OBS Chapter 282: Deep Inside
Chapter 282: Deep Inside
The harsh afternoon training session was finally over and the first floor of the hangar now appeared strangely quiet.Like before a storm.
Nia, Alicia, and Jaz entered the hallway, exhausted, but refreshed by the showers.
Nash, who walked ahead of them, looked as if he had no trouble at all.
Jaz sped up, trying to keep pace with him. Her hands combed her damp hair while she laughed quietly, leaning on Nash’s shoulder.
"My legs feel like stone," Jaz told him, flashing a tired smile. "So... Nash... anything you have planned for tonight? Well, you know... Maybe you could come over? Never showed you our new place. I could cook something. Or... we could just relax."
Nash continued to walk, but smiled nonetheless knowing that Jaz really meant business.
"Tonight?" Nash asked. "What do you say about each of us sleeping in our own houses? There’s a big match tomorrow, we can’t risk being exhausted."
"Aw, come on!" Alicia complained, coming to walk right beside him. "Don’t you brush her off like that, Nash! Her place is great! We have candies, warm water..."
"And condoms?" Nash asked.
"Hell no, it would just ruin the f – oh shit...!"
Alas, it was too late; she covered her mouth with her hands. Nash smiled; now he knew their intentions very well. But no, not before the match. Nash’s new resolution was to take care of the good sleep of everybody before every matches, especially after hard trainings.
Alicia and Jaz groaned and gave up.
From behind, Nia laughed and shook her head. She approached and elbowed Jaz’s hip lightly.
"Stop it, girls. Don’t mess with Master coach Nash." And then with a sideways glance at Nash, she said, "Moreover... That just means that the big reward will be tomorrow, and I really love taking my fill on an empty stomach."
Nash shook his head, still grinning as he looked at Alicia clinging to his arm and Jaz’s flushed face.
"You three are something else... To think that after tomor..." he started.
BANG.
The massive metal doors to the lift at the end of the corridor burst open with such an loud crash that he was silenced in mid-sentence.
All the friendly warmth of the atmosphere disappeared at once. All eyes turned in the direction of the sound.
Dahlia appeared from the elevator in a complete state of panic. The buttons of her jacket were only halfway done, and her hair was messed up, flapping all over her face.
Under the yellow light of the halogens, her complexion had turned a disturbing grey.
She didn’t even look at the girls; she was just gasping for breath.
"Nash," Dahlia gasped, her voice high-pitched, and completely breaking.
Nash’s posture changed in a fraction of a second. The relaxed, cool coach disappeared, he knew Dahlia too well to understand that this face was bad news.
"What’s going on?" Nash asked.
But Dahlia could not reply to him. Not here. So all she did was grasp his leather jacket sleeve, biting into it harshly as she pulled him towards the elevator.
"Just go upstairs. Right now," she hissed, her voice cracking badly. "Victoria wants to see you in her office. Just check your phone. See what’s on the internet."
## UNDERGROUND FORUMS // BREAKBALL NEWS
[THREAD: HOT // APEX FRAUD EXPOSED – BLACKLIST’S SECRET ROSTER EXECUTED]
user_9921_rat: CHOOO CHOOO WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING ???? ???? Did y’all see the latest news on the main group?! Someone just dumped the next draft! The whole Baby-Boom match against the Colossus was a goddamn scam to drop their price! Blacklist is buying them!
Vanilla_enjoyer_88: WAIT WHAT?! Blacklist planned what?! Aiko literally kissed the hardwood more than I kissed my grandma, TF you mean it was planned?! ???? ????
Watashi_no_penisu_wa_chīsai: If they leave Apex, what happens to the music?! Is the new album cancelled?! Fuck Breakball, protect my girls! ???? ????
circuit_broker_v: all because they lost to he literal colossus??? Apex is absolute trash for trying to sell them like that! ????
ZA_DILDO: If this happen, I’m switching side guys. Blacklist is turning into a goddamn super-team. Nash + Rei + Jaz????? ????
Victoria_Simp: Day 53 of asking Victoria’s adress
...
The door to Victorias office did not even finish opening before Nash stormed through it.
The room was a mess. It was supposed to be an simple space but now it was in total chaos.
Victoria was walking back and forth on the floor her sleeves were rolled up to her elbows and her face was filled with a lot of anger.
Dahlia closed the door behind Nash, leaning her back against the wood. She was shaking, taking shallow breaths as she tried to force herself to calm down.
"What the hell happened?!" Nash yelled.
For the first time since anyone could remember, he looked completely panicked. He stood there staring down at the total mess of his life’s work getting cut at the ankles before he could even touch the prize. All their calculations, their relief from earlier... gone. It was a complete disaster, just one day before heaven.
Normally, Victoria was the one with the terrifying, murderous rage that everyone in Blacklist feared, but right now, Nash’s explosion was so unexpected, so intense, that even she was forced to play it cool.
She stood her ground, looking deeply annoyed, but she kept her voice level to keep the room from twisting out of control.
