Page 64 of Split Decision

"This one's staged," he says finally, setting aside the dance floor photo. "And this one." He sets aside the one with Travis's mouth at Andi's neck. "The editing is good, but not perfect. Whoever did it knows what they're doing, but they were working fast."

"How can you tell?"

"I've been working with a graphic artist on a construction project. The shadow angles are wrong in both of these. The light source isn't consistent with the stage lightingvisible in the background." He lines them up together. "Someone composed these, Luke. They didn't just take them."

"And the one on the merry-go-round?"

Brandon is quiet for a moment. "That one is real," he says carefully. "But I can't tell you she's kissing him. The angle makes it ambiguous. Given that two of the others are definitely fake..." He doesn't finish the sentence.

"Someone is running this," I say.

"Yes." Brandon looks at me directly. "Someone who has access to her tour schedule, who knew when to be there, and who had the resources to fake two photographs and distribute them simultaneously." He pauses. "That's not a tabloid operation, Luke. That's something more organized than that."

"I know."

He gathers the photos back into the envelope.

"Tell me what you're not saying out loud yet," he says.

I look at my brother across the coffee table in my Las Vegas hotel room, and I think about what Andi said, “Look at who benefits when the solution always looks the same.”I think about Marin's measurements, her language, her precise calm. I think about how Brandon's voice sounds when hementions her now, compared to how it sounded two months ago.

"I'm not ready to say it yet," I tell him honestly. "I need more than I have."

Brandon is quiet for a moment. "Okay," he says. Just that.

"For now," I say, "tell me I'm right about the photos."

"You're right about the photos," Brandon says. "She didn't do anything wrong."

Something that's been coiled tight in my chest for weeks loosens slightly.

"Good," I say. "I knew that. I just needed someone else to see it."

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

ANDI

We've played one venue after another almost nonstop for the last month. The road seems to get longer every day, and living on a tour bus isn't all it's cracked up to be. We've finished the East Coast; only a few more stops in the Midwest, and then we're heading into the last leg of the tour for the West Coast. Where Luke is.

The public separation has been in effect for six weeks.

That word matters.Public.Because what happened between Luke and me was real, and the fracture was real, and we are not where we were before. But we are also notbroken. What we are is carefully, deliberately invisible to the outside world while we figure out what comes next.

The outside world has decided we broke up.

Luke is becoming a big name in the boxing world. Syndi has been doing exactly what she was hired to do—his face, his upcoming fight, his career are getting the coverage they need. The pictures of them together at events are professional, coordinated, and entirely what a PR campaign looks like. I know that.

The headlines about Luke are everywhere I look, so I eventually just quit looking. Not because they hurt—well, not only because they hurt. Because they make me angry in a specific, targeted way. Someone engineered this public narrative. Someone benefits from the image of Andi Morgan and Luke Woods as a broken story. And every time I see another headline treating it as a settled fact, I feel the cold fury of watching someone else write my life.

"Boxing's new bad boy—or boxing's new boy toy? You pick."

"The Southern Stud-Muffin."

"10 Reasons Why We Can't Get Enough of LukeWoods."

He'd hate every one of those.

"All right, everyone, gather around," Katelyn orders, pulling me out of my thoughts. "I have new orders from the label execs."