Chapter 13. The Blog

The first time Yara watched the clip, she didn’t see Lia at all.

She saw Cassian.

He filled the grainy frame like unfinished business—older, leaner, the ghost of a fighter who used to make whole crowds forget to breathe.

Yara Mendes leaned closer to her screen, one hand resting on the chipped edge of her coffee mug. The light from three monitors painted half her face in cold blue, carving out sharp planes: dark curls twisted into a careless bun, small gold hoop through her left brow, eyes that missed nothing.

She looked like someone who’d lived too long on caffeine and curiosity.

She had.

Forty-two, ex-coach turned freelance analyst, part of the generation of women who’d built the league’s media arm from nothing. She’d left after the Vale scandal burned through Chicago like wildfire. Everyone had. But Yara had been the one who never quite forgave him—or herself—for how it ended.

Now his name flickered in front of her again, pixelated, uninvi