"The deal is dead, Nash, that’s what happened," Victoria whispered, her eyes tracking his heavy movements. "The forums have the entire details of our plan. The timing, the Colossus’ win... everything is circulating on the internet. Even the coincidence of Drex’s departure with this event. It’s all over."
Nash slammed his heavy fist flat against the mahogany side table, the impact making the expensive table shake.
"How?! How did they know??? Who talked?!" he roared, his face turning a dark, furious red. "Who else knew about this?! We didn’t run traces on the network. We didn’t use any phone. The details were restricted to this room, Victoria! Just you, me, and Dahlia! How the hell did someone get the exact... wait, who is that guy who was supposed to make the deal???"
He spun around, glaring directly at Dahlia.
Dahlia raised her hands in defensive panic, her head shaking violently.
"I don’t know! How could this happen?!" she cried, her voice cracking. "I don’t know what the hell went wrong?! I handled the details of the plan for the guy! That’s it! But it’s someone I’ve known for a while, Nash. He fears Ma’am enough to never try anything. And he was literally still downstairs just a little while ago! It can’t be him... I’m completely confused!"
"It isn’t him," Victoria cut in, her voice horribly nonchalant. Nash’s glare snapped back to her. "Think for a second, Nash. The forums have been on fire for hours. If it was our buyer, the timing doesn’t align. He was in the office when the thread went live."
Nash gritted his teeth, his chest heaving under his leather jacket.
"Then who, Victoria? Who else had the plan ?!"
"Maybe one of your little Baby-Boom girls," Victoria said, with a grin.
Nash froze, staring at her like she was speaking a foreign language.
"What? That makes no sense. They know it’s their life that’s on the line, why would they doom themselves?"
"The details on the board are too perfect, Nash," Victoria explained, stepping into his space, her perfect ice-blue eyes fixed on his face. "The exact dates. The plan to watch the Colossus destroy them on purpose. The fake buyer. The person who snitched didn’t just overhear a rumor; they had to be very close to us to connect every single piece of your thoughts. It’s an unscripted summary."
Nash stared at her, his mind racing through the dark paths of his network. The panic in his chest turned into a cold adrenaline.
Who knew? Who had been close enough to hear? Who had been acting in the shadow without him noticing?
"But it doesn’t change the board right now," Victoria whispered, her lips curving into a tight line. "I don’t care who talked or how they found out anymore. For the moment, all that matters is that we are completely fucked."
Nash clenched his fists, staring at her.
"It doesn’t change... Monique can’t prove I’m connected to this plan. I can still pretend to want a team to match Seth. We can still push a dummy client."
"No, we can’t," Victoria snapped, tossing her phone onto the mahogany desk. "Apex’s PR team just released a global statement. They’re claiming they never had any intention of selling the Baby-Boom roster. They’re completely locking down their image to save face from the public backlash. They know what we were trying to do, Nash. From this second on, any independent buyer who approaches them for those contracts is going to be flagged as a Blacklist proxy. The window is shut. It’s over."
Nash gritted his teeth, his hand clutching the edge of his leather jacket. The shadow play had turned into an open hunt, and his entire plan had just burned to ash before his eyes.
Down in the hall, Alicia, Nia, and Jaz stood perfectly still, their eyes wide as they scrolled through the exploding threads on the underground boards.
The initial excitement from their practice session had been completely erased.
"This... this can’t be real," Alicia whispered, her fingers shaking as she refreshed the page, watching the comments multiply by the thousands. "Nash... he was trying to buy the entire Baby-Boom roster? He was doing this in secret behind our backs?"
Nia didn’t answer. She kept her eyes staring blankly at the glowing screen. A deep, uncomfortable worry was twisting in her gut, suffocating the pride she had felt an hour ago.
Where do we stand if he brings them in? she thought, her chest tightening.
They had been working like slaves, turning into monsters on the hardwood just to earn his respect, to prove they were the elite. And all this time, Nash was orchestrating a massive, multi-million credit play to bring a whole new squad into their team.
Suddenly, Jaz’s eyes went wide. She stared at the screen, the dots connecting in her head.
"Wait... oh my god, yes!" Jaz gasped, looking up at the other two. "I get it now! He’s bringing in more depth."
Nia and Alicia stopped scrolling, both of them staring up at her.
"That’s what he meant by ’the baseline is about to shift,’" Jaz explained, her face lighting up as she leaned forward. "He wasn’t talking about our drills. He was talking about them! Think about it, guys. Nash would never just replace us. He’s buying the Baby-Boom to grow the team. Technically, there’s only the three of us and Nash who actually do any real work around here anyway. The rest of the boys don’t do shit anymore. If we recruit the girls, this squad is gonna be absolutely neat! It’s gonna be insane!"
Nia and Alicia looked up at each other. They still didn’t know what Nash’s exact plan was, but listening to Jaz, the whole thing actually started to make sense.
"I mean... he did look really impatient about whatever is supposed to happen tomorrow," Alicia admitted, shifting her weight as she clutched her phone. "He wouldn’t be that hyped up just to get rid of us, right?"
