Read Chapter 10: The Taping

The call came through at 6:47 a.m., and Elena knew before she answered that the day was already ruined. Editors didn't call before seven with good news.

"Elena." Marcus Webb's voice was thick, like he'd been awake for hours, which meant he'd been working. That was worse. "I need you to listen to something."

She pressed the phone harder against her ear, sitting up in bed. The USB drive sat on her nightstand where she'd left it, Frank's evidence still unopened on her laptop. She'd spent half the night staring at it, trying to work out how to tell Jack that the money trail led to someone close to him without knowing who that someone was.

"What is it?"

"We've got a recording. Jack Hartley and Thomas Ashcroft, private conversation. Two days ago, in the owner's office."

Her blood went cold. "How did you—"

"Doesn't matter how. What matters is what's on it." She heard the click of a mouse, then a voice filled the line—Jack's voice, unmistakable, tight with barely controlled anger.

"...if Adam goes, I go. I don't care what it costs me. I'll tear up the contract myself."

A pause, then Ashcroft's smooth reply. "That would be a shame, Jack. After everything we've done for you."

"I mean it, Thomas. You sell him, you lose me. And you know what that does to this club."

The recording cut off. Elena's chest tightened.

"Where did you get this, Marcus?"

"Anonymous drop. Encrypted link, no trace. But it doesn't matter where it came from—it matters what it proves. The captain threatening to quit. The owner holding the club together while his star player holds him hostage. This is the story, Elena."

"No." She swung her legs out of bed, pacing the small flat. "This isn't a story. This is a setup."

"You don't know that."

"I know Jack. He wouldn't—"

"Wouldn't what? Say he'd quit if Adam was sold? You've been embedded with that club for two weeks, and you still think you know him? He's aggressive, he's proud, he's got a history of walking away from things when they don't go his way. This recording paints a very clear picture."

"It paints the picture someone wants painted." She stopped at the window, looked down at the street. The delivery van was still there, parked outside the training ground entrance, same spot as yesterday. Same spot as the day before. "Who sent it to you, Marcus? Think about it. Someone wants this out there. Someone wants Jack to look like the problem."

"Maybe the problem is that he is the problem."

"Marcus." She kept her voice level, even though her pulse was hammering. "You've been covering football for fifteen years. How many anonymous recordings have you received that turned out to be exactly what they seemed?"

Silence on the line. She pressed on.

"Someone is trying to discredit Jack Hartley. Someone is trying to make him look difficult, disloyal, destructive. And if you run this recording now, you're helping them do it."

"I'm a journalist, Elena. I don't sit on evidence because it might inconvenience someone."

"I'm not asking you to sit on it. I'm asking you to wait. Forty-eight hours. Give me time to verify where this came from, to check the context."

"Why would I do that?"

She closed her eyes. She had nothing to offer him except the truth, and she wasn't sure she could give him that yet.

"Because I have evidence—real evidence—that something bigger is going on at West London FC. Something that makes this recording look like exactly what it is: a distraction."

"What kind of evidence?"

"The kind I can't share yet. But I'm asking you to trust me. Just this once."

Marcus was quiet for a long moment. She could hear him thinking, weighing her words against the story already half-written in his head.

"Twenty-four hours," he said finally. "And I need something from you in return. Whatever you're working on, when it breaks, I get first look. If you're holding evidence that connects to this club, I want it before anyone else."

She couldn't agree to that. The USB drive in her pocket was Frank's lifeline; she had no right to promise it to anyone.

"I can't give you that."

"Then I'm running the recording at noon."

"Marcus—"

"You've got twenty-four hours from now. That's my offer. Take it or leave it."

The line went dead.

She stood there for a moment, phone still pressed to her ear, then lowered it and began dressing with quick, angry movements. Jeans, jumper, trainers. She grabbed her bag, checked the USB was still inside her wallet, and headed for the door.

