She didn’t say anything. Just sat there and waited for him to figure it out.

“Piper...” His voice was a slow tsunami relentlessly rolling toward the shore.

“I had to put an end to this. He had to be neutralized.”

“So you...”

She took a deep breath. “I took the fake and gave him the real thing.”

The tsunami hit the shore. “You cracked my safe!”

“Not technically.” Duke had introduced her to the world of locks—the way the tumblers, drive cams, and wheel flies worked. She’d celebrated her fifteenth birthday by cracking his safe, but breaking into Coop’s had required only a little trial and error. His combination had turned out to be his high school, college, and pro jersey numbers. She’d been in and out of the safe before he’d made coffee. “Your combination was easy,” she said.

“You got into my safe and stole my Super Bowl ring.” Disbelief etched every word. “Then you took it to that bastard’s yacht, sneaked into his bedroom, and exchanged the copy for the real thing?”

“You never wear it,” she said, more unsure by the second of the wisdom of what she’d done. “I’ll make it right, Coop. I don’t know how, but I will. This had to stop for your own good.”

“I’d already handled it!” He shot up from the couch, took a step away, then came right back at her. “While you were breaking and entering, I neutralized the son of a bitch. And I did it without handing over my ring!”

“What do you mean you neutralized him?”

He told her. Spitting out the words. Telling her about his nonexistent mercenary friend and the implied threat he’d delivered. Growing more and more furious with each word. “You stepped so far across the line you’re in another universe.”

“Coop, I—”

He leaned forward. In her face. “You have no idea what I went through to earn that ring. The drills, the two-a-days. The surgeries. Watching tape at four in the morning before anybody else saw it. Beating the coaches to the office. I studied fucking thermodynamics!”

“I didn’t—”

“I earned that ring with blood and brains and more pain than you can imagine.” The ferocity he unleashed had built his legend, but she’d never imagined it unleashed on her. “I’ve played in hundred-degree heat, in weather so cold my hands were numb. Do you know what I did to get ready to play when it was that cold? I held my hands in ice water—kept them there—just so I could get used to the feeling. And I smiled while I did it, and do you know why? Because I wanted to win. Because I wanted to make my life mean something!”

She came to her feet, her heart in her throat. “I’m—”