"We need to ask him," Nia said. "We need to hear it straight from his mouth. Let’s find out what’s really going on."
Miles away, things were very different.
Saya sprawled on the bed in Roam’s tiny, ridiculous apartment, her long blonde ponytail tousled against the shabby pillows. The dirty scar on her face remained uncovered, but she didn’t care about any of that. The pale, bluish glow from her phone screen illuminated her face, accentuating the cynical smirk playing on her lips.
Look at them run, she thought, as her thumb furiously scrolled through the messages.
Everyone was in sheer panic mode now. Apex was trying to calm their fans, Blacklist’s staffs were pretending it was never a plan, and Nash’s flawless game was getting completely mired in the dirt.
And the difference just got her blood boiling with excitement. She had forced the squeaky clean dolls to go down in the dirt. Nash wanted to be the caring millionaire savior for his little harem? Not on her watch.
If she had to be ran over by scums in order to help her bunch of losers get one win, then everyone else had to bleed just like her.
Across the tiny room, Roam sat on the edge of a plastic chair and nursed a bottle of beer, totally unaware of the digital war raging around him. He looked across to the bed and said, in a gruff and sleepy voice,
"Hey Saya, what’s so funny about your phone? You have been smiling like a lunatic for the past twenty minutes."
Without even bothering to look up from the screen, Saya answered him in an ice-cold tone of indifference.
"Nothing that you can understand, Roam. Only garbage going to the incinerator."
Roam grunted and sipped his beer, looking at the floor boards and feeling lost in the situation, while Saya continued browsing through her destruction happily.
Up in the luxury of the a suite in the Spires, the air was filled with the sound of breaking glasses.
SMASH.
Monique threw another one of her crystal designer vases, straight against the double doors, her face twisted into a hideous, distorted mask of pure, unbridled rage.
Her assistants were huddled in the corner of the office, trembling.
"Ah, l’batard! Il m’a bien couilloné ce salaud!"1 Monique shrieked, her voice turning into a high, ragged scream. Her eyes were wide with a manic, desperate rage as she realized the total scale of the manipulation. Nash and Victoria had been laughing at her from the dark this whole time.
"They conned me! They treated me like a fucking amateur! The board is blowing up my line, asking why my department is negotiating contract liquidations with degenerate underground assholes! My entire career is on the line because of this garbage layout!"
She slammed her hands onto her glass desk, her expensive gold fan snapping in half under her knuckles. "If I go down for this, I’m making sure those street rats burn first! Send the enforcement sweeps into the lower sector tonight! If we can’t sell the Baby-Boom quietly, I’ll dump them into the lowest parlor blocks just to clear the record!"
"Monique, calm your head."
The deep, steady voice cut through her screaming instantly. Hector was sitting on the leather sofa across the room, casually swirling a glass of deep red wine in his hand. He looked completely relaxed, a low, genuinely amused chuckle breaking from his throat as he watched her chest heave. Despite the disaster, he looked like he was watching a beautiful show.
"Look at the feeds," Hector said smoothly, nodding toward the glass display on the wall. "A good part of the public is already blasting Apex for trying to liquidate their precious little idols over a loss against one of the top contenders. They’re making you look like the villains."
Monique bared her teeth, her fingers digging into the edge of her desk.
"Exactly! The brand is getting slaughtered on the networks!"
"So use your brain," Hector replied, taking a slow, calm sip of his wine. "All you have to do is release a formal statement claiming the leak is entirely fake. Deny everything. Announce that the Baby-Boom roster is staying under the Apex logo and cancel the entire sale. The public gets their heroes back, and the scandal dies by tomorrow morning."
Monique stopped breathing for a second, her jaw tightening as the her brain remembered it could do more than keep her alive. The plan was clean. It was simple. But her eyes narrowed with an ugly, stubborn frustration.
"I can do that... but the Baby-Boom is still a garbage investment. They lost too many times, sir. They’re a financial black hole on my balance sheet. We have to get rid of them."
"What’s the alternative?" Hector asked, leaning back against the cushions. "Now that we know Blaze and my little pet were setting a trap to steal them for scraps, our negotiations with him stop right here. The deal is dead. And you can’t throw them into the parlors anymore because the public eyes are glued to them. For now, you keep the Baby-Boom on a strict hold. Let them play and rot until the dust clears."
Monique swallowed, her chest rising and falling as she nodded slowly.
"Fine. We hold them. But someone is going to pay for this disrespect."
Hector didn’t answer right away. He raised his glass toward the light, staring into the deep red liquid with a dark smile as he stared into the wine, his mind locking onto the image of the high-class banker bitch who thought she could out-dribble his network.
"You really thought you were smart, my little pet?" Hector whispered to himself.
He let out a low chuckle, his fingers tightening around the glass stem. "I think I’ve been nice long enough. It’s time to put that collar back around your neck."
TL: "Ah, the bastard! He really screwed me over, that scoundrel!"