Baby Daddy Roulette

Chapter 28

[Mateo’s POV]

Morning practice is a disaster.

My shot's off—completamente desastroso—every three-pointer clanging off the rim. Coach keeps giving me that look that says he's reconsidering my value to the franchise.

I can't focus. Keep checking my phone between drills, waiting for the other shoe to drop because Cassian doesn't make threats he doesn't follow through on.

Axel's the same. Going through drills on autopilot, body present but brain three states away. We keep making eye contact—silent communication that says we're both waiting for disaster.

Around ten AM, during a water break, my phone starts vibrating.

Not normal vibrating. Seizure vibrating. Like every notification I've ever had is arriving simultaneously in some kind of digital apocalypse.

I grab it, and my stomach drops.

Headlines everywhere:

"Homewrecker Psychologist Seduced Star's Teammates"

"Secret Affair Scandal Rocks NBA"

"Dr. Selene Marlowe: The Woman Who Destroyed a Championship Team"

No. No no no no—

Cassian went nuclear.

He contacted gossip sites—multiple sites, gave interviews—spinning a fabricated story that makes Selene look like some manipulative seductress who had an affair with his teammates while engaged, got pregnant, and fled to Seattle to hide her unethical behavior.

The articles are brutal. Inflammatory headlines designed to go viral, comment sections filling with vile misogyny, people calling Selene things that make my blood boil.

My phone keeps exploding. Group chats going crazy, my agent calling repeatedly, even my mamá texting from Puerto Rico asking what the hell is going on.

I watch it unfold in real-time, articles multiplying, each worse than the last. Someone's dug up photos from Philadelphia—Selene and Cassian at team events, looking happy, making the narrative more damaging.

My first instinct is pure rage.

I want to tweet. Want to respond to every single article, every comment, destroy Cassian publicly with the truth about what he actually did, what he actually is—a narcissistic cheater who humiliated Selene and now can't handle that she moved on.

My thumbs are already moving, drafting a response that starts with "Cassian Drummond is a lying piece of—"

"Don't." Axel's hand closes over my phone, physically stopping me mid-tweet. "Don't post anything."

"Did you see this? Did you see what he's saying about her?" My voice comes out too loud, echoing in the locker room that's suddenly empty except for us. "Está mintiendo—he's lying about everything, making her sound like some—Dios mío, Axel, we have to do something!"

"We will. But not like this." He takes my phone completely, sets it face-down on the bench. "We talk to Selene first. Figure out a plan. Posting now just makes it worse."

"How could it possibly be worse? He's destroying her reputation in real-time and we're just standing here—"

"Mateo." His hand finds my shoulder, squeezes once. Grounding. "We leave. Now. We talk to Selene. Then we figure out how to fix this. Together."

Together. Right. Juntos. We're doing this together.

I nod, even though every instinct is screaming at me to fight back immediately, and we leave practice early—don't even bother with excuses, just grab our stuff and go.

The drive to Selene's feels eternal. Every red light is personally targeting me, every slow driver a conspiracy. My leg bounces so aggressively Axel finally puts his hand on my knee just to make it stop.

"She's going to be devastated," I say, staring out the window at Seattle traffic that doesn't care about our crisis. "This is so much worse than the grocery store photos. This is—ay Dios, this is her entire career, her reputation, everything she built—"

"I know."

"What if she blames us? What if she thinks we should've done more to stop him yesterday, should've—I don't know, algo—should've anticipated this somehow—"

"Mateo. Breathe."

"I am breathing! I'm breathing very aggressively right now!"

Despite everything, Axel almost-smiles. "That's not what breathing sounds like."

Selene's building appears and we're out of the car before it's fully stopped, taking stairs two at a time because the elevator's too slow, and finally we're at her door, knocking maybe too hard but I can't help it.

She opens immediately. Like she was waiting.

The babies are in their playpen—all three playing with blocks, miraculously calm. But Selene looks—Dios mío—she looks too calm. That eerie clinical detachment I recognize from Philadelphia, when emotions get too big so she just shuts down and becomes Dr. Marlowe instead of Selene.

"You saw," she says. Not a question.

"We saw." I step inside, want to hug her, don't know if I'm allowed. "Selene, I'm so sorry, we should've—I don't know what we should've done but we should've done something more—"

"It's not your fault." Her voice is steady. Professional. Wrong. "I already talked to team PR. My boss is aware. They've advised me to keep my head down and let it blow over."

"Let it blow over?" The words come out too sharp. "¿Cómo? How is this supposed to blow over when he's accusing you of—" I can't even finish, too angry to form coherent sentences.

Axel's watching her with that intensity that sees everything. "What are you thinking?"

She's quiet for a long moment. Then something shifts in her expression—that clinical detachment cracking, revealing steel underneath.

"I'm thinking I'm done keeping my head down. Done letting men like Cassian control the narrative. Done protecting people who never protected me. I just got the situation in my hands."

"Selene—" I start, but she's already moving to her laptop.

"That was a band-aid solution. Now I’m going all in—going to tell the real story. All of it." She opens a document, and I can see it's already written—pages of text, carefully structured. "The birthday incident. His cheating. How the entire Ravens organization knew and covered for him. Everything."

My brain catches up. "You want to go public? Like, completamente public? Tell everyone what actually happened?"

"Yes."

"But—" Axel's voice is careful. "This is nuclear. There's no taking it back. It could affect your career, his career, the entire Ravens organization."

"Good." Her jaw's set, that determination I've seen when she's made up her mind and nothing will change it. "I've spent years protecting men who didn't deserve it. Kept quiet because I was supposed to be professional, supposed to take the high road. I'm done."

"Dios mío," I breathe, reading over her shoulder. It's comprehensive—dates, details, names of people who knew. It's devastating. It's also completely, brutally true. "This will change everything."

"That's the point." She hovers over the post button, hand trembling slightly—the only sign she's not as calm as she's pretending. "I can't let him rewrite history. Can't let him make me the villain when he's the one who—"

Her voice cracks on the last word.

I reach out, take her hand. "We're with you. Whatever happens next. Lo que sea—whatever you need, we're here."

Axel moves to her other side. "All the way."

She looks at both of us—really looks—and something in her expression softens. Then hardens again with resolve.

"Okay." She takes a breath. "Okay. I'm doing this." Her finger hovers over the button for one more second. Then she presses it.

The post goes live.

We watch in silence as her truth spreads across social media—the real story, the whole story, everything Cassian tried to bury coming to light.

And I realize: this isn't just about defending herself. This is Selene taking back her power. This is her refusing to be a victim of someone else's narrative.

This is her saying enough.

Whatever happens next—and something will definitely happen—we're facing it together.

Juntos. Always.