“Shouldn’t you?” My brows lifted. Ryker completely ignored him.
His tattooed biceps strained against his T-shirt sleeves as he carefully lowered the boxes, placing them on the counter, where the employee began to rummage inside them. “As you can see, I’m busy. Where’s the third member of your little trio?”
“At home injured, so you won’t be able to piss him off tonight,” I bit out, then immediately winced. We were supposed to be telling people Dan had the flu.
“Injured?”
Nosy bastard. “It’s none of your business. Jay, come on.” Ryker shouldered past Bellingham, and I followed him, jogging down the stairs to the locker room.
The first person I saw when I got inside was Volkov. His expression darkened when he caught sight of me, and I quickly turned away, busying myself with unzipping my kit bag.
Act normal.
We just had to get through this game, and then we could finally get some answers.
When Ryker pulled up outside the manor, a dark figure detached itself from the shadows. My heart jolted, but as soon as they stepped into the light, I recognised them.Dan. Loitering outside the manor, waiting for us.
Fucking hell, why was I so jumpy?
“There you are,” he said when we reached him. “I’vebeen waiting for ages for you, you slow fuckers. Good game?”
“Ages.” Ryker stared at him. “Really.”
He glanced at his phone. “Yep. Six whole minutes.”
“The game was shit. We lost. Me and King both played…uh…” I glanced over at Ryker, who smirked at me.
“You can just say it. We played like shit. It was like it was our first time on the ice.”
“Aww, baby’s first hockey game.” Dan wiped away a fake tear. “Wish I’d been there to see it.”
“You really are such a dick,” I told him, and he nodded unrepentantly.
“I know. Hey, where’s Nova? I thought she was gonna be here.”
Ryker gestured towards the door. “Inside. One of our men was dropping her off here. We’ll see her after the meeting. You know my dad’s thoughts about her being involved in the business.”
“Yeah.” Dan frowned. He shifted on his feet, glancing between us. “Uh…right. So…we just go in there and tell them what happened yesterday?”
“And show them the evidence.” Ryker tapped the folder we’d compiled this morning. It held printouts from the clinic’s accounts, copies of the emails, and a couple of photos of the guy we’d captured. Ryker also had footage on his phone from last night, when he was interrogating the guy. I hadn’t seen it myself, but he planned to show it to his dad. I wasn’t sure if he’d been reluctant to share it with me because he thought I might judge him for the methods he’d used, but I’d never do that.
“Okay.” Dan blew out a heavy breath and squared his shoulders. “Fuck it. Let’s do this. Do you know if your dad’s here?”
I fished my phone from my pocket. The message I’d sent to Nova to tell her to stay safe and I’d see her tonight remained unanswered, but I’d received a text from my dad to say he was en route.
“Yeah, he texted me about ten minutes ago, so he should be here any minute.”
“Alright. Let’s do this,” Ryker said.
39
JAY
Guillotine Graham paced the smoking room, his expression hard. Coming to a sudden stop, he whirled around, jabbing his finger into Ryker’s chest. “These are incredibly serious allegations that undermine everything we’ve been working towards. Do you have proof that this involves the Volkovs?”
Ryker swallowed, his throat working, but he straightened his shoulders, meeting his father’s gaze dead on. “I interrogated him.”
“Proof,” Graham barked. “Your word is as good as useless without it.”
