Avery POV

"You emailed HR about closing an offshore sports book." I pressed my phone against my ear, staring at the glowing monitor in the platform archive room. "Three weeks before the league suspended you."

Silence stretched across the line. I heard the faint sound of traffic through her speaker.

"Avery, where did you get that?" Talia asked, her voice tight.

"I bypassed Miles and pulled your old employee file," I said, scrolling through the archived inbox. "Company policy strictly prohibited data hosts from gambling. You knew that. You asked compliance how to shut the account down, but you never submitted the final declaration."

"I opened it before I got the promotion," Talia shot back. "And before I met Roman."

"But you used it."

"Not for those three bets." The defensive edge in her tone spiked, echoing off the cinderblock walls of the archive room. "I never wagered a single dollar on Roman’s passing yards."

"Then what did you bet on?" I asked.

"It doesn't matter," she insisted. "The account was empty by the time the season started."

"It matters to the league," I argued. "You handed them a loaded gun. If I am going to prove someone framed you for the insider wagers, I have to know exactly what rules you actually broke."

"I told you everything that matters," she said.

The line went dead.

I lowered the phone. My sister wasn't a pure victim. She broke the rules first. I had to investigate a frame-up while accepting that she had done something fireable before the scandal even started.

Two days later, I sat across from Roman in a windowless media room deep inside the visiting stadium. The pre-game clock ticked down on the wall, marking forty minutes until kickoff.

"Why did you believe a residential network log proved she placed the wagers?" I asked, checking my audio levels on the monitor.

Roman adjusted his collar, his shoulders tense under his practice jersey. "Because we kept our relationship quiet. Talia spent half her week at my house, editing her segments. She used the team-sponsored tablet I kept in the guest room."

"And the league traced the bets to that specific tablet?"

"Victor did," Roman corrected. "My agent pulled the device export records. The login identifier matched the guest room hardware."

I stopped adjusting the audio dial. I looked up from the equipment. "Did you hand the physical tablet over to the league investigators?"

"No," Roman said, his gaze locking onto mine. "Victor told me his team handled the compliance handoff. We were three weeks away from a playoff run. I gave the issue to the person I paid to protect me."

"So you didn't actually know she placed the bets," I said, keeping my voice entirely flat. "You only knew Victor said the evidence pointed to her."

Roman didn't flinch. He didn't look away. He leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees.

"Right," Roman said. "And I still went to the microphone and said that sentence."

He offered no excuses. He didn't try to soften the admission.

"We're done here," I told the cameraman, cutting the feed.

By the fourth quarter, the opposing defense had sacked Roman three times. He finished the final drive, throwing a touchdown pass through double coverage, but the post-game tunnel was a madhouse.

Reporters shoved microphones toward the medical evaluation room, shouting questions at the coaching staff. The team doctor caught my eye through the crowd and shook his head once.

I lowered my camera rig, resting the heavy lens against my hip. I did not point it at the closed door.

Ten minutes later, the door swung open. Roman walked out, his left shoulder wrapped in thick ice. The press corps surged forward, but team security pushed them back. Roman spotted me standing by the equipment trunks, my lens still capped.

He walked over, his cleats scraping the concrete floor. "You missed the money shot."

"Medical evaluations aren't part of the documentary scope," I said.

"Miles would have paid you a bonus for footage of me wincing," Roman said, a cynical edge in his voice. "Afraid they'll paint you as the second ruined Quinn if you break a rule?"

I tightened my grip on the rig handle. "I don't need my sister's failure to know what a privacy violation looks like. And I don't need your approval to prove I have professional judgment."

Roman stopped wiping the sweat from his forehead. The hostility vanished from his expression, replaced by a sharp, assessing stare. He looked at the capped lens, then back at my face.

"Turn the camera on," he ordered.

I popped the lens cap off and hit record.

"Ask me about the shoulder," he said.

"Are you playing through an injury next week?" I asked, raising the microphone.

"I hate that question," Roman told the lens, his voice projecting over the locker room noise. "The media measures loyalty by how much pain a player is willing to hide. It's a toxic standard. We either lie to the medical staff and risk our careers, or we tell the truth and get called cowards on morning television."

He gave me a full three-minute answer. It was the most honest footage the production had captured all season. He didn't give me a canned PR response. He gave me a piece of his actual perspective, treating me like a journalist instead of a liability.

At midnight, I sat on the edge of my hotel bed, cross-referencing Talia's old account data with the league's integrity summary.

