“You’re being dramatic, Campbell.” He hasn’t used that word since I told him I was leaving the law for PR. Dramatic. I preferindependent.
“You’re involved in the sale? You kept this from me from the very start, Dad! You came to my workplace, sat in a car twenty feet from my stadium, and didn’t say a word.” My voice rises, tight with an increasing, suffocating upset. “Did I actually deserve this promotion? Or am I just an obstacle you’re getting out of the way so your client can swoop in? You know, removing all thosebad looksI apparently bring to your table.”
“Campbell,” he snaps. That tone worked when I was a kid and wanted a toy he thought was wasteful. But this isn’t the Barbie aisle of the toy store. This is my career. My life!
“Who is the buyer, Dad? Tell me who is buying the team. Who is so important that you’re willing to gaslight your own daughter?”
“You know I can’t do that. Nondisclosure parameters are strictly in place until the county filing is finalized. You know the law.”
“I don’t care about the law right now; I care about my team!”
He chuckles, and the muffled sound is condescending. It’s also intentional.
“You should be happy, sweetheart,” he says, his tone dripping with a dismissive finality. “This is exactly what you always wanted.”
“Yeah,” I whisper, tears of angry frustration prickling the backs of my eyes. My mouth is watering, the way it does right before I vomit. “But I didn’t really earn it.”
“Nobody earns anything, Campbell,” he replies coldly. “This is how the world works. You take advantage when an opportunity is given to you.” A beep sounds on his end. “I have to grab this call. We’ll celebrate when you’re settled in Texas.”
The line goes dead.
I slam the phone onto my desk, trembling with a volatile mixture of rage and nausea. Outside my window, the stadium lights hum to life, bathing the field in a brilliant, artificial glow. The muffled cheers of the early crowd passing through the gates with their patchwork blankets and vintage jerseys fill the air, but all I can see is the main street of Sweetwater stretching into the dusty Oklahoma sunset. A sick, hollow feeling settles deep in my gut.
Take advantage when it’s given.
I stare at my laptop screen. Suddenly, a memory sparks from three years ago—back when I was still trying to please my father, helping with digital archiving for his firm. I used to have his executive secretary’s master credentials to sign in to the firm’s back-end database.
My heart races as I open a secure browser window. I type in the firm’s portal address, a long string I’ll never forget after logging in so many times for a month straight. I enter his secretary’s old username and the password she joked she had used for five straight years. The odds are with me that she’s kept it the same ever since.
I hit enter.
With a soft chime, the screen transitions.Access Granted.I let out a shaky breath.
My fingers fly across the keys, filtering through active Tennessee and Oklahoma land acquisitions until I find the proprietary file labeled:Project Red Dirt/Mavericks Franchise.
I click the file. The legal documents bloom across my monitor, and the truth slams into me like a physical blow.
The buyer isn’t a sports conglomerate. It’sSummerhill Executives.The CEO is Austin Summerhill, a thirty-five-year-old billionaire real-estate hotshot from Dallas with a ruthless reputation for buying up historical properties, tearing them down, and capitalizing on the dirt.
I scroll frantically through the attached PDFs, my eyes scanning the zoning applications submitted secretly to the county. They are asking for a special municipal tax district.
I open the blueprints and architectural rendering files, and my breath completely hitches.
They aren’t keeping the ballpark. They aren’t keeping anything.
The entire historical grid of Sweetwater’s commercial district is mapped out in bright red lines, marked for complete demolition. In its place, the blueprints show a sprawling, gaudy commercial waterpark, a massive luxury resort, an eighteen-hole golf course, and a concrete strip of corporate chain restaurants and bars. The new ballpark is more theme park than sports venue.
No more local ranches. No more open pastures.
And no more Earl’s.
They are using eminent domain to seize the land, throwing Jake’s mom out of her home, all with some blessing from the university down the road. A partnership that feels dirty.
I pull back from the screen, my hand hovering over mymouth as a wave of genuine physical sickness washes over me.
My father didn’t get me a promotion out of pride, which I figured was the case. He got me a promotion to clear the board. He wants his daughter safely tucked away in Texas so she won’t be standing in Sweetwater to watch him bulldoze the lives of the people she cares about.
I look back out the window at the stadium’s brick facade, thinking of Jake’s smile, his touch, and the fierce, protective love he has for his family’s land.
