Page 19 of Main Event

“The woman at the pump had the best angle.”

“Yes. She knows everything that happened.”

“And her footage starts with you, not with them.”

I look at her.

“She was filming before I got there,” Andi says. “She had her phone out before the impact. Before I even called you.” She looks at the ceiling. “She was already there.”

The room is quiet.

“Evelyn had someone at the gas station,” I say.

“Or somewhere on that route.” Andi closes her eyes. “She didn’t just send two men to pull me out of a car. She sent a third to document what you’d do when you got there.” Her eyes stay closed. “She knew you’d come. She counted on it.”

I stand in the living room and think about a woman who has been running operations for thirty years. A woman who understands human nature as a mechanism. Who looked at Andi and me and understood immediately that the most useful thing about Luke Woods wasn’t his license or his career.

It was that he would always, without hesitation, come. That he would always, without hesitation, protect the one he loves.

“She set you up,” Andi says.

“Yes,” I say. “She did. She knew exactly what would push my buttons.”

Andi opens her eyes. She looks at me with the level directness she uses when she’s decided something.

“Luke.”

“Yeah.”

“I need you to understand something.” She holds my eyes. “What you did at that gas station—you came for me. You protected me. What happens next with the Athletic Commission, with the footage, with whatever Evelyn does with it—none of that changes what you did or why you did it.” She holds it until I look at her. “I need you to hold on to that. Because it’s going to get loud and I need you to stay steady.”

I cross the room, and I sit beside her on the couch.

“I’m a rock, baby,” I say. “I’d do it again today.”

“I know.” She takes my hand. “I just needed to say it.”

Outside the house, the notifications keep coming. Bill is managing the Commission. The communications team is working on a statement. Somewhere in Atlanta, Evelyn Carrington is watching the same footage we’re watching and understanding that the play worked exactly as designed.

But she made a mistake.

She showed us what she’s willing to do.

And now we know.

Bill calls at eleven the next morning.

“The man from the gas station,” he says. “The one with the shoulder injury.”

I already know what he’s calling to say from the timbre of his voice. “Tell me.”

“He died at Grady at two-seventeen this morning. The attending physician documented an allergic reaction to a medication administered overnight—a contraindication that should have been caught during intake.” Bill pauses, which is his way of making sure I hear it. “It wasn’t caught.”

I stand in the kitchen.

“Was it deliberate?” I ask, though I have no question about it.

“A medication error of that kind, in that sequence, would require either profound incompetence or specific access to his chart and his care team.” Bill’s voice is careful. “The hospital is conducting an internal review. The police have been notified. But the man had no identification on him when he was brought in. No phone. Nothing.”