The money from the three anomalous bets never hit Talia's bank. The withdrawal went to a digital wallet. The transaction history showed no owner name, just a string of encrypted characters.

I scrolled to the login timestamps, tracing the timeline of the final wager.

Talia had left Roman's house at eight in the evening on the night in question. The final login—the one that initiated the massive withdrawal—happened at three in the morning.

I checked the network log for that exact minute. The guest room tablet was offline. But another device was active on Roman's Wi-Fi.

The identifier read: VS-Admin.

I grabbed my phone, snapped a picture of the laptop screen, and texted it to Talia.

Who is VS? I typed.

The typing bubble appeared immediately.

Victor Shaw.

I stared at the name. Roman's agent. The man who handled the compliance handoff. The man who told Roman the evidence was bulletproof.

I stood up, grabbing my room key to go find the ice machine. My mind raced, piecing the timeline together. Victor had access to the house. Victor controlled the narrative. Victor made sure the physical tablet never reached the league investigators.

I walked out into the quiet hallway, the carpet muffling my footsteps.

The elevator chimed at the end of the corridor.

The metal doors slid open. A man in a tailored dark gray suit stepped out. He didn't check the room numbers. He walked straight toward me, stopping two feet away.

He extended his right hand.

"Avery Quinn?" he asked, his voice smooth and practiced. "I am Victor Shaw."

Avery POV

"I understand you are reviewing network logs from a closed inquiry," Victor Shaw said, his hands resting easily in his tailored suit pockets.

I didn't shake his extended hand. I kept my phone gripped tightly in my right palm.

"Did you have administrator access to Roman’s home network four years ago?" I asked.

Victor dropped his arm. His expression remained perfectly pleasant, a mask of corporate patience.

"My firm handles comprehensive brand maintenance for our top clients," Victor replied. "That includes digital security, hardware monitoring, and securing personal networks against outside threats."

"So you controlled the guest room tablet," I concluded.

"I suggest you separate your season documentary from your family matters, Avery." Victor tilted his head, his voice smooth. "Blurring those lines never ends well for the reporter."

"Let her ask her questions, Victor."

Roman stepped out of the adjacent meeting room. He wore gray sweatpants and a plain white t-shirt, his jaw tight as he closed the distance between us.

"I am handling a media inquiry, Roman," Victor said, his tone smoothing out even further.

"You are handling my personal history," Roman corrected. He stopped right next to my shoulder, forming a physical barrier between the agent and me. "Don't answer for me."

Victor offered a crisp nod. He didn't argue. He turned and walked down the carpeted corridor, disappearing around the corner.

I turned my phone screen toward Roman. The VS-Admin log glowed in the dim hallway light.

"Your agency managed the sponsor tablets and the home network," I said. "From your rookie season."

Roman looked at the screen, then up at my face. "Yes. They did."

"Which means deciding the home network automatically equaled Talia was an incomplete conclusion," I pressed. "Someone else had access to that specific device at three in the morning. Someone from Victor's team."

Roman crossed his arms over his chest. "I didn't ask them to verify the administrator logs back then."

"Why not?"

"Because she hid an offshore betting account from me for nine months," he said, his voice dropping. "I wanted to believe the hidden account was enough proof."

"That doesn't make it the truth," I shot back.

"It made it easier than wondering who else was lying to me," Roman said.

"I will have my new legal team pull the old agency contracts," Roman continued, shifting his weight. "We can request the device permission logs from the security vendor."

I lowered my phone, genuinely surprised. "Why would you do that? You spent four years ignoring this."

"Because I don't want a camera crew hunting for ghosts in my locker room," Roman said. "But I have one condition."

"I don't agree to conditions blind."

"Every document gets independent verification," Roman stated. "You don't put a single page into the documentary just because it clears your sister."

"I am a journalist. You don't get to lecture me on how to verify sources."

"I already learned what happens when you treat the closest thing to an answer as the whole truth," Roman said, taking a step toward me. "I am not repeating that mistake with another Quinn."

"A permission log is a hard fact," I argued, refusing to back down. "It carries a lot more weight than your assumption about her six wagers."

"The logs don't change the reality of those six bets," Roman countered.

I froze. My fingers tightened around the edge of my phone case.

"Six?" I asked.

Roman’s eyes narrowed. He studied my face.

"The league integrity summary cited three flagged bets," I said, keeping my voice steady despite the sudden hollow feeling in my stomach. "Where are you getting six?"

