The Bloodline She Burned novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: In Front of Everyone

The photo went up on the Crown account at nine in the morning.

Gabriel Rook, in a dark jacket, stepping out of the Alder Club's brass doors.

Under it, the caption read: Welcome home, Coach?

By ten, it had forty thousand shares.

Roz saw it on the big monitor at Low Ladder, where Nina had pinned it up before Roz could stop her.

The practice room went silent.

The paramedic took off his headset.

The cook looked at the floor, and the flanker looked at Roz.

Gabriel came down the stairs with a box of cables in his arms and stopped.

He saw the screen.

He set the box down very carefully on a chair.

"Before you say anything," he began.

"Is it true?" Roz said.

She had meant to ask it quietly.

It came out loud, in front of everyone.

"Did you go to my father?"

"He asked me to come."

"And you went."

"I went."

It hurt more than she expected.

In the first life, everyone she had trusted had sold her for something.

A house, a seat at a table, a clean name.

"What did he offer you?" she said.

"Roz."

"What did he offer?"

"My old job," Gabriel said. "The ban lifted. And a contract for my sister that he took away two years ago."

The room was so quiet she could hear the vents.

"You'd have your sister back in the game," Roz said slowly. "And your name."

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