The notice is taped to the equipment room door. Official Blackmoor letterhead, Grayson's signature beside the athletic director's, the language polished enough to hide the knife underneath.
A formal vote of confidence regarding the position of Combined Team Manager will be held Friday at 4 PM. All rostered players from both squads are eligible to cast a ballot. The manager in question may address the team prior to the vote.
"He can't do this." Theo stands behind me, reading over my shoulder. "You've done more for that team than any manager in three years."
"He can and he did." I peel the notice off the door. "Both captains have the right to call a confidence vote. It's in the bylaws."
"Both captains." Theo's jaw tightens. "Rhys didn't sign it."
"Rhys isn't the one who wants me gone."
The cottage door is unlocked when I get there. Rhys sits on the floor with his laptop open, papers spread around him, and the look he gives me when I walk in says he already knows.
"Before you start," I drop the notice in his lap, "I'm handling this myself."
"I know."
"And you're not standing up in front of the team making speeches about how valuable I am. You're not intimidating wolves into voting my way. You're not—"
"Sloane." He holds up a flash drive. "Sit down."
I sit. He turns the laptop toward me.
"Three months of performance data." He clicks through spreadsheets, charts, comparisons. "Equipment maintenance costs down eighteen percent since you took over. Medical response times cut in half. Supply waste reduced by a third because you restructured the inventory system."
"Where did you get this?"
"Your father's office. The filing cabinet he never locks." His mouth curves. "I also pulled the previous three managers' records for comparison. You're outperforming all of them. By a lot."
"So you broke into my dad's office."
"I borrowed documentation from an unlocked cabinet in a building I have authorized access to." He slides the flash drive across the floor. "What you do with it is your call. I won't be in the room."
"You won't—" I stare at him. "You're on the roster. You have a vote."
"And if I use it to defend you, every wolf in that room will say you survived because the vampire boyfriend rigged the result." His gray eyes hold mine, steady and serious. "You don't need me to save this for you. You need them to see what you've done. On your own terms."
"What if they vote me out anyway?"
"Then they're idiots." He closes the laptop. "But they won't. Not if you show them what I just showed you."
I take the flash drive. Our fingers brush—his cold, mine warm—and neither of us pulls away for a beat longer than necessary.
"There's something else." He reaches behind the laptop and pulls out a folder. "Meeting minutes from when your father hired you. He didn't just give you the job out of pity, Sloane. He submitted a formal recommendation to the athletic board. Three pages. Listed every qualification. Argued that you were the most competent candidate he'd reviewed in a decade."
My throat closes. "He never told me that."
"He wouldn't." Rhys sets the folder on top of the flash drive. "But the team should hear it."
Friday. Four PM. The combined team fills the main meeting room—wolves on one side, vampires on the other, my father standing at the back with his arms crossed and his face carefully blank. Grayson sits front row center, legs spread, the posture of someone who's already counted the votes.
I stand behind the podium with the flash drive loaded and my father's recommendation letter in my hand and my heart trying to crack through my sternum.
"I know what most of you think of me." My voice fills the room steadier than my hands. "Halfblood. Charity case. Coach's daughter who got a job she didn't earn."
Silence. Grayson smirks.
"So let's talk about what I've actually done." I click the first slide. Numbers fill the screen—equipment costs, response times, supply efficiency, comparison charts against every manager who came before me. "Eighteen percent reduction in equipment spending. Medical response times cut from four minutes to ninety seconds. The inventory system I built saved this program eleven thousand dollars last quarter."
The smirk fades. Wolves in the back rows lean forward, reading the numbers.
"I reorganized your travel logistics so the bus routes don't cross rival territories anymore. Three of you told me your away-game meals improved—that's because I switched catering vendors after the old one kept substituting raw meat for the vampire players." I glance at the vampire section. "You're welcome, by the way."
A few laughs. Quiet, but real.
"My father didn't hand me this job because I'm his daughter." I hold up the recommendation letter. "He submitted a formal application on my behalf to the athletic board. Three pages of qualifications. I didn't know this existed until two days ago, because he never told me. Probably because he knew I'd want to earn it on my own."
My father's composure cracks—just slightly, a tremor in his jaw, a brightness in his eyes. He looks away.
"I'm not asking you to like me. I'm not asking you to accept my blood or approve of my choices or pretend I belong in your section of the dining hall." I close the laptop. "I'm asking you to look at the numbers and tell me who's going to do this job better."
Grayson stands. "This doesn't change—"
"Sit down, Grayson." The voice comes from the wolf section. A defensive lineman—one of Grayson's own. "Let her finish."
My brother's face goes white. He sits.
"Vote however you want." I step back from the podium. "I'll respect the result either way."
The ballots take ten minutes. My father counts them at the front table, hands steady, face unreadable. He straightens the final slip, and his voice comes out rough.
"Twenty-three to retain. Nine to remove. Sloane Imler remains team manager."
The vampire section breaks into applause first—scattered, then building. Half the wolves join. Not all. Not Grayson, whose hands stay locked on his armrests. But enough.
Outside the meeting room, the hallway is empty except for a shadow leaning against the far wall. Gray eyes. Split lip nearly healed. Arms crossed, one ankle over the other, the posture of someone who's been waiting a while and would have waited longer.
"Twenty-three," I say.
"I heard." The corner of his mouth lifts. "You didn't need me in there."
"No." I walk toward him. "I didn't."
His room is dark when we get there. He doesn't turn on the lights. I don't ask him to.
"You let me win," I murmur against his mouth.
"You won yourself." His hands frame my face, thumbs tracing my cheekbones. "I just handed you the receipts."
"No arrangement." I pull back enough to find his eyes in the darkness. "No leverage. No fake anything. Just this."
"Just this." His voice splinters on the second word. "That's been the only thing I've wanted since the elevator."
We come together slowly. His hands careful, my fingers tracing the scar on his back. No urgency. Just the terrifying quiet of two people choosing each other without a contract to hide behind.
Morning light filters gray through his window. His arm across my waist, his breath warm against my neck, and for the first time in weeks the weight on my chest has shifted into something I can carry.
A knock splinters the silence. Rhys goes rigid behind me, instantly awake.
"Mr. Vance." The headmaster's assistant—clipped, formal. "A letter from your father. He arrives at Blackmoor this evening."
The arm around my waist turns to iron. His heartbeat spikes against my spine—fast, erratic, nothing like the rhythm I fell asleep to.
"Rhys?" I turn to face him.
His eyes are open. Fixed on the ceiling. The gray has gone flat and dead—the eyes of someone who recognizes the sound of a cage closing.
"He knows." Barely a whisper. "Something. He knows something."