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“What?” He paused the phone footage. “You’re not watching⁠—”

“Undo it. Whatever you’ve done. Take it back.” Heat was back in my veins. A similar heat to the passion I found with Camden, but with dangerous edges.

He laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

No, this wasn’t possible. He couldn’t have done this. It was wrong on so many levels. “This is corruption.”

“No.” He frowned. “It’s reminding the relevant people that this sport has rules.”

“Something Camden did when he was fourteen has no bearing on his skating here!”

He turned to face me. “Do not raise your voice to me, Ren. The matter is⁠—”

“I have to, when you’re not listening.” I pushed from the chair and paced. I couldn’t be close to him anymore. This man was my father, and I couldn’t stand to look at him. “You have to undo it.”

“He took drugs, Ren. Is that the kind of person who should be competing alongside an athlete of your caliber? I do not believe so. He was a drug addict.”

I coughed a laugh. “He took drugs when he was a teenager. So what? So do most teenagers.”

“You didn’t.”

“Didn’t I?” I laughed again, especially when his face revealed his alarm at my confession. “There’s a lot about me you don’t know, Father.”

“Regardless, this is irrelevant.”

I slammed my hands on the table, making it jolt. “No!” My gaze locked with his. “If you do this to him, I will not dance.”

His whole face screwed up in a snarl. “You’re being absurd.”

“I’m not dancing the free dance unless it’s fair. What’s the point in winning if it’s rigged? You’re an athlete. How do you not see this?”

“Of course you will dance.” He laughed, dismissing me. “Stop being dramatic. You were always a dramatic boy when you were small. So much of your mother in you.”

My mouth fell open, but no words came out. I couldn’t believe I was hearing this. I’d looked up to this man, admired him since I was a child learning to skate beside him so he’d see me. He hadn’t seen me then and he didn’t see me now.

Cold determination drove steel rods through the heat surging in me now. “You will withdraw whatever complaint you’ve put in against Camden or I quit.”

“Quit?” He slowly rose to his feet to meet me eye to eye. “Hasegawas do not quit.”

I lifted my chin. My heart pounded. “You cannot make me dance.”

“You will not quit,” he growled, hands going into fists at his sides. “You would threaten to take Miss Tamsyn Ward’s Olympic dreams for the sake of a stupid boy?”

Tamsyn.

I’d forgotten about her in all of this.

If I walked away, it was over for her too.

I hadn’t realized . . .

I stepped back, as though taking a physical hit. I couldn’t ruin Tamsyn’s dreams too. I couldn’t . . . But if I didn’t, Camden would be pulled from the Games through no fault of his own. It would destroy him.

I didn’t know what to do. If I danced, Cam was out and the Games were rigged. If I didn’t, Tamsyn would lose everything she had come back to ice dance for after her injury.

I was trapped.

I stumbled against the table, needing more air to breathe, air that wouldn’t come.