Chapter 9

Ashton's POV

The weight of my own silence had been suffocating me, but I knew I couldn't keep avoiding them forever. With shaking hands, I picked up my phone, pressed the call button, and brought it to my ear.

"Room 202," I said, my voice barely above a whisper before I hung up. I exhaled sharply, my breath unsteady.

That was it. No more running. No more dodging their calls. Luke and Milo deserved to know the truth.

Minutes felt like hours as I sat there, watching Parker's unmoving body. The rhythmic beep of the monitor was the only sound filling the room. I wasn't sure how they'd react. I wasn't even sure how to explain it.

When the door finally opened, and Luke and Milo stepped in, the weight on my chest only grew heavier.

"What the hell, Ash?" Milo's voice was tight with anger, but there was something else underneath—worry.

Luke stepped forward, his eyes locked onto Parker's unconscious face. "Is he... is he gonna be okay?"

I swallowed hard. "I don't know," I admitted. "They— they won't know until he wakes up."

Luke's jaw clenched, and he turned toward me. "And you didn't think we should've known about this sooner?"

Milo crossed his arms. "You let us find out through a news article about an 'unidentified car crash victim'? We had to put two and two together and hope we were wrong!"

I looked down at my hands. "I didn't know how to tell you."

Luke let out a bitter laugh. "Well, now you can start by telling us why his car is totaled and why you look like you've barely slept in weeks."

I opened my mouth to respond, but before I could, Luke's phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out, glancing at the screen. His eyebrows furrowed before his expression darkened.

"Are you serious?" His voice dropped, and he stared at his phone as if willing the words to change.

"What?" Milo leaned over his shoulder. His eyes widened. "Luke... this is bad."

Luke turned the screen toward me, his knuckles white from how tight he was holding his phone. A new post from Emia was on display, and even though my stomach had already been in knots, it somehow twisted even tighter.

"Luke Haynes' basketball career? Bought and paid for. His mom made sure of that. Guess that scholarship was rigged from the start."

Below the text was a photo—a grainy but unmistakable picture of Luke's mom sitting with the university coach at a restaurant.

Luke's breathing grew unsteady as he took a step back, his free hand gripping the back of a chair. "No… no, no, no—this isn't what it looks like!"

Milo read the post again, then looked up. "Dude, tell me this isn't true."

Luke shook his head wildly. "It's not! Yeah, my mom met with him, but she didn't bribe anyone! She just wanted to make sure I was on the right track. She… she didn't rig anything." His voice cracked, a rare moment of vulnerability.

Milo looked unsure. "Then why would Emia say that?"

Luke let out a shaky breath and stared at his phone again. "This could ruin me. If the university thinks this is true, they'll pull my scholarship."

Milo ran a hand through his hair. "You need to talk to the university—tell them it's a lie before this spreads."

Luke's phone buzzed again. His face paled. "Too late. I just got an email. They're'reviewing my admission' due to new allegations."

The room was silent except for the steady beeping of Parker's monitor.

I finally found my voice. "We'll fix this."

Luke laughed bitterly. "Yeah? And how the hell do you plan to do that?"

I didn't have an answer. But as I looked down at Parker, unmoving, still unaware of the chaos unraveling outside this hospital room, I knew one thing for sure.

Whoever Emia really was, they had just gone too far.