Roman stopped. The defensive posture melted out of his shoulders, replaced by a rigid stillness.

"She didn't tell you," he said.

"Tell me what?"

"That isn't my place to confess," Roman said.

"You don't get to drop a number like that and walk away," I demanded, stepping into his path.

"Ask your sister," he said.

He turned his back to me and walked toward the elevator.

His restraint stung worse than his anger. He wasn't trying to smear her anymore. He was protecting a secret my own sister still kept from me.

At two o'clock the next afternoon, the projector hummed in the offensive film room.

"Roll the tape back," Roman instructed the assistant coach.

I adjusted the focus ring on my camera. We were pushing the private conflict into the strict framework of a Tuesday practice schedule.

On the screen, the opposing defense shifted into a cover-two shell. Roman dropped back in the pocket, then threw the ball directly into the hands of a waiting safety.

"I misread the linebacker's drop," Roman said, pointing a laser pointer at the frozen frame. "My eyes were in the wrong place."

"Did the right tackle miss his blocking assignment?" I asked from behind the lens. "He looks late off the snap."

Roman lowered the laser pointer. He looked directly into my camera lens.

"The tackle didn't throw the interception," Roman said. "I did. Keep that admission in the final edit. Don't cut it to make the offensive line look bad."

"Miles prefers the angle where the star player blames the supporting cast," I pointed out.

"Miles doesn't play in the pocket," Roman replied. "I do."

He didn't fear ugly footage. He feared a clip lacking cause and effect, an isolated moment used to define a person's entire character. He possessed rigid professional boundaries now. It only highlighted the bitter truth: four years ago, he spoke the words that ruined Talia without doing the work to verify them.

The film session ended. I packed my lenses into the padded carrying case.

Heavy footsteps echoed on the hardwood floor of the facility hallway. Victor Shaw walked through the double doors, a leather briefcase gripped in his right hand.

He stopped next to the hydration station, shaking Roman’s hand.

"Good session?" Victor asked.

"Standard review," Roman answered, wiping a towel across the back of his neck.

Victor turned his attention to me. The polite smile returned to his face.

"Your sister was highly talented," Victor said, his tone conversational. "She was just too fond of turning personal problems into professional stories."

I zipped my equipment bag closed. I stood up, facing him directly.

"Do you still have the device management records from four years ago?" I asked.

Victor’s smile faded by a fraction of an inch. The warmth vanished from his eyes.

"All compliance materials were processed and disposed of according to standard protocol," Victor said. "You shouldn't invent fake doubts just to create drama for a documentary."

Roman stepped forward, tossing his towel onto a nearby bench. "Victor—"

"I am only asking a technical question," I interrupted, cutting Roman off.

Victor looked down at the press pass resting against my chest. He stared at the bold letters spelling out my last name.

"If you are smarter than your sister," Victor said softly, "you will know when not to let a surname ruin a second career."

Avery POV

"Pull the platform access logs for my account," I told Brianna, dropping my external hard drive onto her desk. "I need a list of everyone who has clearance to use my credentials in the shared asset pool."

Brianna stopped typing. She looked at the drive, then up at me. "Avery, that requires a security override. I can't just hand over network data."

"Then ask Kelsey to authorize it," I insisted.

Miles walked into the production trailer, holding coffee. "We are shooting a sports documentary, Avery, not conducting a cybersecurity audit. Get your camera. Roman is doing agility drills in ten minutes."

"My sister got blacklisted because of a digital paper trail," I replied, turning to face him. "I am not leaving my account open for a repeat performance. Someone is already digging into my history."

"Your account is fine," Miles snapped. "Stop treating every shadow like a conspiracy. Focus on the season narrative."

"The narrative is compromised if someone else is driving my login," I argued. "If I don't know who has access, I can't protect my footage."

"Drop it," Miles ordered, pointing toward the door. "Or I hand the camera to the backup crew. Go film the drills."

At one o'clock, all the monitors in the production trailer went black.

A red error message flashed across the screens, locking the editing timelines.

Kelsey Reed pushed through the trailer door, a printed report in her hand. She bypassed Miles and walked straight to my station. "Who accessed the restricted editing server at two this morning?"

No one spoke. Brianna froze with her hand hovering over her mouse.

Kelsey dropped the paper on the main console. "Someone downloaded Roman's unreleased shoulder injury footage. The system logged the action under Avery's media credential."

I stood up, my chair scraping harshly against the floorboards. "I didn't download anything."

