Page 68 of Forever Defiant
I slid down the wall, until my butt hit the floor, my pen poised over my notebook. “Like what?”
She glanced at Dustin again.
“You can’t tell anyone it was us,” he said flatly.
I didn’t miss the shift. The joking, the irritation — all gone.
“Not because it makes us look bad,” he continued. “But because once this moves, it doesn’t stop.”
He finally looked at me. Really looked.
“This program doesn’t absorb damage,” he said. “It seems to redirect it.”
My grip tightened on my pen.
“If you don’t let this go,” he went on, “it doesn’t just come back on football. It comes back on every athlete tied to the department. Wrestling. Lacrosse. Basketball. All of it.”
Savannah didn’t argue. That scared me more than if she had.
“What did you find?” I asked quietly.
Chapter 17
Hadley
Dustin watched me for a moment before he spoke.
“They’re covering up injuries, and they’re paying students to keep their mouths shut.” He adjusted Milly in his arms and shifted on the bed, clearly uncomfortable.
“Do you have proof?”
“Not exactly.”
I nodded, my brain turning over everything at a rate of a hundred miles an hour. “Dante fighting in bar parking lots?” I guessed.
“He can be impulsive,” Savannah murmured.
“Is your dad behind this?” I asked her directly.
She shook her head. “It’s our understanding at this time that this is a scheme controlled by the athletic department.”
“You expect me to believe the dean of the university doesn’t know?” I asked her skeptically.
“As I said, we understand this to be limited to the athletic department.”
I held her cool stare. Wow. Talk about how to say mind your own business without saying mind your own business.
“What have you found?” Dustin asked, breaking the stare off.
I got up and reached into my backpack. I placed the sheet of paper in front of Savannah, and Dustin set Milly aside as he leaned forward. She mewed in protest, and he absently scratched her ears.
“What is this?” Savannah asked.
“A redacted piece about Mason Sterling that was pulled from print.”
“Why?” Dustin asked, squinting at it. “What did it say?”
“Mason Sterling was accused of sexual assault. And instead of investigating it properly—”
