Chapter 4 Blacklisted Within the Industry?

Her agent's voice was shaking. "It's not just the endorsements. A bunch of partners got anonymous complaints — saying you're a mess in your personal life, that you're impossible to work with. Everyone's in wait-and-see mode. Nobody wants to renew."

Cecilia's fingers tightened around her phone, her knuckles going white.

"Got it." Her voice stayed even. "Don't do anything yet. Pull together all the athletic shoot footage and raw files from the past year — everything — encrypt it and send it to me."

She hung up and sat for a moment on the worn couch in her new apartment, letting the silence settle around her.

Her phone buzzed again. An email from the WTA tournament organizers.

[Dear Ms. Windsor, your entry confirmation has been uploaded to the official system. Please review and return the signed acknowledgment at your earliest convenience.]

She tapped the attachment and was about to download it when the doorbell rang.

Cecilia frowned. Her landlord had been clear — she wouldn't be disturbed.

She crossed to the door and looked through the peephole.

Four people stood in the hallway.

Victor, Ethan, Ryan — and Ivy, tucked safely between them.

Her expression went flat. She pulled the door open.

"What do you want?"

Ethan spoke first, his jaw tight. "You moved out here and didn't tell anyone? What is this?"

"What's left for us to talk about?" Cecilia leaned against the doorframe, blocking the entrance. "If you came to drag me back so I can fade into the background again, save it."

Ivy peered out from behind Ethan, her voice soft. "Cecilia, we were just worried about you living somewhere like this. It's not safe."

"Worried about me." Cecilia's mouth curved. "Or worried I'd disappear before you could squeeze anything else out of me?"

"Cecilia." Victor's voice dropped, sharp and warning. "Does everything have to come out like that? Ivy was up at dawn pulling us out the door to check on you. And this is how you treat her?"

Cecilia glanced at Ivy.

Right on cue, Ivy's eyes had gone glassy, her voice thickening with the beginnings of tears. "Cecilia, don't blame your brothers — this was my idea. I know you're angry with me. And the tournament — I swear, I never meant for things to go this far."

She stepped forward and reached for Cecilia's hand. "You can yell at me, you can hate me, I don't care. But please don't shut out the whole family. Mom and Dad just want a chance to—"

Cecilia stepped aside. Cleanly, deliberately.

"Ivy." Her voice was quiet and precise as a scalpel. "There are no cameras here. There's no audience. So who exactly is this performance for?"

Ivy's hand stopped mid-air. Something flickered across her face — just for a second — before the wounded look snapped back into place.

Ryan moved in front of her instantly. "Enough." He pointed at Cecilia. "Ivy came here because she genuinely cares about you. You could try not treating every good intention like it's some kind of attack."

"Good intentions." Cecilia let out a short laugh. "You all teamed up to take my tournament spot, tanked my endorsements, and now you've shown up at my door. That's what you're calling good intentions?"

She turned to Ethan, her gaze steady. "That was you, wasn't it? The anonymous complaints to my partners. The endorsements."

Something shifted in his eyes — brief, quickly buried. His voice came out harder. "Consider it a reality check. Apologize to Ivy. Admit you were out of line. Do that, and I'll make one call and it all goes away."

"Apologize." Cecilia repeated the word like it was something she'd found on the bottom of her shoe. "I'm supposed to apologize to someone who took what was mine?"

She took one step toward him. "You ran a smear campaign against your own sister, Ethan. Anonymous tips, fabricated complaints — you tried to burn my career to the ground."

Ethan's expression hardened into something like contempt. "You think you can survive without this family behind you? Those brands came to you because of the Windsor name. I got them to pull out. I can do it again."

"So you're admitting it." Cecilia's expression didn't change. If anything, the tension left her shoulders. "Good. That makes this easier."

She crossed her arms, her voice dropping into something almost conversational.

"Here's the thing, Ethan. This is my last year in the age bracket for the WTA tournament. If your little campaign interferes with my ability to compete — if I get pulled from that draw because of something you did — I will go to every outlet that will have me."

Ethan's eyes narrowed. "And say what?"

"Everything." She said it simply. "How the Windsors brought their biological daughter home and kept her a secret for years so the adopted daughter wouldn't feel awkward. How the whole family coordinated to hand that daughter's tournament spot to someone else. How her own brother personally orchestrated a smear campaign to destroy her endorsement deals." She tilted her head. "You want to guess how that story plays in the press?"

Victor's face had gone pale. "You wouldn't."

"Why wouldn't I?" She looked at him directly. "You've made it very clear I'm not really family. So I don't have any reason to protect the family image, do I?"

"This is blackmail," Ethan said through his teeth.

"It's a negotiation. You back off, I stay quiet. You keep pushing—" She lifted one shoulder. "I just think the story of a wealthy family closing ranks to crush their own flesh and blood is going to be very, very readable."

That was when Ivy finally broke. She pressed both hands to her face, her shoulders shaking. "Cecilia, how can you do this to me? I only ever wanted to play in one tournament. I never wanted to take anything from you. I never—"

Cecilia watched her cry.

She felt nothing. Not guilt, not pity, not even the faint pull of old habit.

"Ivy," she said. "I've seen this show too many times. I'm done watching it."

She closed the door.

From the other side, Ethan's fist hit the wood. "Cecilia. Open this door. You think you've won something? We have options you haven't even thought of yet. You're going to regret this."

Cecilia put in her earbuds, opened the tournament email, and downloaded the confirmation form.

The banging continued for another ten minutes or so. Then footsteps, fading down the hall. Then nothing.

She signed the acknowledgment form and hit send.

By the time she finished, the window had gone dark. She went to the kitchen to make pasta, and her phone lit up on the counter. A message from her agent.

[Cecilia. You're trending.]

She clicked the link.

The top hashtag read: #CeciliaWindsorBully

The lead post was a video. Footage from one of her qualifying matches — her opponent mishitting a return, Cecilia moving up to play the ball, her racket accidentally grazing the other player's during the follow-through.

A completely ordinary moment, sliced and reframed to look like she'd swung at someone on purpose.

The comments were already a flood.

[This girl has zero sportsmanship. Disgusting.]

[I heard she's been targeting younger players in training for years. Dirty tactics, the whole way.]