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“I myself have three older sisters. They are the only reason why I have a functioning brain, and I just very happily gave two of them their own professional teams. I also have four nieces who I’d happily burn the world down for if they asked me to. Why do we assume the men and women who already pay for tickets and jerseys and keep this league going don’t? Why do we assume that marketing to women, that fostering a safe space for them to join fandoms is going to cost us?

“I’d fucking love it if my nieces wanted to come to every single Demons home game with me. I’d die on the spot and with a smile on my face if they learned what goalie interference means. Making it clear that every single person in this league respects women will only increase our bottom lines. At least if we don’t do it only as a performance.”

I let that sink in, then change the slide of the presentation.

“Here are some examples I’ve brought to back it up.”

I come home with a spring in my step and with Wes grumbling behind me.

He’s sick of my good mood but there’s absolutely nothing in the world that could put a hitch in my stride.

I fucking owned those bastards, and a third of them voted yes to all my proposed changes to league rules and regulations as soon as I finished my presentation.

The other twenty-one took some cajoling.

It’s weird as fuck that they only need a relative majority to choose the chairperson, but unanimous votes for leage regulations. But at the end of the day, I got it done.

The rules about players not being allowed to play or for their jerseys to be for sale while they’re in any type of litigation—or if they settle out of court—was the biggest point of contention of course.

Their macho views came through loud and clear until I pointed out that if someone, for whatever imaginary twisted reason, were to falsely accuse a player of something for the money they expect to win in a settlement, then the fact that players would lose more by settling, kind of defeats the purpose of the whole scheme, doesn’t it?

If they’re guilty, then good fucking riddance, we don’t want that kind of people in our league, but if they’re not, then they should be happy knowing the truth will come out in court.

It was a great fucking day and now we just have to wait for the player association to accept it—which they really should because of course there are upsides to all of this. I proposed players all get a small percentage of their jersey sales, for perpetuity, and that they can leave their percentage for their children to inherit.

The way I see it, the players deserve to get fair compensation for their hard work, but that doesn’t mean they should get a free pass on being shitty humans just because they’re talented strong men with fat bank accounts.

Then the commissioner will have to sign on the dotted line—and not make a fuss about it if he doesn’t want a spanking from our new chairwoman—and I’ll be able to rest easy knowing I made at least one positive change to the game I love more than most things.

I’m fucking pumped about the draft now, about walking into that war room with Sarah tomorrow afternoon and putting all our plans to good use.

The news of the changes we voted on today won’t come out until everybody reaches an agreement, and I’m sure the players association will want to debate and negotiate some things, but I believe it’s gonna get done in time for preseason training.

For today, I want to hear all about Sunny’s interview and maybe tell him a bit about the meeting, so I head right up to look for him in his room, hoping he’s back already though he hasn’t texted.

I find him, but my smile dies a slow, painful death as I watch him pacing from one side of the room to the other. He startles when he sees me on his next turn, and the red around his eyes springs me forward.

“Hey, hey, hey.” I hurry into the room without asking because I need to hold him. I need to know. “What happened? The interview—I’m sure it was great, Sunny,” I murmur, wrapping my arms around him.

He comes willingly and buries his face in my chest. When I feel his chest and shoulders shake with a sob, my worry becomes almost too much.

“The interview was fine,” he says, voice high pitched and so full of fear, my mind starts to conjure up a million horrible scenarios. “It was, I held it together.”

“Of course you did more than fine,” I whisper. But why did he have to hold it together? What the fuck—“What is it then?” I decide to ask already.

Sunny stays quiet for so long, I think he’s not going to tell me, but then he turns in my arms and grabs his phone from the foot of the bed.

He hands it to me with the list of messages on the screen.

There are a lot of unknown numbers . . . too many, I realize, as I scroll down and down and down. At least a dozen.

I open the oldest one and my blood starts to boil instantly.

The first chat is only two lines, so I go back and read the next. And the next. And the next. And when I get to the one from this morning, when I see the picture, I’m ready to start that world-burning-down thing I was talking about before.

I take out my phone and call Johnny. Priority number one is the boys’ safety.

“Hey boss, how was the meeting?”