I squeezed his shoulder again, releasing it with a sigh as I tried to figure out what the fuck to do next. Carter was watching me like he wasn’t sure what I’d just said to Georgie was fair anymore — not now that our plan was going up in flames.
But I had to believe.
Some people run when things fall apart.
Some freeze.
Some fight blindly and make it worse.
But there’s another response — the one you earn when you’ve already lost everything once before, when panic has taught you its limits.
I knew this feeling.
The water was cold.
The shoreline was far.
And panic wouldn’t get me there.
And so, I found stillness.
I calmed the fuck down.
And I started figuring a way out.
Nathan kept Ariana close after that, his hand never leaving her, and he paraded her around like a show pony. They posed for pictures. They grabbed the microphone from the band to thank everyone for attending. Nathan made a grand speech about his beautiful wife turning forty, and then we all watched her stand behind a lit cake as we sanghappy birthdayand she blew out the candles.
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 alotmore 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.”
