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CHAPTER 32 — THE FOUR O'CLOCK MEETING

Penulis: U.C
last update Tanggal publikasi: 2026-09-18 14:37:52

The media suite was empty when I arrived, and for that I was grateful.

I had spent the rest of the morning moving through the motions of my job without really being present. A content review with the junior team. A call with the sponsor about the derby package. A brief conversation with Sarah that lasted exactly ninety seconds and ended with both of us pretending nothing had changed. She looked at me differently now. Not with guilt exactly, but with something careful. Something that knew the gr
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  • Until the Final Whistle   CHAPTER 42 — THE OFFICE ON THE EXECUTIVE FLOOR

    UNTIL THE FINAL WHISTLE---EVELYN---The executive floor was silent when we stepped out of the lift.It was after seven o'clock now. Most of the staff had gone home hours ago, and the lights had been dimmed to the low amber glow they used overnight. The corridor stretched ahead of us, lined with the same glass offices and framed photographs I had walked past a hundred times since my return, and somewhere at the end of it was the door with Victor Hale's name on it.Kovac walked ahead, his footsteps quiet on the carpet, his head turning slowly from side to side. He had the gait of a man who had spent his whole career watching for the ball and was now using the same instincts to watch for something else. Luca stayed at my side, close enough that his shoulder brushed mine every few steps, and I could feel the tension coming off him in waves.We reached the third door down from my father's suite and stopped.

  • Until the Final Whistle   CHAPTER 41 — BEFORE WE GO

    UNTIL THE FINAL WHISTLE---EVELYN---Kovac left first.He took the stairs rather than the lift, saying something about needing to change out of his training kit before anyone saw him leaving the building with us. It was a thin excuse and all three of us knew it. He was giving us space. He had been doing it since the moment he sat down at my desk, reading the room the way he always did, and I made a mental note to thank him later for something I couldn't quite name.The media room fell quiet once his footsteps faded down the corridor. Luca was still sitting on the edge of my desk, and I was still in my chair, and between us sat the folded piece of paper with the name that had been haunting me for five years. Neither of us reached for it. Neither of us spoke for a long moment.Then Luca shifted, and his knee brushed mine again, and this time neither of us moved away."Can I ask you something?" he said

  • Until the Final Whistle   CHAPTER 40 — THE NAME IN HER HANDS

    UNTIL THE FINAL WHISTLE---EVELYN---We didn't leave the training ground right away.Luca guided me to the media room because it was the nearest door and it locked from the inside, and I sat down in the chair behind my own desk and stared at the piece of paper in my hands until the words started to swim.Victor Hale.I said it in my head a dozen times, trying to make it fit into the empty space where a face should have been. Nothing came. No image. No voice. No smell. Just a name, and the knowledge that it belonged to a man who was still walking around this city, still working for the same people who had spent the last month trying to destroy us."Say something," Luca said quietly from the doorway."I don't know what to say.""Then start with what you're feeling."I looked up at him. He was leaning against the frame with his arms crossed, but his shoulders were tight, and there was a carefulness in his expression that I hadn't seen since the earliest days after my return. He was wai

  • Until the Final Whistle   CHAPTER 39 — THE MEETING AT THE TRAINING GROUND

    UNTIL THE FINAL WHISTLE---EVELYN---We arrived at the training ground at ten minutes to three, and the place was almost empty.The news had done its work. The car park held only a handful of vehicles. The security guards at the gate looked tense and distracted, checking our IDs twice before letting us through. The press that had been camped outside for most of the morning had thinned to a small huddle of photographers at the far end of the access road, too far away to bother anyone inside.Luca parked in the corner of the car park, away from the cameras, and killed the engine. Neither of us moved for a moment. Through the windscreen I could see the pitch, green and empty under the grey sky, and beyond it the low brick building that housed the changing rooms and the media suite and everything else that had become part of my life over the last few weeks."Where does he want to meet you?" Luca asked."He just said the training ground.""That's not helpful.""I know."We got out of the

  • Until the Final Whistle   CHAPTER 38 — THE RETURN

    UNTIL THE FINAL WHISTLE---EVELYN---The story broke at six o'clock on Friday morning, and by seven the whole city knew.I was still in bed when my phone started buzzing on the nightstand, a low insistent hum that pulled me out of a dream I couldn't remember. Luca was already awake beside me, propped against the headboard with his own phone in his hand, and the expression on his face told me everything I needed to know before he said a single word."It's out," he said quietly. "Front page. Everywhere."I sat up and reached for my phone. The Telegraph. A photograph of Alistair Kane above the fold, silver-haired and silver-suited, his name in letters large enough to read from across the room. The headline was four words long and devastating. The Man Who Owns Football. Beneath it, the recording I had made two nights ago was quoted in full, along with Webb's evidence, the shell companies, the fixed fixtures, the journalist who had been dealt with. It was all there. Every piece we had sp

  • Until the Final Whistle   CHAPTER 37 — THE WALK OUT

    UNTIL THE FINAL WHISTLE---EVELYN---I didn't turn around.That was the only thought in my head as I stood there with my hand on the trolley and my heart slamming against my ribs. Don't turn around. Don't react. Don't give him the satisfaction.The room had gone completely silent. Eleven men watching me. One man smiling. The recording device inside my collar was still running, and every second I stayed in this room was a second of evidence, but it was also a second closer to being caught."Of course, sir," I said, keeping my voice low and flat the way a catering worker would speak to a man like Alistair Kane. "Is there anything else?""No," Kane said. "You may go."I pushed the trolley through the door and closed it behind me with a soft click, and the moment the latch caught I let out a breath I hadn't realised I had been holding. My legs felt weak. My hands were steady only because I refused to let them shake. The corridor stretched in front of me, dim and narrow, and somewhere be

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