Page 154 of Play Dirty

I stood up straighter.

“You knew he was throwing games?”

“Yes.”

The word hit like a gut punch.

“And you just… what?” I snapped. “Let it happen?”

His eyes dropped for a moment, before returning to mine.

“I thought I could contain it.”

I laughed. It came out sharp.

“Contain it?”

“Keep it from blowing up,” he said. “Keep it from taking the whole team down with him.”

“That’s not your call.”

“It became my call the second I figured it out.”

My hands hurt from clenching the shovel so tightly.

“You should’ve said something.”

“And then what?” he shot back, finally losing that calm edge. “We expose him? You think that stops him?”

I didn’t answer. He stepped closer.

“Best case? He gets banned. Careers end. The league investigates everything. Every game. Every player.”

A beat.

“Worst case?” he continued. “We’re implicated. Season’s wiped. Everyone goes down with him.”

I stared at him in disbelief.

“You let the whole team hang—”

“I protected us,” he interjected. “I forced him out.”

“That’s not protection, that’s—”

“Control,” he cut in.

The word landed heavily. It was an honest, ugly assessment.

But it was real.

“I thought I could manage it,” he continued, quieter now. “Keep it contained until he was gone.”

“And then Coach Trees got fired.”

His jaw flexed.

“Yeah.”