LOGINSIENNA ~I watched him leave.Then I slammed the door hard enough to make the sample protocols jump on the counter. My hands were shaking and I did not even notice until I tried to lock it and missed the bolt twice.I had asked for distance.I had asked for professionalism, yes.I had not asked for that voice. I had not asked for my name to come out of his mouth like a memo. I had not asked him to stand in my office and make it sound like I had never mattered past a shake window.Distance was one thing.But that had sounded like hate.“Are you alright?”Cole’s voice snapped me out of it.I nodded because my throat was not ready for the true answer. I set my bag on the chair and pressed both palms to the desk until the shaking looked like posture instead of fallout.Cole stayed by the extra chair and watched me the way he used to watch me after exams, like he already knew I was about to say I was fine and he was not going to buy it.“About Kai,” he said. “I think somebody soured his mo
SIENNA ~His face changed.Then it reset, fast, like he had reached for a switch and found it.Whatever had been there when he first saw the box was gone by the time he looked past me. He did not look at me. He looked at Cole like I was part of the doorway.“I’m back,” he said. “I went by your office first. You weren’t there, so I came here.”He was already turning to leave.Cole did not let him.“Come in for a minute,” Cole said. “Shut the door.”Kai paused. His jaw ticked once. Then he stepped past me without his shoulder touching mine, walked into my office like it was just another room in the building, and closed the door behind him.I stayed where I was because moving would have looked like I needed space from him, and I was not going to give him that satisfaction. Cole picked up a printed sheet from the counter, the one Paige’s box had come with, and held it out.Kai took it.He frowned at the header. “What is this?”“Updated fueling contact sheet,” Cole said. “New point person
SIENNA ~Nobody in my office moved.I looked at Cole. “Say that again,”Cole shut the door behind him with his foot. He did not look at the strangers first. He looked at me, and I hated that I could already tell he had fought this and lost.“Front office brought in another nutritionist,” he said. “Her name is Paige Whitaker. She starts today. They want her shadowing you this week, and then they want the player-facing side moved to her.”The woman with the tablet set it down too carefully and held out her hand.“Paige,” she said. “I know this is abrupt. I was told you would be expecting me.”“I was not.” I did not take her hand yet. “I left for two hours. I came back to people in my office and a new hire touching my schedule. Somebody needs to explain what changed.”The woman from upstairs stepped in before Cole could. I recognized her now. Operations. The one who sent calendar holds with no subject line.“This is not a termination,” she said. “Your role is still in Nutrition. We are a
SIENNA ~ “Yes,” I replied. “It is because of your brother.” Maya’s face changed so fast it almost looked like someone had put a hand around her throat. The fight drained out of her. What replaced the expression on her face right now was worse. I swallowed hard and kept going before that look could turn into a question I could not answer. “Grant has been manipulating the cameras and taking weird photos of us at the facility,” I said. “He has been stalking I guess and cooking up stories because that is what he does when he needs leverage. I do not know why he had to invent something like that, or to want people to believe there is something going on between me and a twenty-two-year-old rookie. There is not. He wants a headline. That is all this is.” Maya’s face eased. Not all the way but enough. She let out a long breath and shook her head, one hand still on her hip, the other pushing hair off her forehead like she could physically reset the last two minutes. “I have always known
SIENNA ~Maya moved before Grant could slide the phone another inch.She snatched it off the table so fast the couple behind us stopped talking. Then she stood, turned, and hurled it across the floor. The crack was loud and ugly. Glass jumped. The screen died in a spiderweb of black and the whole shop flinched at once.I just sat there with my mouth open.“Damn it,” I whispered, more to myself than to her. I knew Maya’s anger. I had lived through it in parking lots and group chats and one very public grocery-store fight our junior year. I had not known she would do this. Not here. Not with a sports agent ex-husband.“You bastard.” Maya’s voice went sharp enough to cut. She lunged half a step and I grabbed her wrist with both hands, standing so fast my chair screamed against the floor.“Maya. Stop.”She did not look at me. She looked at him, shaking, the polite client-voice long gone.“How dare you threaten her after everything,” she said, each word landing hard. “I do not care about y
SIENNA ~Maya put the taser in my palm before she even took the car out of park.It was small and black and heavier than it looked, the kind of thing you bought after a late-night true-crime spiral and then prayed you never had to explain to a barista. She closed my fingers around it and held on for a second longer than she needed to.“It goes in the inside pocket,” she said. “Not the bottom of the bag where you will spend four minutes digging like this is a normal custody chat. I did not drag you out of that marriage just to watch you sit pretty while he practices his concerned-ex voice.”I slid it into the inside pocket of my bag and tried to laugh. It came out thin. “You make it sound like we are walking into a deposition.”“We are walking into a coffee shop with a man who used to smile at waiters while he took your card out of your wallet.” Maya pulled into traffic and kept her eyes on the road. “Same energy. Different lighting.”The location my ex had chosen was the coffee shop o







