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So here I am. Thursday afternoon. Sitting in Mitchell Knight's enormous library with my laptop closed on the table beside me because showing up to book club with a recorder running seems like an excellent way to get murdered.
Metaphorically.
Probably.
Truth is I'm nervous as hell. Which is ridiculous.
I've interviewed senators. CEOs. Multiple professional athletes. Men with armed security standing three feet away.
I've asked powerful people questions they very much did not want to answer. But the Rovers’ wives?
From everything I’ve gathered about them, these women are a fucking force.
Of course, I did my research.
And I know what happened with Ellie Vance.
Everybody in sports journalism knows some version of what happened.
I've only met the woman once.
Once was enough.
She took one look at me, assessed me as another woman in sports media, and promptly dismissed me as no competition.
Fine by me.
I don't need Ellie Vance to consider me competition.
Professionally speaking, though?
The woman's morals are questionable at best.
And there is no doubt in my mind that Vance crossed lines with Daniela McNally.
Big ones.
She went after Dani personally. Turned what was supposed to be an interview into an ambush. Body-shamed her. Attacked her relationship with Tank Jackson.
She even insinuated that a grown woman had somehow manipulated a professional athlete into loving her and tried to manufacture a scandal where there wasn't one.
That's not investigative journalism.
That's deciding what story you want before you ever sit down with your subject, then twisting the interview until you get something resembling the narrative you came for.
I fucking hate that.
Facts first. Always.
When you do this kind of work, you’re supposed to follow them wherever they lead, even when they lead somewhere you didn't expect. Especially then.
That's the job. And Ellie didn't do that.
She wanted blood. But when Dani wouldn't bleed willingly, Ellie cut her open herself.
Then Tank stepped in.
Then Mitchell stepped in.
