Dylan closed the door. The click of the latch was the loudest sound in the building. Brett dragged a chair from the corner with a long scrape and sat in the center of the room, legs spread wide and arms on his knees, relaxed and confident. "We need to have a real conversation about your attitude, Ms. Underwood."

Scott was already recording, his phone propped against his thigh and camera tilted toward Naomi. Reed stood by the window with his arms folded, blocking the only natural light. His shadow fell across Naomi's desk like a curtain. Dylan leaned against the door, not exactly guarding it but not moving away, either.

Travis stood in the back corner with his arms at his sides and his eyes fixed on the floor. He had not said a word. Brett began talking slowly and deliberately, every word carrying something uglier than anger.

"People like you come and go around here, Ms. Underwood. Every couple semesters, they bring in someone new. Diversity initiative. Equity program. Whatever buzzword HR is pushing that year."

He leaned forward. "And every time, that person leaves. Some last a semester. Some don't make it past midterms. The smart ones figure it out early and save themselves the embarrassment."

He paused, letting the words hang like smoke. "You've been here, what, a month? And already you've got complaints piling up. Students unhappy. Parents calling. Your department chair asking serious questions about your performance."

Dylan chimed in from the door. "Rate My Professor gave you a 1.2, by the way. That's got to sting." Brett smiled.

"See, Professor? This isn't personal. This is just how things work here. Ridgemont, and you..."

He gestured at her from head to toe with a slow, dismissive wave. "You don't fit." Reed stepped forward, placed both palms flat on Naomi's desk, and leaned close. "Your daughter doesn't fit, either," he said quietly. "Just so we're crystal clear."

The room went cold. Naomi had not shifted in her chair, uncrossed her hands, or touched the red pen beside the stack of essays. Her breathing remained slow and even, the breathing of someone trained to stay calm in rooms far more dangerous than this one. She looked at Reed, then Brett, then each of them one by one.

"Are you finished?" she asked. Her voice was low and even, not quite a whisper, but close. Brett blinked, then gave a short, hollow laugh.

"Yeah, we're finished. Question is, are you? Because this is your chance to walk away clean, Professor. Take the hint. Save your dignity."

Naomi unfolded her hands, placed them flat on the desk, and stood slowly. "I'm going to say this once. You have ten seconds to leave this office." Brett grinned. "Or what? You'll give us an F?"

Naomi looked at Scott's phone, the red recording light still blinking, then back at Brett. "No. I'm going to let you keep recording, because every second of this, you're making my case for me." The grin cracked just a fraction. What none of them realized was that Naomi's phone had been recording since the first knock on her door.

It sat in her open desk drawer with the voice memo app running silently, capturing every word. Outside in the hallway, Ruth Caldwell had stopped mid-step when she heard the door close. She listened for three seconds, then turned and walked quickly toward Coach Taylor's office in the athletics building. Her heels barely touched the floor.

Ruth did not knock on Coach Taylor's door. She opened it. Taylor looked up from his desk with his reading glasses halfway down his nose and a highlight reel paused on his laptop. The moment he saw Ruth's face, the glasses came off.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Your players," Ruth said, breathing hard. "All five of them. They're in Naomi Underwood's office right now. Door closed. I heard what they were saying, Vince. It's bad."

Taylor was on his feet before she finished. He did not grab his jacket or his phone. He simply moved, fast and deliberate, sixty-one years old and crossing the campus like a man half his age. Ruth had to jog to keep up.

The humanities building was nearly empty. Their footsteps echoed through the stairwell, sharp and urgent. Second floor, down the hall, Room 214B, Naomi's office. The door was closed, and Taylor could hear Brett's voice inside, low, smug, and unhurried.

Taylor did not knock. He grabbed the handle and pushed the door open so hard it struck the wall behind it. Every head in the room turned. Five football players stood around Naomi like wolves circling a campfire.

Taylor's face changed from concern to fury in less than a second. "What the hell is going on in here?" His voice filled the room, the same voice that had commanded football fields for three decades and could make two-hundred-forty-pound linemen flinch. Brett scrambled to his feet and the chair scraped backward across the floor.

Dylan stepped away from the door as if it had burned him. Reed pulled his hands off Naomi's desk so fast he knocked over a cup of pens. Scott lowered his phone slowly, but not before Taylor saw it. "We were just talking, Coach," Brett said, quick and smooth. "Just having a conversation with our professor."