Page 68

That should've reassured me.

It did, a little.

It simply wasn't enough to silence fifteen years of fear.

“I don't know what the hell I'm doing with him.”

Ignatius gave me a faint smile. “That's probably the first sensible thing you've said tonight.”

“I'm beginning to understand why Keegan never invites you to team events.”

“He invites me.”

“Then I'm beginning to question Keegan's judgment.”

His mouth curved, but before I could push him any further, the sound of Doryu's typing stopped, and both of us turned. Something about the sudden silence pulled Keegan and Phoenix from the kitchen as well.

Doryu stared at the laptop for several seconds before looking up. “I found something.”

Whatever Ignatius had been about to tell me disappeared beneath a fresh surge of anxiety.

I was out of the chair almost before Doryu turned the screen around.

He explained what he'd been tracing. Ash's father had financial problems, gambling, drinking, drugs—not enough on their own to explain the phone call, but enough that Doryu had started looking at regular sources of money associated with him.

Then he showed me the pattern.

The same amount appeared again and again at roughly the same interval, stretching far enough back that I stopped thinking about a recent argument and started feeling sick.

“Those are payments?”

Doryu confirmed they were, and when I asked where they'd come from, his expression told me the answer before he gave it.

Ash.

I leaned closer, following the dates even though I didn't need to understand every line to see what they meant.

This hadn't started with me.

It hadn't started this season.

Whatever Ash was frightened of had been controlling him for years.

Doryu was still tracing the transactions and wouldn't give me a precise timeframe until he was certain, but there were enough of them to make one thing obvious.

This wasn't new.

My anger arrived so quickly it almost felt clean.

For years, Ash's father had apparently been taking money from him, and Ash had been carrying whatever threat kept those payments coming without telling anyone. Then the bastard had noticed me, realized Ash cared, and changed the rules.

That was why Ash had pulled away.

The realization should've made the day hurt less. He hadn't changed his mind about me, woken up regretting Vegas, or decided whatever had started between us was a mistake.

He was scared.

And he'd decided protecting me meant dealing with it alone.