Page 48 of Forever Relentless

“Mason said she was a mess, she wouldn’t stop crying.” Diana’s voice took on that lifeless robotic tone she had when she was discussing things she didn’t like to discuss — which was basically anything related to Tiff.

“He was panicking.” I took over. “Mason is the best, but you put a hysterical woman in front of him and don’t tell him who to punch, he doesn’t cope well. He convinced her to go to a doctor, and she said she would if he took her home.”

Diana had picked up her wine and drained the glass. “You have to understand,” she said quietly. “Tiffany was prone to . . .”

“Dramatics.” I didn’t flinch from the looks the guys gave me. “I know what you’re thinking. I’m a bitch. I probably am. She and I never gelled. She was a pain in the ass to my brother the moment he put that helmet on. But she was harmless. It was all . . . fluff.” I let out a huge exhale and pushed myself to my feet.

“She was difficult,” Diana said quietly. “But difficult didn’t mean disposable.”

“Agreed.” I nodded emphatically. “She was over the top, eccentric in her own way, but she was harmless. It was an obsession, but it wasn’t a boil-your-bunny-in-the-pot obsession. It was a follow-him-around-and-hope-he-sees-you obsession.” I pulled my hair back. “From her behavior the night it happened, Mason knew she wasn’t lying. The angrier he got, the more he wanted to kill whoever had done it to her, which only made her worse. The only way to calm her down was to remove her from the grounds of this fucking campus.”

Diana picked up my wine and took a sip. I leaned against the window and regarded the two men in front of me. “So he took her off campus. And then he never got to come back to campus.”

“But how?” Dante asked, looking between us both. “He’s been erased from this school. Any record of him is gone from what we can see.”

“Of course it is,” I told him, walking back to the couch. “The moment he left he gave them the opportunity to blame him.”

“That . . .” Noah frowned. “It just doesn’t work like that.”

“Why?” I challenged him. “Does your coach give you the impression he can’t wipe out your career before it even starts?”

They exchanged a look, and I knew they’d both experienced Sutherland at his worst. Or what they thought was his worst.

Dante held my stare, and I saw him tilt his head slightly to the side as he considered me. I could practically see the gears turning in his brain.

“He told them,” he said, understanding. “He did what any of us would do. He reported it to someone with authority, and in our world, that’s your coach. He told his head coach what had happened. Right?”

And there it was.

“He did.” I glanced at Diana, whose head was down, her focus on her hands. “He called and told his head coach. Sutherland asked him what he was doing, and he told him he was taking Tiffany home. His coach told him to bring her in,” I snorted. “Like she was a suspect.”

“She gave her statement,” Diana spoke quietly. “Mason wasn’t allowed in the room with her. It was Sutherland, another coach, and some campus cop.”

“She wrote her statement three times,” Noah’s voice was soft but firm. “You think they pressured her?”

My temper flared. “I know they did.”

He nodded. “Yeah, sounds all sorts of wrong.” His hand ran through his thick, dark hair. “And then?”

“They told Mason to take her home. Like she wanted. And he did.”

The silence was thick and heavy, all of us no doubt considering the shittiness of the situation.

“When did they blame Mason?” Dante asked quietly.

“When he wasn’t here to defend himself.” I met the quarterback’s cool blue eyes and saw he believed me. I didn’t expect to feel relief.

“You get the girl they can paint as ‘obsessed,’” Noah spoke. “A girl they can accuse of making a wild claim for attention,” he didn’t flinch in his blunt synopsis. “You get the player who finally ‘plays’ with her, or so they say, and then you have one of them cry attack, and the other never gets a chance to defend himself.”

“But Tiffany came back,” Dante reminded him. He looked over at us and then back at Matthews. “They let her come back.” He turned to us. “Right?”

I didn’t look at Diana. “Right.”

“Why?” Dante liked to keep in the pocket when he played. It was his linebacker who made outside runs and thought outside the play call, and his next sentence proved me right.

“What if they paid her off?” Noah’s voice held a hint of uncertainty, which disappeared the longer he held my stare. “They could have paid her off, told her to stay quiet, and then the fact that they pinned it on Mason, she wouldn’t know until she had taken the payout and—”

“Sealed her fate,” Dante murmured with understanding. “Both of their fates.”