"What do you want?" I can hear the edge of tears in my voice, and I hate that he can probably hear it too.
"Nothing," he says with a shrug. "Since we're working together, I just wanted to make sure we both understood where we stand—who's in charge. Get that out of the way."
"When Alex comes back—"
"Queen Aurora isn't due to give birth until after the season finishes. King Alexander will be out for the rest of this season, without a doubt. Your dad and I and the rest of the key partners will be the ones making decisions about salary caps and trades and all those other things. I have a real vision for where the team should be headed, which the Advisory Council loved when I pitched it."
I'm not going to ask him where that vision has the team. Off the island is a distinct possibility, even with all the money the country poured into the arena and surrounding area in the first place. 
"I'm just the physiotherapist," I say.
"You're much more than that, Sawyer. Or you could have been." He still hasn't left the doorway, but he straightens now. "But I wouldn't want you to start thinking you're more than hired help. You wouldn't want to be too involved in the behind the scenes decisions with the Bellerive Bullets."
The thing is, I actually don't want anything to do with whatever happens behind closed doors. I never have. But my father and Alex put me in those rooms, and there's a part of me that wants to push back now. If I cared more about the team than I do about Logan, I might. As long as he leaves Logan out of whatever political maneuvering he's trying to accomplish, he can cut me clean out of the team. 
I swallow as I consider his words. All this time, I haven't wanted to go there, antagonize him more, but Dalton doesn't have all the cards, and we both know that too. Straightening, I look him in the eyes.
"Officer Foster came that night—the night we broke up."
"The night you overreacted?"
"The night you shoved me so hard I fell and hit my head, knocking me unconscious. The night I found out you'd been tampering with my birth control. That night."
He sighs, as though I'm a child he's going to try to reason with. "Now why would I do any of that? Yes, you hit your head. But you tripped. The birth control stuff—I still don't understand where you got that idea."
The same anger I felt that night is bubbling up inside me. "Officer Foster has all the evidence. I can still press charges." Stephen told me I had a year, and that's still far from up.
"It didn't happen the way you remember it, so of course you wouldn't file a formal complaint."
He's right that I didn't file anything, but Officer Foster said he'd keep the evidence safe in case I changed my mind. "I can still file."
"Can you? I think you'll find that Officer Foster isn't as available to the Tucker family as he used to be. Poor timing for you, I suspect." He checks his watch as though this conversation is of little consequence. "I have a meeting. Enjoy finding out that your plot to ruin me never stood a chance."
With that he strolls away from the door, and I hear the bell go, signaling his exit. 
Immediately, I grab my keys and head for the door, locking it behind me. My brain is in a fog as I head to the central police station in Tucker's Town. 
At the front desk, I tap my fingers until one of the officers finally comes to speak to me. 
"What can I do for you?"
"I need to speak to Officer Stephen Foster."
"That's gonna be tough. He left the force last week. Went off island. Don't know much." He turns and calls into the other officers in the station. "Anyone know where Foster went?"
There's a mix of "no idea" and "off island" and "blew this joint" that come from various voices. 
"Looks like the Tucker police train has hit a dead end," he says. "Tell your mom that if she needs a new inside guy, one of us will do it for double whatever she was paying Stephen."
I grit my teeth and push off the front desk. 
Ava will know where Stephen is, and as soon as I'm out of the station, I dial her number.
"I'm having a really shitty week," Ava answers with instead of hello, "so this better not be a call that's going to piss me off."
"I'm looking for Stephen."
There's a long silence on the other end of the phone.
"Hello? Ava? Officer Foster. I need him."
"He's gone," she says, and her voice hitches. "He just fucking up and left, Sawyer. For no reason."
"Left on vacation?"
"No," she says, and her voice hitches again, an uncharacteristic show of emotion. "His apartment is empty. He's gone-gone. I don't know where he went."
"What did you do, Ava?"
But she doesn't answer me, she just hangs up. 
My chest grows tighter, like something is ratcheting a vice around my lungs. Before, our destruction was mutual. If I pressed charges, Dalton would find a way to leak every photo and video he'd taken with or without my knowledge. And he must have known that if he released what he had, I'd come after him through Officer Foster. 
But I don't even know what to do now. I climb into my car, and my breath comes sharp and shallow. 
Dalton's going to hold my naivety over my head forever, and I've got no way to fight back. I don't even know how to fight back.
Well, I got sick last week, and we didn't get the votes. We did, however, get the comments. So, I'll do two updates this week instead. 
Vote. Comment. Would love to hear what you're thinking.
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