Pucking the Beckett Brothers

Chapter 3 Rhett Beckett

SIENNA’S POV

I don’t move.

I don’t breathe.

I stand with my ear pressed against the door and I listen.

Three more knocks. Sharp. The kind that mean I am not leaving this hallway.

A pause. Then the sound of a door unlocking.

“What the hell—” Reid’s voice. Rough with sleep. “Do you have any idea what time it is?”

“Six fourteen.” The other voice doesn’t apologize. “We need to talk.”

“This could have waited until—”

“It couldn’t.”

A pause.

“Come in,” Reid says.

The door closes.

I let out a slow breath.

I’m still in yesterday’s clothes. My mouth tastes like whiskey and bad decisions. Three missed calls from Damon and one text from my mother that just says *think carefully.*

I ignore all of them.

I press my ear back against the door.

Voices but not words. The walls are too thick.

I pull back.

Whoever just knocked knows something happened last night. They said *what happened last night.* That means news traveled. That means Reid is already managing something. That means my window is closing faster than I thought.

My meeting is at ten.

It is six fourteen.

I grab my bag, splash cold water on my face, look at myself in the mirror for exactly three seconds and look away. I check the screenshot. Reid’s face over Rhett Beckett’s shoulder. Still there.

I open the door.

The hallway is empty. Reid’s door is closed.

I take the elevator down.

The lobby has more people than last night. Business travelers. A woman in gym clothes. Two men in suits by the coffee station.

I am almost at the exit when someone steps into my path.

Not on purpose. He is looking at his phone and we nearly collide and he looks up.

Dark grey suit. Expensive. Not a single wrinkle at six in the morning.

I know that face. I spent an hour last night reading articles with that face in them.

Rhett Beckett looks at me the way someone looks at a door they didn’t expect to be standing in front of. Not rude. Not warm. Just assessing.

“Sorry,” he says. Moves to step around me.

“You were just on the sixth floor,” I say.

He stops.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says.

“Room 614. Harlan Reid’s room. You knocked at six fourteen and told him you needed to talk about what happened last night.”

Something moves behind his eyes. Just a flicker.

“You were listening,” he says.

“My room is across the hall.”

He looks at me for a long moment. Running calculations behind a completely neutral face.

“What’s your name?” he asks.

“Sienna Calvert.”

Nothing registers. Which means Damon didn’t call him. Or if he did, he didn’t use my name.

“What is it you think you heard?” he asks.

“I didn’t think anything.” I pull up the screenshot and hold my phone out. “I have a meeting at ten with the league media office. I called them last night and told them I have information about a conduct violation involving a coach and a player on your franchise.”

He looks at the screen. Back at me.

He doesn’t react. Which is somehow more unsettling than if he had.

“That’s a serious claim,” he says.

“I know. I walked in on your head coach in a hotel room with one of his players last night. Together. In a way that violates about four different league conduct policies.” I put my phone back in my bag. “The player is Damon Price. His contract renewal is in three weeks.”

Rhett Beckett goes very still.

Not tense. Not alarmed. The stillness of a controlled man encountering something that wasn’t in his plan for the day.

“How do you know Damon Price?” he asks.

“I was his girlfriend. Two years. I paid for his career. I was the cover story he used while he was sleeping with his coach.”

The lobby moves around us. Unbothered. Unknowing.

“You have evidence?” he asks.

“I have what I saw. I have this photo. And I have two years of financial records showing every payment I made on his behalf.”

“Financial records aren’t evidence of a conduct violation.”

“No. But they establish a pattern. And when I sit down with the league office at ten and tell them what I saw, they’ll investigate. And when they investigate, they’ll find everything else.” I pause. “Unless someone deals with it before ten.”

Something shifts in his expression. So small I almost miss it.

“You’re giving me a window,” he says.

“I’m telling you what my morning looks like.”

“That’s the same thing.”

I don’t answer.

He takes his phone out, looks at the screen, puts it back. “Have breakfast. The restaurant opens at seven. Put it on room 604.” He moves past me toward the elevator. “Don’t go anywhere until I come back.”

