Dante’s voice goes hard. “No. You’re choosing it.”
That hits cleaner than it should.
Because it’s true in the way that makes you want to break something.
Before I can answer, the locker room door opens.
Coach Addison steps in.
Conversation dies on impact. Automatic. Like a switch flipped. He doesn’t scan the room. No voice lift. Just a look at me like I’m a problem he’s already decided how to solve.
“Rossi,” he says.
Not loud. Doesn’t need to be.
I meet his eyes.
He holds up his phone. Doesn’t show me the screen. He doesn’t have to.
“Explain what I’m looking at,” he says.
I don’t rush it. Count a breath. Two. Three.
The air in the room thins.
Because I’m used to being the one who decides when I move.
And right now, he’s the one holding the timing.
“It’s a lie,” I say, voice steady. “Old drama. Wrong context.”
My stomach twists like it remembers being sixteen. Like it remembers my father’s hand on the back of my neck—firm, casual, ownership disguised as guidance.
Family protects family. Don’t embarrass us. Keep your mouth shut, and I’ll keep my promises.
I can’t explain it. If I tell him the truth—that the report exists, that the arrest happened, but it wasn’t me behind the wheel—I detonate everything my father built on top of it. I blow a hole through a deal I never agreed to and a name I’ve been forced to wear like a sentence.
Coach’s face tightens. Disappointment edges in first. Like I just dodged him on purpose.
“That’s not how it’s being framed,” he says.
“No,” I agree. “It’s being weaponized.”
“Good,” he says. “Then you understand the problem.”
“I understand it fine.”
“You don’t,” he snaps, and that’s the first real crack of heat. Not emotional. Territorial. “Because if you did, you’d stop treating me like I’m the enemy.”
That lands.
Silence hits the room like a puck to the ribs. One beat. Two.
Declan’s voice breaks it, quiet but lethal. “Coach’s not wrong.”
Coach doesn’t look at him. Doesn’t need to. His eyes stay on me, surgical.
“I care if it’s true,” he says, and the correction is immediate, clean. “If somebody got hurt, I don’t protect you from consequences. I protect this program from rot.”
