Page 202 of Play Dirty

And this time—

He didn’t look back.

~ 58 ~

HAVEN

The most surprising part was that it didn’t take long.

After everything — the noise, the buildup, the quiet tension sitting just under the surface — I thought it would drag out.

That it would be messy. Complicated. Slow.

It was none of those things.

By the next morning, Sutherland was gone.

Not rumored. Not ‘under review.’

Gone, as in pulled from the roster. Suspended indefinitely. There was a league statement, clean and clinical, dropping phrases like integrity of the game and ongoing investigation like they meant something more than what they actually did.

Which meant one thing:

He’d been caught.

By that afternoon, clips were everywhere. Not just the ones I’d put together, but more.

Different angles. Different games. Analysts breaking it down frame by frame, pointing out every hesitation, every overcommit, every moment where instinct should’ve taken over — but didn’t.

It wasn’t subtle anymore. It wasn’t arguable.

It was obvious.

And Sutherland?

He didn’t even fight it.

That was the one part no one expected. No denial, no statement. No angry post, or agent stepping in to spin things.

Just— silence.

Then, two days later—

Cooperation.

“That’s it,” Boone muttered, watching one of the segments replay for the third time on the TV in the living room. “That’s the nail right there.”

“They’ve got him,” Riley agreed.

“They had him the second he didn’t say anything,” Sebastian added.

I didn’t say a word. I just watched.

Rourke took a little longer. Men like that always did. At first it was just his name. Floating. Mentioned. A ‘source close to the situation’ or ‘a team-affiliated consultant.’

The man in the suit.

The one who never watched the game. Only the outcome.