minute to copy the files over, but it had displayed the same message for the last three.
This was sick. All of it. The photos. The cheating. For two weeks, I’d laid awake in bed, bombarded by two realizations.
First, I was married.
Second, I was now accessory to a scandal that would destroy the careers and reputations of the men on the team. Players I liked. My friends. Some close enough to be my family.
And husbands, apparently.
Footsteps echoed in the hall. I panicked and minimized the file transfer, covering the screen with the team’s Instagram instead.
Mine was the only job that demanded I photographed ridiculously attractive men. And I loved it. Every second of it.
But it was crashing around me.
If anyone saw me stealing files from the computers, everything would end.
And if anyone outside the organization knew why I was trying to find evidence?
Anarchy.
The league would punish us with lost draft choices. Forfeited championships. Suspended players and coaches.
And men like Lachlan would never get the chance they deserved in the league.
It wasn’t just his family—Fiona and Sebastian—who benefited from his professional play. Leah’s PR firm represented half of the team. Piper’s two clients were Rivets. Scoring their contracts gave her enough respect to open her own agency if she wanted. Players, families, businesses—everyone had a stake in the Rivets’ success.
Including me.
The emails were copied. Step One: Completed. Now, if I had to go to the league or the media, I could search the correspondence and build a case so that the pictures wouldn’t my word against theirs.
I checked the time again. I still had about five minutes before I needed to clear out. I poked a little deeper into Peter’s files.
I found a password-protected drive. Good thing I knew the name of every cat Peter ever owned. Whiskers wasn’t exactly a secure password.
I opened the drive.
I wished I hadn’t. The images turned my stomach.
Every player had a folder—Bryon, Caleb, Orlando.
Pictures of parties. Women. Drugs. Public intoxication. Some images that were a little too dark and questionable for comfort.
My cursor hovered over Jack’s folder, and hated that I looked inside. I knew what I’d find—Jack’s first three seasons in the league rolled one scandal into another. The pictures were old, and Jack had been on his best behavior since marrying Leah, but the media would still publish the images as if they were taken last week. I couldn’t imagine Leah trying to spin her own husband’s past sexual encounters.
I scrolled through the folders. My heart lurched as I read my own name.
“What the hell…”
I shouldn’t have opened it.
I should have walked away.
I should have resigned right then and there.
Instead, I copied every last image onto my flash drive and prepared for war.
I had only three pictures, but they were enough. Someone on the team had managed to snap a picture of me in the locker room from two weeks ago—naked. A good photo. My face and body were completely exposed.
The series of pictures had it all. Me naked. Lachlan beside me. His erection. Trying to cover it with a towel. The coaches probably confiscated a player’s phone to delete the images—but not before sending it to themselves.
Great. Was I going to be blackmailed…or was it insurance so that no one spoke out of turn if they learned about the cheating?
The Rivets weren’t just spying on other teams. They had intel on their own players.
And they’d use those horrible photographs to silence anyone who might have stopped them.
More footsteps. I panicked, struggling to close the folders of damning pictures. The computer sputtered and froze. I leapt to my feet and turned off the monitor as Freddie, our videographer, rolled through the door. He chugged his coffee and collapsed in a heap of his own equipment.
“Hey, Elle, you’re early,” he said.
My voice shrilled. “Couldn’t sleep.”
“Oh yeah, I remember those newlywed nights.” He winked at me. “Savor the precious months.”
“Haha. Very funny.”
“Where’ve you been? Haven’t seen you since Monday.”
“Had to go out of town.” I hoped Peter had covered for me with the staff while I was in Gainesville. “Family stuff.”
“Well, good thing you’re here. Peter’s looking for you.”
My stomach curdled. I shook my coffee cup and pretended it was empty. “Can you do me a favor? Get me a new coffee? I’m going to need another pick-me-up.”
Freddie laughed as he left the office. “Sure thing, Elle, but this is really something your husband should do for you…”
The door closed. I dove at the computer, pulling off as many files and images as I could grab