The Bloodline She Burned novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: What Gabriel Said

Gabriel Rook had not been inside the Alder Club in two years.

Nothing in it had changed.

The same leather chairs stood in the same low light.

The same old men looked up from their papers at the door.

He had come because a card was in his mailbox that morning, on thick cream paper.

Come and talk, it said. Nothing else.

Conrad Ellsworth sat at a corner table with a glass of brandy he had not touched.

"Sit," he said.

Gabriel stayed standing.

"I'll keep it short," Conrad said. "Crown is losing its head coach at the end of the season."

"That's not my problem."

"It could be. The ban is a paper matter, and a phone call from me ends it."

Conrad let that sit.

"You would have your old office and your old salary."

Gabriel said nothing.

"And I would reopen your sister's contract."

That reached him.

He kept his face still, but his hand closed on the back of the chair.

His sister had been nineteen when she signed with a Crown academy team.

Two months after Gabriel was blacklisted, the team dropped her without a reason.

No other team had called her since.

She now worked nights in a pharmacy and told everyone she preferred it.

"You do remember her," Conrad said mildly.

"I remember her."

"There is a condition."

Conrad turned the glass a quarter-turn on the cloth.

"You walk away from my daughter's team tonight. You close that cafe's practice room for good."

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