He was the most valuable player in basketball. Then someone decided his value was worth more if they destroyed him. Mason Reid has everything a professional basketball superstar is supposed to want—money, fame, a championship ring, and a reputation almost as dangerous as his jump shot. Then investigative journalist Tessa Grant publishes a story exposing suspicious payments inside his franchise. Forty-eight hours later, Mason is traded. Not negotiated. Not planned. Engineered. Mason blames Tessa for blowing apart his career. Tessa thinks Mason is another arrogant athlete caught too close to dirty money. They’re both wrong. When a break-in, a dead player’s hidden archive and evidence of manipulated games pull them into the same investigation, they uncover something far bigger than basketball: a system capable of controlling trades, identities, contracts and millions of dollars by turning professional athletes into market variables. And Mason isn’t merely caught inside it. He’s the asset everything was built around. As Columbus makes an impossible run toward the championship, somebody begins attacking Mason everywhere except the scoreboard—his reputation, his medical records, his career and eventually his legal identity. The closer Tessa gets to the truth, the harder it becomes to separate the man she’s investigating from the man she’s falling for. Because the people behind the trade can manipulate almost anything. Games. Markets. Careers. Truth. But Mason and Tessa are about to become the one variable they never calculated.
