I’m talking to you,” I say, cutting him off without looking back.
I turn to face him, lowering my voice so only he hears. “You wanted to burn the house down? This is your strike team. Step up.”
Gio stares at me, his chest heaving. He looks at the room—at the faces waiting for him to break or explode. He takes a shuddering breath, then walks past me into the center of the circle.
"I didn't do it," Gio says, his voice raspy but steady. "I wasn't driving. Rylan Vance is my cousin. My father's sister married a Vance. We don't advertise it. Keeps the scandals separate."
He scrubs a hand over his face, the exhaustion dragging at his features. "He came to me about a month ago. He wanted back on the team. He asked me to put in a good word with Coach."
Gio looks at Declan, the apology heavy in his eyes. "I told him no. His record, his comments about Talia. I told him I wouldn't play alongside a guy who talks about women like that."
The air in the room turns frigid. Gio stares at his boots.
"That's what set him off," Gio says quietly. "I insulted the heir. So he decided to blow up my life in return."
I watch the girls. Clara's hand tightens around Talia's forearm, a silent, grounding pressure. Talia stares at Gio with a look of fierce validation, the kind that comes from years of swallowing garbage and finally having someone spit it back. Genny and Maya exchange a glance over by the window—a sharp, knowing look. They've all felt the slime off Rylan. They've all known something was rotting underneath the polo shirts and the charm.
Now, they have the body.
"Then he's a coward who hides behind his daddy's money," Adrian says, his voice low.
"He's dead," Declan says.
The room goes still. Declan isn't looking at Gio anymore. He's looking at the door, his vision fixed on a point in the distance.
"Declan," Gio starts.
"No," Declan cuts in, his tone final. "I care about what he did to Talia. We're ending him."
"Rage is a fuel source," I say, stepping into the silence Declan left behind. "But it doesn't build a weapon. We need a plan."
Gio looks at me, the wildness in his eyes settling into something sharper.
"The report," Gio says. "The fake one is everywhere. The real one is a blurry piece of shit on my phone."
"It's data," Genny says. She pushes off the window frame, walking into the center of the room with her phone in hand. "The Whisper posted a PDF. That means there's a digital footprint. Metadata. Timestamps. If the sheriff altered the file, he left a trail."
She looks up, her eyes hard. "I can get the original. Or at least enough of the server logs to prove the one they posted is a fabrication."
"I can print it," Maya says, stepping up beside her. "The Chronicle has been looking for a follow-up to the admissionsscandal. We run this as an exposé on municipal corruption, not just gossip about a hockey player."
"We shift the narrative from 'Gio is a killer' to 'The Sheriff's department is covering for a wealthy heir.'"
Gio stares at them. "You can do that?"
"We can do whatever the fuck we want," Maya says, her voice cool. "You aren't the only one who's tired of cleaning up their messes."
The tension in the room shifts. These aren't just friends standing by him; they're assets.
"Coach," Gio says suddenly. He looks at Adrian, then back to me. "Addison. He needs to know. If this blows up, the program takes the hit. He needs to be ready to manage the fallout."
"He needs to protect the roster," Genny says. Her voice drops an octave. "If Rylan is the one who actually drove, he's a loose end who almost torpedoed the program. Coach needs to know he let a felon walk away."
She looks at Gio. "I'll talk to him."
