Chapter 5

The Boardroom Panic

Karol Kensingston POV

The boardroom on the fiftieth floor of the Kensington Institute was always freezing at sixty-four degrees. My mother swore it kept the executives sharp. Sitting at the end of the long glass table today, it felt like a morgue.

My knees are still pounding with a strong and steady pain, swelling, and a bruised purple knee from where I'd hit the turf twelve hours ago. I hadn't slept, and I hadn't even washed off the smell of dirt; the ghost of Ciro's blood is still stuck to my skin.

On the giant screen behind us, sports channels looped the disaster over and over. The brutal tackle. Ciro hitting the dirt. And then, the ultimate corporate sin: me, wearing the Kensington crest, sprinting across the grass to touch our biggest rival's star player, the heir of our greatest rival.

Esperanza Kensington stood at the head of the table. She wore a sharp white blazer, her silver hair pulled back so tight it looked painful. She didn't scream. My mother never raised her voice. She didn't have to.

"Sixteen million dollars," Esperanza said. Her voice was a low, terrifyingly calm murmur that commanded absolute silence from the twelve board members in the room. She hit a remote, freezing the video right on my hands clamped over Ciro's ruined knee. "That's the price of our public relations disaster since midnight. Shareholders are panicking. The media calls us sympathizers. 

And why?"

She slowly turned her hazel eyes down the table, pinning me to my chair.

"Because my Chief of Sports Therapist decided to play nursemaid, a Florence Nightingale, to a man whose sole purpose in this league is to bankrupt us."

I kept my spine straight, refusing to shrink under her stare. "It was a medical emergency, Mother. The rival medics were across the far side of the pitch. He was bleeding internally. The pressure in the joint capsule …"

"I don't give a damn about his joint capsule, Karol!" She slammed her palm against the glass table, making two executives flinch. "He's the enemy. The protocol says we let them break; we do not touch them. We let their own people handle their liabilities. You crossed a boundary line in front of eighty thousand people and millions of viewers at home. You made us look weak and desperate."

I swallowed hard, my mind flashing to the locker room. The blistered Kevlar strap, the chemical burn of the Kensington synthetic polymer.

"We didn't just look weak; I wanted to shout. Someone in this building tried to cripple him." 

But I kept my mouth shut. My jaw ached from how hard I was clenching my teeth. The League officials have the gear now; I had zero proof. If I threw an accusation about attempted murder without evidence, Esperanza wouldn't just fire me; she'd institutionalize me to save the brand.

"She wasn't thinking, Mother."

I looked right. Valeria sat there with her hands delicately folded in her lap, wearing a soft cream cashmere sweater that made her look like an innocent angel. Her big brown eyes looked genuinely worried.

"Karol was just overwhelmed," Valeria continued, offering me a sad, sisterly smile that made my stomach churn. She looked at the board. "We all know how high-strung she gets during the Derbys’. She saw a man in pain, and her emotions overrode her clinical training. It was reckless, yes, but just a silly emotional mistake. We shouldn't punish her for having a soft heart."

I dug my nails into my palms. Valeria was a genius at this. To the board, she sounded like a loving sister trying to save me. But I knew exactly what she was doing. By framing my actions as "emotional" and "high-strung," she was deliberately stripping away my professional authority. She was painting me as an unstable liability in a room full of men who only trusted cold, hard logic.

"A soft heart doesn't run a sports science empire, Valeria," Esperanza sighed, rubbing her temples. "Her emotions just handed the Restrepos a loaded gun aimed at our public image."

"I did my job," I said, my voice dropping flat and cold. I stared right at my mother.

If I hadn't stabilized his knee when I did, the bone fragments would have severed his popliteal artery. He would have lost the leg on the field.

You want to talk about PR? How do you explain to the world that a Kensington doctor watched a man bleed out on national television and did absolutely nothing?"

The room went dead silent. Even Esperanza hesitated, weighing the truth of it.

Before she could answer, the heavy oak doors of the boardroom clicked open.

Our executive assistant walked in. Usually a cool, robotic professional, but he looked like a ghost. His hands shivered as he clutched a thick black leather folder with a gold crest stamped into it.

The Restrepo family crest.

"Excuse me, Madam CEO," he stammered. "A courier just arrived by private helicopter. He bypassed lobby security and came straight to this executive floor."

Esperanza stood up, adjusting her blazer. "I'm in a board meeting. Hand whatever legal nonsense they are attempting to the legal department."

"They wouldn't take it, ma'am," he swallowed hard, placing the folder right on the glass table in front of her. "The courier had armed security. He said if this wasn't in your hands in three minutes, they'd file it with the Supreme Court."

A heavy dread dropped into my stomach.

Esperanza glared at the folder like it was a bomb. She opened it, pulled out a thick stack of papers, and started reading.

Then, the impossible happened.

Esperanza Kensington, the woman with good control over everything, started to tremble. All the color drained from her face. She turned the page, her breathing turning shallow.

"Mother?" Valeria asked, her sweet voice faltering. "What is it?"

Esperanza didn't answer. The paper was shaking in her hands. She looked up, her eyes bypassing the board, bypassing Valeria, and locking entirely onto me. There was no anger left in her stare. Just pure terror.

"They have our stadium footage," Esperanza whispered, her voice hollow. "Alternative camera angles of the tackle."

My heart stopped.

"And?" a board member barked, standing up. "It was a rough tackle. That's football. They can't prove intent."

"They don't have to," my mother breathed, letting the papers drop. "Ciro Restrepo's lawyers just hit us with a blind corporate injunction. Gross medical negligence and targeted physical sabotage. They're suing for one point five billion dollars."

The room exploded. Men shouted. Valeria gasped and covered her mouth. A billion-and-a-half would wipe out the Kensington empire completely.

"Quiet!" Esperanza roared, slamming her fist on the table. She kept her eyes locked on me. "There's a settlement clause. They'll drop the lawsuit. They'll seal the footage and bury the sabotage claims entirely. But only under one condition."

I felt the blood drain from my face. The phantom heat of Ciro's grip burned around my wrist again.

"Only you," he'd said in the mud.

"What condition?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper.

Esperanza pushed the black folder across the table until it stopped right in front of me.

"They want you, Karol," she said, defeat heavy on her tongue. "The Restrepos are buying out your contract. You leave tonight to rehabilitate Ciro’s knee on his private island. And if he doesn't walk back onto the pitch... they take everything.”