"The digital tag says otherwise," Kelsey replied, tapping the paper. "It shows your user ID pulling a file that hasn't been cleared for broadcast. That footage is sensitive."

"Look at the timestamp," I said, pointing at the ink. "Two in the morning. I was at the sponsor dinner with the entire crew. You saw me there."

Roman stepped into the trailer, still wearing his practice cleats. He stopped near the doorway, assessing the tension in the room. He glanced at the printed report on the console, then looked at me.

He did not offer a character defense. He pulled out his phone and opened a video file.

"The charity live stream proves she was sitting at table four from midnight until the event ended at three," Roman told Kelsey, his tone strictly professional. He handed the phone to her. "I answered questions on the broadcast at two-fifteen. You can see her in the background talking to the sound mixer."

Kelsey watched the screen. "That proves she wasn't at her laptop," she argued.

"Correct," Roman agreed. "It proves her physical location. It doesn't prove her password remained secure."

He did not ask them to trust me; he asked them to respect the timeline. A timestamp mattered more than a character endorsement.

Kelsey sighed, rubbing her temples. She handed the phone back to Roman. "I will restore your public access, Avery. But your training database privileges stay frozen until IT clears your login."

"You are locking me out of my own project," I said.

"I am securing the footage," Kelsey corrected. "Until we know how your password was used, you don't touch the restricted files."

The system had flagged me the way it once flagged Talia.

Thirty minutes later, Brianna slid a folded piece of paper across her desk toward me.

"I bypassed Kelsey and pulled the raw login details," Brianna whispered, checking the hallway behind her. "The download didn't route through our standard Crossfield servers."

I unfolded the paper. A string of code sat beneath my name. "What is this routing address?"

"A third-party sponsorship portal," she said. "Whoever did this came through a backdoor, not our network."

Roman walked past the editing bay, carrying his playbook. I grabbed the paper and stepped into the hallway, blocking his path.

"Look at this vendor name," I demanded, holding the sheet up.

Roman stopped. He scanned the printed text. The muscles in his jaw locked. The casual posture vanished.

"That tech supplier handles my external endorsements," Roman said, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper. "Victor’s agency owns it."

"Victor used that portal to hijack my credential," I said. "He pulled the injury footage to frame me. Lock him out. Revoke his administrative access to your devices right now."

"No," Roman said, stepping closer.

"He is setting me up." I shoved the paper toward his chest. "He did it to my sister, and now he is doing it to me."

"If I cut his access without hard proof, I trigger a breach of contract dispute," Roman shot back, his eyes narrowing. "Victor will get a legal notice from the union. The second he receives it, his team will wipe the servers clean under the guise of data migration."

"So we just wait?" I asked, my voice rising. "I am supposed to sit here while he builds a fake case against me?"

"We secure the evidence before we throw the punch," Roman insisted. "I need my new lawyers to subpoena the logs quietly."

"That strategy cost my sister her career," I told him, refusing to lower my voice. "You waited for someone else to hand you the answers."

Roman didn't flinch. "And rushing in blind will cost you yours. If you alert him now, we lose the only trail we have."

"I am not playing a waiting game with my reputation," I said.

"Then you will lose," Roman stated flatly. He didn't raise his voice, but the finality in his tone was absolute. He turned and walked down the corridor.

At nine that night, my laptop chimed on the hotel desk.

An email from the League Integrity Office sat in my inbox.

I clicked the subject line. An official inquiry form loaded on the screen, accompanied by a screenshot of an offshore betting slip.

My hands tightened on the edge of the desk.

The account was registered under the initials A.Q.

The wager: Roman Hayes passing yards, under.

The timestamp: Eleven minutes before the team publicly announced his shoulder restriction.

The amount was small, but the structure was identical. The headline wrote itself: a second Quinn exploiting quarterback secrets. Victor was moving faster than Roman’s lawyers.

I snatched my phone from the nightstand to call Talia.

The screen lit up before I could dial. A text message from her appeared.

Don't answer any questions from the league. Come to my apartment. There is something I didn't tell you four years ago.

I stared at the text. My pulse hammered against my ribs.

I looked back at the glowing monitor. The formal inquiry demanded a written explanation of my location and device history. The deadline sat in bold red font at the bottom of the page.

Tomorrow, 12:00 PM.

I checked the digital clock on my phone screen. Eleven hours and forty-two minutes remained.

I grabbed my car keys off the mattress and walked out the door.