“I have a meeting at—”

“I know when your meeting is.” He doesn’t stop walking. “Have breakfast, Sienna.”

The elevator doors close behind him.

I stand there.

I look at the restaurant. Then at the elevator.

My stomach growls.

I go to the restaurant.

I order eggs and toast and coffee and I sit in a corner booth and I try to look like a normal person having a normal morning.

I am on my second cup when he comes back.

He is not alone.

I don’t need to check my phone. I spent an hour studying these faces last night and even if I hadn’t, the three of them together would be unmistakable. Same height. Same jaw. Same way of moving that takes up space without trying.

Cole Beckett sits down across from me.

Blake Beckett sits down next to his brother, looks at my plate, and picks up a piece of my toast.

“Hey—”

“You weren’t eating it.” He takes a bite. “Rhett says you have a problem.”

“I have information,” I say.

“He says you’re Damon Price’s girlfriend.”

“Ex-girlfriend. As of last night.”

“Right.” He leans back. Studies me with the easy confidence of a man who has never once doubted whether he is welcome somewhere. “And instead of going home and crying about it you called the league media office.”

“Yes.”

He looks at his brothers. Something passes between the three of them. Not words. Just a look.

Cole hasn’t said anything yet. Arms crossed, jaw tight, the energy of a man who has already decided something and is waiting for the right moment to say it.

“Here’s the situation,” Rhett says, sitting down beside Blake. All three of them on one side of the table, me on the other. “Reid is our head coach. We acquired this franchise eight days ago. A conduct violation going public in the first two weeks of our ownership reflects on us. Not just on him.”

“That’s not my problem,” I say.

“No. It’s ours. Which is why we’re sitting here.” He folds his hands on the table. “What’s it going to take for you to cancel that meeting?”

“I’m not canceling the meeting.”

Cole leans forward. “We can compensate you—”

“I don’t want money.”

That stops him.

Blake raises an eyebrow. “Everyone wants money.”

“I want Damon’s contract canceled,” I say. “And I want Reid removed as head coach. Not reassigned. Not quietly moved somewhere else. Removed. Done before ten so that when I walk in there I can tell them the violation was already addressed internally.”

The three of them look at me.

I pick up my coffee.

“You’re asking us to fire our head coach,” Rhett says slowly. “Eight days into our ownership. Based on your word.”

“Based on what you’re going to find when you investigate. Which you will. Because you’re not stupid and you already knew something was wrong with Reid or you wouldn’t have been outside his door at six in the morning.”

Nobody denies that.

“Damon’s contract,” Cole says. “You want it cancelled. That means he doesn’t play.”

“That means he faces consequences. Which is what happens when you use someone for two years and think you’re untouchable because your coach is protecting you.”

Blake is watching me with an expression I can’t read. Not hostile. Not warm. Something closer to curious.

“You’re not what I expected,” he says.

“You didn’t expect anything. You didn’t know I existed until twenty minutes ago.”

He smiles. Just slightly. “Fair.”

Rhett leans forward. “If we do what you’re asking, what guarantees do we have that you don’t go to that meeting anyway? That this doesn’t end up on the front page of every sports outlet by noon?”

“None,” I say. “You have my word and that’s it.”

“Your word,” Cole repeats.

“Yes.”

“We don’t know you.”

“I don’t want a story. I don’t want money. I don’t want attention. I want the two people who used me to face what they did. The moment that happens, I have nothing left to say to anyone.”

The table goes quiet.

Rhett looks at his brothers. Cole looks at the table. Blake looks at me.

“Give us an hour,” Rhett says.

“You have until nine thirty,” I say. “Then I’m going to that meeting.”

He nods once. The three of them stand up. Blake takes the other piece of toast on his way out.

I watch them leave and I sit back and I breathe for the first time since six this morning.

Then my phone buzzes.

A news alert.

*BREAKING: Damon Price spotted leaving luxury hotel at 6am with Coach Harlan Reid. Photos emerging. Sources claim relationship may be more than professional.*

I go completely still.

Someone already leaked.

Which means the Beckett brothers don’t have until nine thirty.

They have right now.

I grab my phone and I go find them.