Page 177 of Forever Relentless

He threw his hands in the air. “I don’t know, and frankly, Matthews, I don’t give a damn about a kid from four years ago who’s butthurt he can’t play anymore. Is this why she’s here? To uncover a whodunnit?” he asked skeptically. “Because that’s just fucking sad and a colossal waste of her time . . . and yours.”

I ground my teeth together. I was no longer thinking he may have had something to do with it. I was more convinced he had nothing to do with it, but I just didn’t have the ability to think he was innocent in this.

“Your football program is crooked,” I bit out harshly.

“So?”

I blinked. “What do you mean so?”

“Show me a football program anywhere that doesn’t bend the rules.” He waved me off. “Bullshit and nonsense. What else you got?”

“If you get caught doing what you’re doing, the whole department suffers.”

He snorted. “So?” He laid his hand on the desk, the epitome of calm. “Programs get fined, they move on. You think that in thirty years, I don’t know how to work with the governing authority? Please, boy, wake up.”

No. This wasn’t how this was supposed to go.

“You truly don’t care? About Tiffany? About Mason being blamed? The blackmail you use to keep players in line? Your players are looking at you as the instigator of all the things wrong and corrupt. Don’t you care about their respect?”

His eyelid twitched.

Got him.

I appealed to his one weakness: his ego.

“I felt for the girl. She was a flighty thing by all accounts; she followed Sterling around like a lapdog, and he didn’t treat her any differently than a fan. I admired that about him. I knew they had a history; they came from the same town. When she wanted to go home, she asked him, and he took her. That week, he got in an accident. It’s a sad story, Matthews, but it doesn’t make me a villain.”

“It doesn’t make you the good guy, either,” I snapped. “I want you to acknowledge he didn’t do anything. I want his name back in your books as a player who dropped out due to an injury. I want him not to be slandered with a rumor of assault.”

“And how the fuck do you propose I do that?”

I smiled widely. “Let Hadley have the story.”

“No.”

I nodded. “You made her take the post down about all your other shit, which you are guilty of, and she’s all in on this story. Give her Tiffany and Mason, give her the side you just told me, make it nicer, but you give her this . . . victory, and she’ll back off on the other things.”

“You think I’m stupid?”

“No. I think you’re really very clever. I think you know as well as I do that she isn’t going anywhere. You have a rock and a hard place with her, you’re the rock, move.”

He sniffed as he looked away. His fingers drummed against the desk. “Fine.”

I almost crowed with victory.

“But I see it before it gets printed.”

“Fine.” I felt like I was breathless. “It gets put in writing, too.” I tapped the photo again. “Insurance.”

“It seems you’re trying to blackmail me,” he mused. “Isn’t that a turn up for the books?”

“Your books aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on,” I muttered. “I want you to lay off Dante and Dustin,” I paused. “And Jason.”

His grin was predatory.

“Yeah, I think we both know who’s behind the pictures my friends received.” I sat back. “I want them deleted. I want you to remember you’re a coach, once a damn good one. You don’t need to blackmail your players into behaving. They know this program is . . . different. Let’s leave it as an unspoken agreement — you stop threatening players to dance to your tune, and they’ll stop looking for ways to bring this shit down on your head.”

His lips pursed as he thought about it. “And what do I get?”