The Man I Ruined Is Now My Captain

The Press Circus

~Desmond~

I don’t make it to the parking lot before the rage blinds me.

My knee screams with every step but I keep moving, because stopping means thinking and thinking means remembering the look on her face when she read that message. The fear. The guilt. The same expression she wore five years ago in Madrid when the test results came back and she swore she didn’t know how it happened.

She’s lying. She has to be lying.

I burst through the side exit instead of the main doors because I know the press will be camped at the front. Austin texted me while I was still in the medical suite, twenty reporters minimum, cameras, the whole circus, and I don’t have the energy to face them. Not yet. Not with my knee throbbing and my head spinning and Julita’s voice still echoing in my ears.

Someone ruined my life. And I think they’re here.

What the hell does that mean?

I limp toward the training pitch, which is empty this early except for the groundskeepers. One of them looks up and nods and I nod back. I’ve known Noah for eight years, since I first signed with Titan FC as a seventeen-year-old kid who thought fame and money would fix everything wrong with me. Noah doesn’t ask questions, and that’s why I’ve always liked him.

I find a bench near the sideline and lower myself onto it, my knee throbbing in protest. I should elevate it, ice it, do all the things Julita told me to do before I walked out of that room like a coward.

Julita. I haven’t spoken her name out loud in five years, haven’t allowed myself to think about her in anything but the abstract: the physio who destroyed my career, the woman who betrayed my trust, the reason I lost everything. It was easier that way, easier to hate a concept than a person, easier to forget the way she used to hum while she worked, some songs I never recognized but always found myself humming later.

My phone rings and I pull it out.

Victor Urchman: My office. Now.

My uncle. The club owner. The only family I have left. I don’t reply. I just sit there on the bench staring at the empty pitch where I used to be a god. The grass is perfect, as always, the groundskeepers treating this field like sacred ground, and I used to feel that way too. I used to walk onto this pitch and feel like I was exactly where I belonged. Now I just feel like a fraud who’s been limping through a career that should have ended years ago.

Footsteps approach from behind me, too light to be Austin, too hesitant to be one of the coaching staff.

“I’m not in the mood,” I say without turning around.

“You never are.”

Cora Kendy walks around the bench and sits down beside me like she has every right to be here. She’s wearing a sharp grey suit and holding a phone in one hand, and her expression is the same one she always wore when we were together, half concern, half calculation. Cora is a journalist, one of the best in the country, and also my ex-girlfriend, which makes every conversation we have feel like walking through a minefield.

“How did you get past security?” I ask.

“I still have a press pass from the Champions League coverage last season. Nobody thought to revoke it.” She crosses her legs and looks at me with those sharp brown eyes that never miss anything. “You look terrible, Des.”

“Thanks.”

“I’m serious. When’s the last time you slept?”

“I don’t remember.”

She nods like this confirms something she already suspected. “I heard about the leak, the medical records. The Sun is running the story tomorrow, but my editor wants me to go deeper. Profile piece. The rise and fall and rise again of Desmond Urchman.”

“There is no rise again. There’s just a knee that won’t heal and a physio I can’t trust.”

“Julita Matthew.” Cora says the name carefully, like she’s tasting it. “I’ve been trying to get an interview with her for years and she’s refused every request, very protective of her privacy.”

“Maybe she has something to hide.”

“Maybe. Or maybe she’s just a woman who got dragged through the mud and decided she didn’t owe anyone explanations.” Cora pauses. “You know they never proved anything against her. The investigation cleared her of criminal charges.”

“The investigation was a joke. Someone paid someone off and the whole thing disappeared.”

“Or she was innocent.”

I turn to look at her. “Whose side are you on?”

“I’m not on anyone’s side. I’m a journalist and I follow the facts.” She holds my gaze. “And the facts are that someone tampered with your supplements in Madrid, spiked your blood work, destroyed your career and hers, and five years later nobody knows who or why. Doesn’t that bother you?”

“Every day.”

“Then maybe having her here isn’t the worst thing. Maybe she wants answers as badly as you do.”