Jack's training session didn't start until ten, but she knew where he'd be before that. The same place he was every morning when the club was in crisis: alone on the pitch, doing laps before anyone else arrived.

She found him at the edge of the training ground, pulling on his boots on a bench by the touchline. The delivery van was still parked beyond the fence, but she forced herself not to look at it.

"You're early," he said, not looking up.

"You're going to want to hear this."

She played the recording on her phone. Watched his face change as his own voice filled the morning air. When it finished, he was very still.

"Where did you get that?"

"My editor. Someone sent it to him anonymously."

"A setup."

"That's what I said. But my editor only gave me twenty-four hours to prove it before he runs it."

Jack stood, pacing the touchline. "That conversation was private. I was in Ashcroft's office two days ago, after the match. I told him I wouldn't stay if he sold Adam. I thought it was just the two of us."

"Was it?"

His jaw tightened. "You think I don't know what you're asking. You think I haven't considered that someone close to me might be feeding information out?"

"I'm not asking you to accuse anyone. I'm asking you to think. Who was in the building? Who knew you were meeting him?"

"Half the club knew. My agent. The coaching staff. Security. It was on the schedule."

"So it could have been anyone." She stepped closer. "But the person who sent this recording wanted it to look like you're the problem. Not Ashcroft. Not the financial situation. You."

"I know." He rubbed a hand over his face. "I know, Elena. I've known for a while that something was wrong. That people were watching me, waiting for me to crack."

"People like Dr. Okafor?"

He flinched. She pushed.

"You said she found tampered medical records. You said she was scared. What else did she tell you, Jack? What did she say about who might be behind it?"

He was quiet for a long moment. When he finally spoke, his voice was rough.

"She said it wasn't just the records. She said she'd found evidence that someone had been tracking her. Her phone, her car, her flat. She said she knew who it was, but she wouldn't tell me. She said it was safer if I didn't know."

"Safer for who?"

"For both of us." He met her eyes. "She told me that if anything happened to her, I should trust the journalist. That's why I agreed to work with you. She said you'd been through something similar. She said you'd understand."

Elena's hands went cold. Sarah Okafor had known about Manchester. Had known about the framing, the shadowy figure who'd dismantled her career. Which meant Sarah had been investigating more than just medical records. She'd been investigating the same people who'd come after Elena.

"Jack." She kept her voice steady. "Who was Sarah afraid of?"

"I don't know." He looked at her, and for the first time since she'd met him, he looked genuinely lost. "But she made me promise not to go to the police. She said they'd already tried to reach her that way. She said the only way to survive this was to stay quiet."

"Stay quiet about what?"

"About her. About what she found. About—" He stopped, something shifting behind his eyes. "About the name she found connected to it all. The name at the top of the money trail."

"You know the name."

"No. She wouldn't tell me." He shook his head. "But she said it was someone I trusted. Someone I'd never suspect. And that's all she would say."

Someone close to Jack. Someone he'd trusted enough to overlook. The same words Frank had used. The same warning that had been chasing her since Manchester.

Elena looked past Jack, past the training ground, to the delivery van parked beyond the fence. The engine was running now. It hadn't been running before.

"Jack," she said quietly. "We need to go somewhere private. Somewhere we can talk without being watched."

He followed her gaze to the van, and she saw understanding dawn on his face.

"There's a place I know," he said. "A friend's flat in Hammersmith. No cameras, no security. No one knows about it."

He grabbed his bag, and they walked out of the training ground through the far gate, past the fence, leaving the van and its watching driver behind them. Elena kept her hand on the USB drive in her pocket, Frank's evidence still unexamined, still waiting to tell them who was really pulling the strings.

She had twenty-four hours to find out before Marcus ran the recording and branded Jack Hartley a liability in the court of public opinion. Twenty-four hours to figure out who had been orchestrating everything—the leaks, the fraud, the missing doctor, the Manchester frame-up—before Jack became the fall guy for a conspiracy much bigger than either of them.

The van's engine had cut off. But she knew it would start again. It always did.