Müller—The name hit something in me, immediate and visceral. I’d read a few headlines. Watched some interviews. But him being arrested was news to me.
“Booked on suspicion of misdemeanor assault,” the legal rep continued, her voice even, detached. “Held overnight. Initial appearance this morning. Released on bail.”
The words stacked, one on top of the other.
My stomach dropped, just slightly.
“The alleged victim?” Char asked, already moving forward.
“Male. Late twenties. Intoxicated at time of incident. Sustained a nasal fracture. Treated and released.”
Holy hell.A broken nose.
My mind filled in the image automatically—blood, impact, the kind of damage that couldn’t be explained away with a simple statement.
“He’s cooperating?” Rawlings pressed.
“Yes,” the legal rep confirmed. “He’s indicated he intends to request charges be dropped. He’s also accepted medicalexpenses being covered privately. Charges are still pending. Nothing has been dismissed.”
Of course not.
“Media?” Char asked.
“Nothing confirmed publicly yet. But the arrest record exists. It’s only a matter of time.” A voice came from a man that I could not see.
The room went quieter. Not still. But tighter. Like everything had narrowed to a single point.
“We bench him,” the coach, Dan Holloway barked abruptly, his tone flat, decisive. “We pull him before this molehill becomes Mount St. Helens.”
“No,” Rawlings countered immediately. “We explore trade options. If this escalates?—”
“We are not trading him over one incident,” Ezra cut in, still calm, but firmer now. “We don’t make that call today.”
My gaze flicked to him, just for a second. His expression hadn’t changed. But his eyes were sharper now. He already knew what he was going to do. He just wasn’t saying it yet.
“Then what are we doing?” Rawlings demanded.
Silence stretched.
Then—Char turned her head.
Slowly.
Calculatingly.
Until her gaze landed on me.
I felt it before I fully registered it, the way the energy in the room shifted, subtle but unmistakable, as if something had been redirected without warning and was now bearing down on me instead. The weight pressed in from every angle, expectation tightening the air, drawing every line of attention to where I sat.
My stomach dropped. A full, disorienting plummet. Thesame feeling of a missed a step in the dark and there was nothing solid beneath.
“Let’s see what you can do with him,” she sneered coolly, leaning back in her chair.
The words were almost casual. Almost. But there was something underneath them, something sharper, something deliberate enough that it didn’t feel like an opportunity so much as a setup.
A challenge I hadn’t agreed to but was already standing inside.
For a split second, everything in me stalled. Not visibly. Not in a way anyone in the room would catch. But inside, my thoughts scattered fast and uneven, trying to assemble something usable out of information I didn’t have, trying to bridge a gap I hadn’t known existed until it was already too wide to cross cleanly.