I don’t respond, because I don’t know how to. Cora is saying things I’ve thought a thousand times in the dark hours of the morning when I can’t sleep and can’t stop replaying that night in Madrid, the confusion on Julita’s face when the test results came back, the way she kept saying I don’t understand, I checked everything, I don’t understand over and over until someone led her away. I wanted to believe her, and that’s the worst part. I wanted to believe her so badly that I convinced myself I couldn’t trust my own judgment anymore.

“Look,” Cora says, standing up. “I’m not here to reopen old wounds. I’m here because my editor wants a story, and I’d rather it come from you than from some tabloid vulture who’ll twist everything you say. Think about it.” She hands me a business card and I take it without looking at it. “I’m sorry about your knee. For what it’s worth, I hope she can fix it. You deserve to go out on your own terms.”

She walks away before I can answer.

I sit on the bench for another ten minutes, maybe longer, long enough for the sun to climb higher and the groundskeepers to finish their work and disappear, long enough for my knee to stiffen so badly that I can barely stand when I finally force myself up.

My uncle’s office is on the top floor of the main building, all glass walls and modern furniture with a view of the training grounds. Victor Urchman built Titan FC from nothing and he never lets anyone forget it. He’s on the phone when I walk in, holds up one finger while he finishes his conversation in rapid French, and I sink into the chair across from his desk and wait.

Victor hangs up. He’s sixty-three years old, silver-haired and built like a man who played professional rugby before he bought a football club, his eyes the same shade of grey as mine.

“The Sun has the story,” he says. “Page one. ‘Ruined Striker Forced to Trust Career-Killer Physio.’ Creative, I’ll give them that.”

“I saw.”

“How’s the knee?”

“Terrible.”

“And the physio?”

“Exactly what I expected.”

Victor leans back in his chair. “I hired her for a reason, Desmond, and not only because she’s the best person to fix your knee, though that’s part of it. I hired her because I’ve spent five years digging into what happened in Madrid and I don’t believe she was responsible.”

I stare at him. “You’ve been investigating?”

“Quietly and carefully. Someone destroyed my nephew’s career and nearly destroyed this club in the process, and you think I was going to let that go?” He opens a drawer and pulls out a folder. “I’ve compiled evidence: inconsistencies in the testing protocol, witnesses who changed their stories, a lab technician who disappeared two days after the results were announced.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because you weren’t ready to hear it. You’d made up your mind about her and nothing I said was going to change that.” He slides the folder across the desk. “But now she’s here, and now you’re going to be working with her every day, so I thought you should know the truth.”

I don’t touch the folder. “What truth?”

“That someone very powerful wanted you out of football, and they used Julita Matthew to do it.”

The words hang in the air between us. I think about the message on her phone, the fear in her eyes. Someone ruined my life. And I think they’re here.

“Why now?” I ask. “Why bring her back now?”

“Because whoever did this is still out there. Because there have been rumors of doping in other clubs and other leagues, and the pattern is always the same: anonymous tips, contaminated supplements, careers destroyed overnight.” Victor leans forward. “And because I believe whoever did it is here at Titan FC right now.”

My blood goes cold.

“That’s why I hired extra security,” Victor continues, “and why I brought in Ethan Cross, a former intelligence officer who knows how to run a proper investigation. That’s why Julita has a protection detail she doesn’t know about yet.”

“You think she’s in danger?”

“I think we’re all in danger. And I think the only way to stop what’s coming is to figure out who started it.”

I pick up the folder. It’s heavier than it looks.

“Read it,” Victor says. “Then make your decision. But whatever you decide about Julita Matthew, know this: she’s not your enemy. She never was.”

I leave his office with the folder under my arm and a storm building in my chest. The corridor is empty, the whole building feeling hollowed out by secrets I’ve been too angry to see. I pull out my phone and stare at the screen.

One new message from a number I don’t recognize.

Unknown: Ask her about the hotel room. Ask her what she really did that night. She’s not as innocent as she wants you to believe.

I read it three times, then delete it and head for the parking lot. I need to find Julita. I need answers. And this time I’m not letting her walk away until I get them.