Chapter 366: Premature Ejaculation
Roam dialed Saya’s number for the third time, the phone pressed against his ear, sitting in the dark of his apartment with his knees pulled up against his chest.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
Voicemail.
He hung up, swearing under his breath, then scrolled through his contacts until he found the twins’ names.
"Kiel?" he said when the line finally picked up, his voice coming out weaker than he would have liked. "It’s Roam."
"Yeah," Kiel answered, his tone flat, almost wary. "What’s up?"
"I was thinking," Roam began, searching for the words, "we could maybe... hang out. You, Kael, Tylo if he wants to come. At a bar or a restaurant, you know? Before the match."
A silence stretched on the other end of the line, the painful sound of a long sigh.
"What for, Roam?" Kiel finally said. "We don’t have time for this bullshit."
"I know," Roam said, his throat tight. "I know. It’s just—" He couldn’t finish the sentence, not even knowing himself what he was really trying to say.
"Yeah," Kiel said after a moment. "We’ll see."
The line went dead.
Roam stayed sitting there, the phone off in his hand, something heavy filling his chest. He didn’t really need to see the team. He needed to reassure himself, to feel that something from the past was still standing, that not everything had completely disappeared.
The match was getting closer.
And if Saya was right, he thought, staring at the cracked wall in front of him. What if Nash really was going to throw the game?
He tried to hold on to that idea, to let it reassure him, but something in him categorically refused to believe it completely. That return of karma that was too perfect, Nash, humiliated for years, who would end up lying down for them on command just because Saya had known how to find the right words.
It doesn’t make sense, he thought. It never made sense.
And what if he actually won? What if Nash crushed the Dust Dogs the way he had crushed everyone for months? After that defeat, there would be nothing left. No sponsor. No team. No second chance.
He realized he had absolutely no idea who he was outside of Breakball. Without the court, without the title of captain, without the admiring looks he had learned to take for granted, he was nothing. One more rat in a world that, apparently, was getting better everywhere around him except where he was standing.
His eyes filled with tears he didn’t even try to hold back, the image of his own future drawing itself in front of him with unbearable clarity: alone, forgotten, wandering through a transformed Underground that would no longer have any place for him.
That was when his phone started ringing, Vargas’s name lighting up on the screen.
"Roam!" Vargas’s voice exploded through the receiver before he even had time to say a word, a hysterical excitement cutting through every syllable. "Roam, she did it! She REALLY did it!"
"What?" Roam sat up at once, quickly wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. "What are you talking about? Who did what?"
"Saya!" Vargas was almost laughing, unable to contain his own excitement. "Turn on the news, man! Turn it on right now!"
"Coach, just tell me—"
"TURN ON THE FUCKING NEWS!" Vargas screamed.
Roam stayed still for a second, the phone still raised, before rushing to the old set sitting on a wooden crate and switching on the screen with a trembling hand.
The screen was already scrolling at full speed, several news feeds following one after another, each one bringing its own new layer of tension.
"...official confirmation of the release of Jinzo, Marcus ’Mac’, Barry Coleman, B-Note Williams, and Sliman Torres, all former members of the Blacklist roster. The team, now critically understaffed only a few weeks before the end of the regular season, risks pure and simple disqualification from the playoffs if it cannot field a full roster within the allotted time..."
Roam stayed frozen, mouth half-open, unable to fully process what he had just heard.
Then, without transition, a second red banner started blinking at the bottom of the screen.
"BREAKING NEWS — Explosive accusations target Victoria Graves, former manager of the Graves Anthem team in the Upper League. Documents anonymously released this morning allegedly claim a system of match-fixing and systematic doping of her players during her tenure..."
On his phone, notifications were already piling up by the dozens, the forums exploding in real time.
UndergroundNet — Breakball News Feed
@BlazeNations
"Wait wait WAIT. Blacklist understaffed?? How are they handling this with the match coming up??"
@DefloweringEnjoyer708
"It’s over for them guys. Five players released/fired at once, there’s no possible miracle, the league is going to disqualify them straight up."
@UndergroundCuck
"Wait, wasn’t it Blaze who fired Jinzo? I heard a rumor about a fight, some crazy shit."
@MilfEnjoyer
"And Victoria Graves?? I saw that, apparently she has a pretty dirty past in the Upper League?? Like doping and fixed matches??"
@VictoriaSimp
"FAKE. FAKE NEWS. GO HANG YOURSELVES YOU MIDGET BUDGET YAPPERS! I refuse to believe it until I get her address so I can check myself."
@RealistiCuck
"The legend himself 🙌🙌🙌 what day are we on already?"
@FatAsstic
"Nah but seriously, I looked it up, there are old articles confirming Victoria’s temporary ban back then. Everyone had forgotten."
@ManOfSheerFuckingWill
"WAIT WHAT. Ban CONFIRMED?? Okay this is getting serious."
@JassMineColon
"Fuck I checked too, there’s an archive from the old league site, she clearly appears on a list of temporary suspensions as a manager. It’s old but it’s real."
@LaPaz
"So it’s not completely made up... Damn. It has to be Fake."
@Gilfgamesh
"Okay but suspended for what exactly? The articles don’t say anything clear, just ’administrative irregularities’. That’s not the same as ’doping and match-fixing’."
@LoliharASSer
"Exactly, there’s a world of difference between ’suspension for irregularity’ and ’she drugged players and fixed matches’. Someone is inflating a real thing to turn it into a monster scandal."
