From Rags to Riches: The Discarded Wife's Revenge

The Short List

Dominic

After the call from Marcus, I couldn't stop the millions of thoughts racing through my mind. It got so bad that sleep eluded me when night came. I tried to wrap my head around how Marcus had my personal number.

That alone meant three things. It's either he had access to someone inside my circle or he was confident enough to use it directly, which meant he didn't think there were consequences.

It was in the article, he'd said when I asked how he knew about the clinic before he corrected himself mid-sentence. A man who makes his living managing other people's words does not slip like that by accident. He slips when he's caught off guard which meant the clinic wasn't in his prepared notes, it was something he already knew.

I got up at five, earlier than usual, and made coffee I didn't plan to drink. I was already building the list in my head before the machine finished running.

Who knew Sienna worked at the clinic?

Dr. Okafor hired her. Her assistant arranged the original call to her. Both of them knew her as a physiotherapist before anything else. Neither of them had been in the room when the contract was signed, and the contract was the thing worth selling.

That left three people.

Nina. Rick. Ackerman.

Ackerman was my lawyer and for six years, there have been no issue of leaks, no exposure on anything that mattered. He had more to lose from betraying a client than he could ever gain from Marcus Hale. I moved him to the edge of the list.

Rick had been my agent for four years. He was pretty good at his job and also had relationships all over the league.

Nina had built the whole arrangement. She was the one who identified Sienna, drafted the terms, managed the rollout. If anyone had access to every moving part, it was her.

I didn't do anything with any of this. I just let it sit while I got ready for the day because the worst thing you can do with incomplete information is act on it.

Practice ran until noon. Afterward I had back-to-back meetings about equipment sponsors, foundation lawyers, a call with the league's PR office about the ongoing investigation into Vanessa's accusation. I kept one ear in every conversation and most of my attention on what I was about to do.

The test was simple. Three separate pieces of information, each slightly different, and each given to one person only.

I called Rick first.

"Change of plans on the Wednesday appearance," I said. "Nina's moving it to the High Line venue instead of the waterfront."

"The High Line? That's tighter space. Have you forgotten that it's hrder to control the crowd angle?"

"Her call," I continued. "Just wanted you to know before she sends the updated brief."

He made a note of it and we moved on.

Nina was next, but I didn't call. I stopped by her office on the way out of the building, which I almost never did.

"The foundation board is pushing for a press moment," I said. "Thinking about doing it at Chelsea Piers. Low-key, kids on the ice, nothing formal."

"Chelsea Piers works. When are you thinking?"

"Two weeks out. Nothing confirmed yet, I just wanted your read."

She gave me what I needed and I left.

Ackerman got a different detail entirely about a nameless journalist I told him had reached out privately asking for comment on the investigation. Then I waited.

Two days later Rick called me on the way out of morning skate.

"Got a weird one," he said. "That journalist you mentioned to Ackerman? Someone at Vanessa's management team was asking about her. Apparently she's been reaching out to their camp too."

I stopped walking.

"Who told you the journalist reached out to Ackerman?"

"You mentioned it." He didn't hesitate.

"No... I mentioned it to Ackerman, not you."

He stopped talking for a second. "Right, yeah. He must have told me on the call we had yesterday. The three of us were supposed to loop in and..."

"What call?"

"The..." He stopped. "The... The standard check-in."

"Rick." I kept my voice flat. "What call?"

The silence this time was different.

"It was a quick thing," he said finally. "Ackerman called us both in on a routine update. Must have mentioned it then."

"Ackerman doesn't do routine updates without scheduling them."

"Dominic..."

"I'll talk to you later."

I ended the call and stood in the corridor outside the locker room while the team filed past me in both directions, nobody paying particular attention to the fact that I was completely still.

Rick hadn't panicked. He'd redirected, which was worse.

I found Nina in a restaurant two blocks from the arena that evening, where she sometimes held informal client meetings at a corner table she preferred because it had a good view to both the door and the room.

I sat across from her and didn't order anything.

"I think someone's been talking," I said.

She didn't reach for her coffee or shift in her chair or do any of the things people do when they're buying time. She just looked at me. "About what specifically?"

"The arrangement."

"What makes you think that?"

"Something Marcus said when he called."

"You already told me about that call."

"I know. I've been thinking about it more since then."

She held eye contact in the particular way she did when she was assessing rather than reacting. It was a quality I'd always respected because it meant she didn't make noise unnecessarily.

"If someone is talking," she said, "the damage depends entirely on what they know and who they're talking to. Do you have anything specific or is this still instinct?"

"Instinct."

"Then until you have something specific, you don't confront anyone. You keep the circle tight, you don't change the arrangement in any visible way, and you let me handle the monitoring."

"You?" I raise a brow failing to hide my suspicions.

"Yes, me. That's my job."

"And if the leak is inside that circle?"

She held the look for a moment too long before she answered.

"Then we deal with it."

"Just keep me posted," I sighed and stood up.

"If course," she replied. Her eyes were already back on her phone before I'd finished pushing in the chair.

I drove back to the arena to pick up equipment I'd left and took the long route without meaning to. Maybe I needed the distraction because my mind wouldn't stay still.

Three names, one of them was definitely Marcus's source. Or maybe they were more than one.

Rick had flinched, not dramatically, or in a way anyone else would, once they have been caught. But I'd spent a decade reading opponents in real time and I knew what it looked like when someone was managing a story rather than telling one.

Nina hadn't flinched at all, which was either innocence or something better-practiced than Rick's redirection.

I didn't have enough yet. The test had given me a direction, not a verdict.

I pulled into the arena lot and cut the engine. Marcus thought he was several moves ahead, I hope he watches his back because I won't let this go. I can handle the media's outrage but I refuse to stand and let an innocent woman who has been wronged before get dragged.

Just then my phone buzzed.

"Just the person I was waiting for," I said to the phone. "What did you find?"