Gio looks at the room. At Adrian by the fireplace. Declan pacing near the sofa, one fist opening and closing at his side. Clara and Talia on the couch. Dante and Cole in the doorway. Genny and me by the window.
Then he steps into the center of the circle.
“I didn’t do it,” Gio says. His voice is raspy but steady. “I wasn’t driving. Rylan Vance is my cousin. My father’s sister married a Vance. We don’t advertise it.”
No one speaks.
“He wanted back on the team. Came to me a month ago. I told him no.” Gio looks at Declan, his mouth tightening before he gets the next words out. “His record. His comments about Talia. I told him I wouldn’t play alongside a guy who talks about women like that.”
Talia goes rigid on the couch. Her hands tighten in her lap. Clara’s hand finds Talia’s forearm, a silent, grounding pressure. Talia stares at Gio, her throat working once before Clara’s grip tightens.
“That’s what set him off,” Gio says quietly. “He leaked the sealed record. Fed it to the Whisperer. Or he is the Whisperer. We don’t know yet.”
“He’s dead,” Declan says.
Declan isn’t looking at Gio anymore. His gaze is fixed on a point beyond the door. Around his phone, his hand closes until the case creaks.
“You can rage after,” Zoë says, stepping into the silence Declan left behind. “Right now we need a plan.”
I track who moves first, who speaks, where everyone looks when the information settles.
He speaks from the doorframe. “We’ll know who the Whisperer is. Soon.” His voice drops into the tone I’ve heard him use on the phone at 2 a.m. when Marco calls. Then, to Cole,low enough that the room almost misses it: “Find me a way into athletics IT.” Cole nods once.
Dante remains in the doorframe with Cole beside him, Adrian at the fireplace, and Declan wound tight enough to move. My pulse climbs as Dante’s hands hang loose at his sides, his weight balanced, his jaw set at the angle it takes when he’s already three moves ahead.
My fingers press into the windowsill hard enough to ache. Dante gives one order, and Cole is already moving inside it. The same mouth that left bruises on my inner thigh turns the whole room toward him.
“The Chronicle has been looking for a follow-up to the admissions scandal,” I say.
Heads turn toward me. Genny stays at my left shoulder. The window glass chills the back of my arm.
“The Vance family’s connection to Briarcliff admissions is documented but underreported. Rylan’s enrollment lines up with a donation routed through three shell entities before it hit the athletics fund. I’ve had the financial trail for two months.”
“We shift the narrative,” I say. “Institutional corruption buries sealed records. If the sheriff altered that file, there’s a trail. If the Whisperer connects to the Vance family, the story becomes coordinated corruption. And the Chronicle has the sourcing to prove it.”
“You can do that?” Gio asks, his eyebrows pulling together like he heard me wrong.
“You aren’t the only one who’s been building a file on the people who make messes.”
Genny pushes off the window frame. “The Whisperer posted a PDF. That means there’s a digital footprint. Metadata. Timestamps. If the sheriff altered the file, he left a trail. I can pull enough of the server trail to prove the posted version is a fabrication.”
“And Coach Addison needs to know,” Zoë says. “Before this goes public. If Rylan is the one who actually drove, he’s a loose end who almost torpedoed the program.”
“I’ll talk to him,” Genny says. “He knows me. He’ll listen.”
Genny pulls her laptop from her bag before anyone asks. I pull up the admissions file. Zoë stays close enough to Gio that his shoulder almost touches hers.
Dante hasn’t moved from the doorframe. Cole stays beside him.
The meeting breaks. People stand. Clara keeps her hand on Talia’s forearm as they rise. Talia’s eyes are bright but her jaw is set. Declan reaches for her, pulling her into his side, his hand flattening between her shoulders when she leans into him. Adrian crosses to Dante and they exchange three sentences I can’t hear, low and direct.
I adjust my bag on my shoulder and head for the door.
Dante steps into my path.
“Stay,” he says.
One word. Low and certain. He stays between me and the door.
