Page 69 of Offside Secrets
My pulse picks up, while my dad frowns.
“You cornered someone?” Dad asks.
I quickly fill my father in on the other night; how I’d found Victor in the corridor harassing some of the Renegades employees, but had first caught him in an unscrupulous position with a certain photographer in the parking lot. “I was distracted dealing with Victor, so I had Sawyer see if he couldcatch up with the photographer and get him to clarify some things.”
“Yeah…and?”
“Well, turns out photographers get real chatty when they think they might be in trouble for trespassing on private property.” Sawyer taps his phone screen. “Especially when they’ve been drinking and their judgment’s a little impaired, and they get circled by four or five hockey players on a winning buzz.”
He holds up his phone, showing me a video file. “Want to see what our friend had to say when I asked him about his relationship with Victor Lawson?”
Dad leans forward, interested despite himself. “You recorded him? Brilliant.”
“Public parking lot, no expectation of privacy,” Sawyer says with a shrug. “Plus, the guy was practically bragging about it once he started talking.”
He presses play, and a voice fills our small kitchen, slightly slurred but perfectly audible: “Victor? Yeah, man, that guy’s been paying me for weeks. Started right after that gala thing. Said he wanted documentation of any inappropriate interactions between the team owner and the Renegades players. Paid me five hundred for the parking lot shots outside the pharmacy alone.”
Sawyer’s voice comes through the speaker: “So Victor Lawson specifically asked you to follow Sutton MahoneyandCampbell Stockton?”
“Not just asked, man. Commissioned. Like, gave me a whole list of places they might be, times they might be together. Said he was doing it for the good of the team or some corporate bullcrap. Easy money, you know?”
“Good of the team?” Sawyer asks.
The guy snorts. “Yeah. Turns out he’s trying tobuythe Renegades. Figured if he could make the current owner lookbad, it’d clear the way. Promised me my own corporate box, too, if I helped him.”
The recording continues for another minute, with the photographer detailing payments, specific instructions from Victor, even admitting that some of the anonymous sources quoted in the gossip blogs were actually Victor feeding him information to pass along to reporters.
When it ends, our kitchen falls silent.
“Holy…” I start to breathe.
“Language,” Dad says automatically, cutting me off, his expression grim. “That man orchestrated an entire slander campaign against Sutton.”
“Every article, every blog post, every piece of speculation about all of it,” Sawyer confirms. “It all traces back to Victor paying this guy and feeding information to gossip sites.”
I stare at Sawyer’s phone, my mind racing. “This changes everything.”
“Because of Sutton?”
I nod. “She thinks she’s protecting me from legitimate media scrutiny. She thinks the questions about our relationship are natural consequences of dating the boss.” I stand up, pacing to the window. “But not when the scandal’s been conjured up.Thisis the proof we needed that Victor created this whole narrative to damage her reputation and create problems for the team.”
“To lower the value so he could swoop in and make a play,” Sawyer finishes.
Dad nods slowly. “So the woman you care about is sacrificing her happiness based on lies all while trying to protect everything she and her family have ever worked for.”
“Exactly.” I turn back to face them. “To be fair, Victor’s manufactured crisis feels real when you’re in the middle of it. But he’s planted every horrible word, every little whispered secret and rumor has come from his lips.”
“What are you going to do about it?” Sawyer asks.
I look at the phone containing the magical silver bullet of a confession, then at Dad, who’s watching me with that expression that says he already knows what I’m going to say.
“I’m going to listen to some advice a very wise man once gave me, and I’m going to fight for her,” I say. “I’m going to show her the truth, and then I’m going to prove that we’re worth more than Victor’s schemes.”
Dad smiles, the first real smile I’ve seen from him since his flare-up. “That’s my boy.”
CHAPTER 24
SUTTON
