"I won't say anything," Neil said, taking a couple steps back. "And don't worry about me. I'll go for a run or something."

"Kevin should be out of here by four," Wymack said. "That's when Andrew's done with Betsy, so Nicky will pick him up on his way over to her office."

Neil nodded and left, taking the stairs back down to the ground level.

Neil thought it would be awful if Kevin remembered the boy with the murderous father, but this was worse. This was Kevin maybe remembering that boy when Kevin belonged to an equally horrific family. Neil didn't remember the Moriyamas, but they'd definitely remember him if they'd done business with his father. The Butcher of Baltimore wasn't a man easily forgotten. Neither was his wife, who'd stolen five million dollars the night she ran away with the Butcher's only son. The Butcher turned his people inside-out for years hunting them down. All of his contacts would have heard of it.

Somewhere the ERC was reworking and finalizing a schedule that put the Moriyamas in Neil's near future. Neil would quit before that match. He had no choice. He'd play up until their game against the Ravens and then run. If he was lucky, the match would come at the end of the fall season so he wouldn't jeopardize the striker line too much by taking off.

It was stupid and suicidal to stay even that long. Neil knew he should go now, before he met his teammates or the ERC publicized his name or he ever stepped on a court with Kevin Day at his side. It'd seemed an acceptable risk before, since none of his father's people were into sports. The chance of one of them seeing him on TV during a match was negligible so long as Kevin didn't figure him out and give him away. Now that he knew who the Moriyamas were and knew they would be watching him, it made absolutely no sense to stay.

Neil had grown up wondering why Kevin and Riko were in that room eight years ago and how they'd overcome it. He'd wondered why their luck and circumstances were so different that they could become international stars while Neil's life spiraled so quickly out of control. He'd hated and worshipped them all his life, jealous of their successes and desperate for them to excel. Now it seemed he'd been wrong all along; Kevin hadn't escaped either.

No matter what they did or who they became, maybe they never would.

Neil shoved the stairwell door open so forcefully it banged against the wall and was running before he was even halfway across the lobby. He hit full speed before he reached the street, going so fast he was nearly falling over, but he couldn't outrun his thoughts.

CHAPTER FIVE

The Foxes weren't scheduled to start their practices until Monday, June 10th, but they were required to move into campus the day before so they had time to get settled in the athletes' dormitory. Neil found their estimated arrival times on a list hanging on Wymack's fridge. The first of them wasn't expected to arrive until two in the afternoon and the last not until five. Neil was impatient to have the whole team together at last. Once they were here, Kevin would have an entire team to yell at and would have to leave Neil alone.