Page 201 of Play Dirty

More like understanding.

“You gave him a choice,” he said.

“What?”

“You didn’t expose him,” Grayson went on. “Not then. Not publicly.”

He paused for a moment.

“You showed him what he had to do.”

“I think he already knew,” I nodded. “He had to.”

“Yeah,” Ares muttered. “But you made sure he couldn’t ignore it.”

“No,” I agreed. “I guess not. But you know what?”

For some reason I thought about the first time I’d walked into the kitchen, and no one would even look at me.

Right now, I had everyone’s attention.

“I couldn’t ignore what they did to you.”

Anger swelled. The same anger that made me want to send Sutherland his own footage.

“He stole from you,” I said icily. “Games. Victories. Time. All that practice you put in, all your hard work. Thrown away for his own fucking greed.”

I shook my head. My mouth twisted with barely-controlled rage.

“No,” I said again. “I couldn’t let that slide.”

Phones buzzed again. This time I pulled out my own and clicked on the news alert.

There was footage now.

Sutherland.

Walking out of an arena.

His head was down, his shoulders tight. Reporters were following him, asking questions he wasn’t answering.

He looked… smaller. So much more insignificant.

My chest tightened a little, as he walked through a crowd that no longer cared about him.

For a moment, I didn’t see a villain. I saw a guy who made a choice.

A bad one. A selfish one. One that cost a lot of people something they didn’t deserve to lose.

People I loved.

“Holy shit,” muttered Asher. “He’s done.”

They were all watching, all staring into their own phones. It had all happened so fast.

On the screen, Sutherland paused — just for a moment. Like he could feel something behind him.

Then he kept walking.