Page 161 of Game Misconduct
She turns then—slow and measured. Her mouth is painted sharp, her expression unreadable. But her eyes give her away. There's something cracked behind the frost.
“I didn’t leak a goddamn thing,” she says.
I stare at her. Waiting. Daring her to blink first.
She doesn’t.
She exhales through her nose, sharp. “I’ve spent the last twelve hours putting out fires you don’t even know about. Three calls with Legal. Two with PR. Our lead sponsor wants a meeting tomorrow. The board is circling like vultures.”
She throws a file folder onto the desk, the contents spilling out—internal memos, clipped news articles, half a dozen flagged emails.
“You think I had time today to casually sabotage both our careers?” she says tightly. “You think I wanted to put myself in the crosshairs of my own board for fun?”
“Then how did it get out?” I step closer, heat pounding under my skin. “You’re the only one outside Boston who knew the whole story.”
“I didn’t tell anyone.” Her voice breaks, just slightly, at the edge. “You think I’d do that? After what you told me? After what it cost you to say it?”
I stare at her, lips parting, but the memory hits too fast: her curled into me on that hotel bed, fingers resting over the scar on my chest like it meant something.
Like I meant something.
“I don’t know what to think,” I bite out. “Because I haven’t heard from you in two days. Not after the video. Not after the fallout. Not after I opened my fucking chest and handed you the pieces.”
Her chin lifts. “And what, you wanted me to say thank you? That I’m fixed now? That I know how to be yours?”
“That’s not what I?—”
“You want to talk betrayal?” she cuts in, eyes gleaming now. “You didn’t text. You didn’t call. You didn’t warn me that Finn was about to set the team on fire from the inside. And now you’re standing in my office acting like I’m the one who lit the match.”
The silence between us stretches, raw and ugly.
I want to yell. I want to pull her into my arms. I want to smash every wall between us. But all I can do is breathe hard through my nose and clench my fists.
“I told you I needed space,” she says quietly. “That’s not the same thing as saying I didn’t need you.”
The second she says it—“That’s not the same thing as saying I didn’t need you”—it slams through me like a puck to the chest.
And still, I can’t let go of the anger curling around my ribs.
“You don’t get to play semantics with me, Sloane,” I grind out. “You said you needed space and then went radio silent. What the hell was I supposed to think?”
She steps back, folding her arms tighter, like she’s physically holding herself together. “That maybe I was scared. That maybe this—us—isn’t something I’ve ever been allowed to want before.”
Her voice cracks again, but she doesn’t look away.
And I can’t look away from her.
The weight of what’s happening—the leak, the fallout, her silence, my silence—sits heavy between us.
But under it, something more fragile flickers.
Something like pain. Regret. Maybe even longing.
But the damage is done. We’re both standing in the wreckage now.
“You think I wanted to be the one who leaked it?” she says softly. “You think I wanted this?”
I shake my head. Not because I believe it. But because I don’t want to believe she could ever betray me like that.
