THE LAST HONEST TRY
Read Chapter 16: The Dressing Room Vote
Rugby dressing rooms know many forms of violence. The loudest is not always the worst.
Baptiste shoved Lucas into a locker. Rémi, still suspended, stepped between them and got shoved too. Two forwards shouted that Lucas should never wear the jersey again. Mathieu Cazals sat crying without making a sound.
Yannis punched the wall.
Marc let the first thirty seconds happen.
Then he climbed onto a bench and roared.
“Enough!”
Something in the old professional voice returned. The room stopped.
“If anyone hits anyone else, he leaves with Lucas.”
Baptiste pointed. “Why is he still here?”
“Because he told you.”
“After two years!”
“Yes.”
“He cheated us.”
“Yes.”
“You knew?”
Marc did not dodge.
“Since September.”
The anger shifted toward him.
Yannis stared. “You knew?”
“I knew part.”
“And you kept playing him.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I believed getting evidence and protecting his family mattered.”
“More than us?”
“No.”
“Looks like it.”
Marc felt the blow because it was deserved.
Jean spoke from the back. “I knew about the debt, not the fixing.”
“That supposed to help?” Baptiste said.
“No,” Jean replied. “It's supposed to be true.”
The room became quieter.
Marc stepped down.
“You have every right to be furious. At Lucas. At me. At Jean. But tonight we decide what happens next.”
“You decide,” someone said.
“No. Not this.”
Marc put three choices on the whiteboard.
ONE: Lucas leaves immediately. We report what we know.
TWO: Lucas remains separated from selection, cooperates with legal counsel and investigators, and the team supports the process.
THREE: We pretend none of this happened.
He crossed out the third option.
“That one is not available.”
A few bitter laughs.
They argued for nearly two hours.
Players told stories Marc had not known. One had been offered free bets by Maret's staff. Another had been asked for medical information. A youth coach had been given €300 for providing under-18 lineup details—not for fixing, but for information.
The rot was broader and, in some ways, smaller than Marc had imagined: a hundred ordinary boundary crossings that made the extraordinary ones possible.
Finally Yannis said, “Vote.”
“On what?” Baptiste asked.
“Whether Lucas stays with us while he cooperates. Not whether he's forgiven. That's different.”
Marc looked at him.
The boy at ten was becoming something else.
They voted anonymously on torn pieces of paper.
Fifteen for Lucas to remain with the squad but not play until authorities advised otherwise.
Seven against.
One blank.
Lucas stood near the showers as Jean counted.
“I don't deserve fifteen,” he said.
Baptiste replied, “Don't make us regret them.”
The next morning, Maître Lemaire arranged a meeting with investigators from the French sports integrity authorities and local judicial police.
Lucas agreed to attend.
Rémi did too.
Before they left for Toulouse, Lucas found Marc in the car park.
“You should have told them earlier.”
“I know.”
“You were protecting the club.”
“I told myself I was protecting you.”
“Same lie, maybe.”
Marc nodded.
Lucas looked toward the stadium.
“Do you think they'll suspend us?”
“Maybe.”
“Relegate us?”
“Maybe.”
“Then what was all this for?”
Marc looked at him.
“To make sure whatever happens next belongs to us.”
Lucas gave a faint smile.
“Coach answer.”
“I'm finally learning.”
The vote did not restore trust. It merely gave distrust rules.
At the next training session, Lucas dressed in a separate corner. Nobody told him to. Baptiste barely spoke to him. Yannis passed to him during drills but never made eye contact.
Marc designed contact work in mixed groups so nobody could quietly exclude him.
After twenty minutes, Baptiste tackled Lucas too high and too hard.
Whistle.
“Again,” Marc said.
Baptiste stared at him. “He was upright.”
“You were angry.”
“Maybe.”
“Anger is not tackle technique.”
Lucas reset without complaint.
On the next carry, Baptiste hit lower, wrapped, released.
“Good,” Marc said.
The simplicity of the correction steadied everyone.
At the end, Lucas approached Baptiste.
“Coffee?”
“No.”
“Tomorrow?”
“No.”
“Fine.”
Baptiste started away, then turned. “Maybe next week.”
Lucas nodded.
That was more than forgiveness theater would have achieved.
Yannis stayed after training.
“You let us vote because you didn't know what to do,” he said.
“Yes.”
“I thought coaches were supposed to know.”
“Bad coaches need everyone to believe that.”
“What are good coaches supposed to do?”
“Know which decisions belong to them.”
“And that one didn't?”
“Lucas wearing the jersey affects all of you in a way tactics don't.”
Yannis kicked a ball lightly along the ground.
“I still hate him a bit.”
“Probably healthy.”
“And I feel sorry for him.”
“Also healthy.”
“Those don't cancel?”
“No.”
Yannis nodded.
“Adults have terrible systems.”
“You'll improve them.”
“That's what your generation always says when it's tired.”
Marc laughed.
The next day, Lucas and Rémi went to Toulouse with Maître Lemaire. Before entering the building, Rémi vomited in a planter.
“Leadership suits you,” Lucas told him.
Rémi stared, then laughed despite everything.
They walked inside together.
For Marc, watching from the pavement, that mattered almost as much as the statements they were about to give.
Not because solidarity erased guilt.
Because facing guilt alone was exactly how people became easy to control.
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