Total pages in book: 122
Estimated words: 114951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 575(@200wpm)___ 460(@250wpm)___ 383(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 575(@200wpm)___ 460(@250wpm)___ 383(@300wpm)
Her eyes met mine when the flames were out, a million questions burning through the rising smoke.
I checked my phone for the hundredth time, but my disappointment didn’t waver.
Michael Reeves had ghosted me.
Part of me wondered if I was stupid for being surprised. Nathan had half our staff under his thumb and who knew how many players — what would make a league rep any different?
Money talked, and if Nathan was rigging bets in Vegas, my bet was he had a lot more money than any of us realized.
I was on high alert, looking for something, anything, when a familiar man walked in like a walking red flag.
I didn’t recognize him the way you do a friend or colleague. I only vaguely knew that I had met him before, that I’d seen him around, that he’d been with the team at some point for something. But the moment I watched him approach Nathan, all my warning sirens sounded.
He’s not supposed to be here.
My instincts flared.
Recognition stirred at the edges of my mind, vague and unsettling, like a name I couldn’t quite place. This wasn’t a donor. Not press. Not staff.
Who was he?
Nathan looked at the man with a forced smile, one I recognized now that I could see through his fake charm. He greeted him cheerily, but I saw the way his hand was hard on the man’s shoulder as he peeled away from Ariana at last, steering his friend to the back of the ballroom and out the nearest door.
I rushed to her in an instant, and Georgie was right on my heels.
Ariana let out a long whoosh of a breath when I reached her, her blue eyes wide and afraid as she clung to me. I didn’t dare take her into my arms, not yet, but I held her steady, forcing a calm breath that I hoped would bleed into her.
“Are you all right?” I asked, bending to meet her gaze.
She blinked, shaking her head. “I… I don’t know. He knows everything, Shane. He saw through Carter’s trap. He has Ben back under his control. He—” She choked, shaking her head as panic started to slither in again. “He said Reeves is his friend.”
That explained his absence.
I resisted the urge to curse and kick and scream and throw shit.
Ice cold water. Distant shore.
Find a way out.
“It doesn’t matter. We will figure this out. Look at me.” I waited until she did, and I squeezed her hand before dropping it reluctantly and forcing a big smile. The last thing we needed was to draw concern from anyone around us. “You’re not going home with him tonight. This all ends here. Okay? Trust me.”
She nodded, trying to mirror my smile, though hers trembled at the edges.
“This time tomorrow, you and I will be drinking the best smoothies in town and book shopping. Yeah?”
That earned me a little choke of a laugh, and she nodded again, surer this time.
I smoothed a hand over my suit, turning my attention to Georgie. “I need to check something. Can you stay with her? Don’t let her out of your sight.”
He didn’t hesitate. “I’ve got her.”
I squeezed Ariana’s hand one more time — brief but deliberate, a reminder that she wasn’t alone — and then I turned away.
I did my best not to hurry, to make it seem casual as I followed the path Nathan and his friend had carved through the crowd. When I slipped out of the ballroom, the noise from the band quieted, but the party raged on outside as I carefully moved along the perimeter, listening.
Nathan’s voice reached me before I reached him.
“I will handle it.”
I followed the sound, catching just a glimpse of the man who’d raised my hackles before I backed away and out of sight. I slowed my pace, angling myself behind a cluster of heaters and greenery, edging close enough to hear without being seen.
“He was supposed to sit,” the man said, and though his words were accusatory, his voice was croaky with uncertainty, like he wasn’t sure he could stand up to Nathan.
“I understand that was the original call, but sometimes things change.”
“We had the under, Nathan,” the man snapped. The edge in his voice was unmistakable now — panic sharpening into anger. “You told me you had control of him.”
“I said I’d handle it, Ron,” Nathan said smoothly. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
“What exactly is there to fucking handle at this point?” Ron shot back, and through the plants I was hiding behind, I saw him snatch Nathan by the arm. It earned him a death glare, and Nathan shook him off even as he continued seething. “You said he wouldn’t play. He scores twice and now I’ve got people breathing down my neck. People who don’t like being fucked with.”
Ron’s croaky voice was louder than he realized, louder than Nathan liked — and loud enough to draw attention. I tried to sink back farther, to be unnoticed, but there was a couple at a cocktail table who had gone silent, both of them turning to see what the commotion was.