Page 11 of Broken Blades

Barbara's narrative: Wyatt's jealousy. Wyatt's paranoia. Wyatt's anger issues. He couldn't handle my success. He became controlling. Unstable.

Thomas backed every word. Testified as a character witness. Said he'd been counseling Barbara through a difficult marriage, that I'd threatened him, that he feared for her safety.

The league launched an investigation. My sponsors dropped me one by one—first the sports drink company, then the equipment deal, then the charity I'd worked with for six years.

Barbara walked away with the house, half my assets, and public sympathy.

Thomas remained untouched. His reputation intact. His marriage solid. His daughter still smiling in family photos posted to social media.

And I became the cautionary tale: the volatile athlete who couldn't keep his temper, his career, or his wife.

He destroyed everything. Then smiled in public like nothing happened. Like he hadn't burned my life down and walked away without a single scar.

I stood, shaking off the memory like water from a coat.

The parking lot stretched empty under those sickly yellow lights. My boots crunched against salt-scattered pavement as I walked toward the exit, keys jangling in my pocket.

The cold bit through my jacket. December in Detroit—brutal, honest, exactly what it promised to be.

Unlike people.

You don't destroy a man by attacking him directly. That's what amateurs did. What hotheads and idiots with more rage than strategy did.

No.

You take what he values.

You make him watch it slip away, piece by piece, until he's standing in the rubble of everything he thought was untouchable.

I finally put the car into gear slowly, like I was remembering how to do it.

I didn't hate her.

That was the truth I kept circling back to, testing like a loose tooth. Chastity Harrington with her big eyes and her volunteer work and her stupid Instagram captions about family meaning everything.

She didn't know. Wasn't complicit. Just existed in the protective bubble her father had built around her, insulated from every ugly truth he'd buried to maintain his empire.

Collateral.

That was the word that fit.

She was collateral in a war she didn't know was being fought.

I told myself that made it acceptable. Made it necessary.

I pulled the second phone from my glove compartment—burner, untraceable, bought with cash at a gas station three towns over. The screen glowed pale in the darkness.

I scrolled through my contacts. Found the name I needed.

Marcus worked freelance. Sold to the highest bidder. Paparazzi with just enough desperation to take jobs that skirted ethical lines without quite crossing into illegal.

We'd worked together before. He knew not to ask questions.

My thumbs moved across the screen.

Garden entrance. Midnight.

Masked couple.