@VictoriaSimp
"I don’t care what she did, I still love her. Day 1 of asking Victoria to step on me."
Roam kept scrolling, his heart beating harder and harder, desperately searching for something that would confirm what Vargas had screamed on the phone, a victory, an official announcement, anything.
He found only chaos.
In a meeting room somewhere at the top of the Spires, Hector stood in front of a wall of screens, each one displaying a different feed, forums, social networks, news sites, all spitting out the same carefully orchestrated accusations against Victoria on loop.
His media team was buzzing around him, a dozen people typing frantically on their keyboards, coordinating the release of new "testimonials," new falsified documents, every minute adding another layer of mud to the structure.
"You think you’re on top of the world now," Hector murmured, almost to himself, his eyes fixed on one of the screens where Victoria’s face, taken from an old official photo, appeared next to the accusatory headline. "Fine. Let’s see if your shadow can save you from this."
He turned to his team.
"Contact Senator Halloway immediately. Now."
One of the assistants nodded, already picking up his phone.
"I want everything in my power deployed against her," Hector continued, his voice rising slightly. "Every contact I have in the media, every favor I can call in, every political lever available. I want her erased from every collective memory in less than a week."
"And what about Blaze, sir?" one of the analysts asked, looking up from her screen.
Hector gave a cold smile.
"Find everything. His address. The address of every single one of his teammates. Their relationships, their habits, their little secrets. Everything comes out. I want the name Blacklist to become synonymous with scandal before the end of the week."
The false accusations continued to rain down over the following hours, swelling, distorting, exaggerating with every new share — doping allegations turning into trafficking accusations, rumors of fixed matches transforming into complete stories of systemic corruption, each new version more scandalous than the last.
Roam’s phone rang again. Vargas was back on the other end of the line, his excitement even more uncontrollable than the first time.
"Did you see?! Did you SEE?!" he shouted, almost out of breath.
"Vargas," Roam said, his voice tight, "what does any of this have to do with Saya?"
"What does it have to do with her?!" Vargas burst out with a high-pitched laugh. "Blacklist is UNDERSTAFFED, Roam! Five players down! They can’t even field a full team for the match! It’s over for them, you understand? We win by default! I don’t know what your girl did, but she pulled it off!"
Roam stayed silent for a moment, trying to keep up with the frantic pace of Vargas’s words.
"I did so well betting everything in advance," Vargas continued, his voice vibrating. "The odds on our victory were horribly high, you realize that? HORRIBLY high! I’m going to become a multimillionaire, Roam! Multimillionaire!"
"Coach—"
"Frank will never be able to open his mouth at me again!" Vargas kept going, not even seeming to listen. "I’m going to buy his store, you know what? I’m going to buy it and fire him from his own shop, can you imagine that?"
He laughed again, a high, slightly unhinged laugh that sounded strange through the receiver.
Roam stayed silent, the phone pressed against his ear, something heavy and uncomfortable settling in his chest without him really knowing why.
"It’s over, Roam," Vargas repeated, calmer now, savoring every word. "Really over for them. You’ll see, they won’t even show up on the court. Total forfeit."
"Yeah," Roam said, his voice uncertain. "Yeah, probably."
He hung up after a few more seconds, Vargas still ranting about his future purchases, his future empire, his future revenge against everyone who had ever looked down on him.
Roam stayed sitting in the dark, the phone resting on his knees, trying to feel the relief he should have been feeling. Guaranteed victory. The end of the nightmare. The humiliation of Blacklist, of Nash, without even having to play a single match.
He should have been relieved.
But somewhere deep inside him, something refused to fully believe in this victory that was too easy, too clean. A dull doubt, almost physical, that knotted his stomach without him being able to really name it.
It’s too simple, he thought, without really knowing why that thought forced itself on him with so much strength. Nash always finds a way. Always.
He shook his head, trying to chase away that absurd thought. It was ridiculous. Blacklist was understaffed, period. No miracle possible against the league’s strict rules.
And yet the doubt stayed there, crouched, stubbornly refusing to leave him alone. And the craziest part? He wasn’t even considering the serious accusations. It was as if...
Some kind of power was preventing him from even entertaining the idea that those accusations could be true.
Somewhere in the Spires, a black car sped through the streets. Senator Halloway sat in the back, arms crossed, an irritated expression hardening his tired features.
"Sir," one of his bodyguards said from the front seat, turning slightly. "You have another call from Mr. Perez."
"He can go fuck himself," Halloway answered without even looking up from his personal phone. "I’ve got more urgent things to deal with. And it’s exactly because of him that I’m in this mess."
The car finally stopped in front of a discreet café nestled between two elegant Spires buildings, the sign barely visible, the kind of place that only attracted people who already knew where to look.
Halloway got out, adjusting his jacket, closely followed by two bodyguards who methodically scanned the room as they entered, searching for one particular table among the scattered customers.
They eventually found it at the back, near a large bay window. A woman was elegantly seated there, a closed folder resting on the table in front of her.
Halloway walked forward, a little nervous despite himself, and sat down directly across from her without waiting for an invitation.
"Alright," he said, his voice a bit dry, trying to regain some semblance of control over the situation. "Here I am. Now—"
"No one... gave you permission to sit down."
The voice cut cleanly through his sentence.
Halloway stopped, surprised, and looked up at Victoria, who was staring at him with her sapphire eyes.
"Maybe you shine by your lack of education, but in my presence," she continued, her voice never rising, "things are done the way I want them. So, by all means..."
She straightened in her seat and crossed her arms.
"Stand up. And greet me."