Chapter Thirty-Two #2
I swallowed, pulling her into me even as she shook her head like she didn’t deserve the embrace. That only made me wrap her up tighter, and I sighed, kissing her hair before I rested my chin on the crown of her head and closed my eyes.
I needed a moment to steady myself. Everything inside me wanted to be desperately idiotic. I imagined myself flying to wherever the fuck he was right now and ending him. I’d do it with my bare hands. I’d watch the light leak out of his eyes and enjoy every fucking second of it.
I let that ravenous side of me exist for a moment, let myself feel that rage, and then I tucked it away. Rationality took over and I reminded myself that I had a better way to end him — one that wouldn’t cost me Ariana in the process.
“You are not to blame for this. Okay?” I tilted her chin with my knuckle, eyes fixed on hers. “I know you hate hearing this word, but you are a victim. He hurt you, but that’s going to stop. You’re going to take back power.”
“How?”
“I’m going to help.” I swallowed, realizing it was now or never.
What I was about to say would either make sense or it wouldn’t.
I either knew what I was talking about, or I was grossly misunderstanding and didn’t have a single leg to stand on.
“I think Nathan is involved in something illegal,” I dared to utter.
“Something involving gambling and manipulating the integrity of the game.”
The words sat between us for a beat, heavy and dangerous. Even as I’d said them aloud, doubt crept in at the edges of my certainty, whispering that I might be reaching, that I’d let my feelings cloud my judgment.
“I don’t want to scare you,” I went on carefully, my thumb still tracing slow, grounding circles against her skin. “And I don’t want to sound paranoid. Hell, there have been moments where I’ve wondered if that’s exactly what I am.” I let out a quiet breath. “But too many things don’t add up.”
Her brow furrowed, confusion flickering there, but she didn’t pull away. She leaned in instead, like she was bracing herself.
“I started noticing it with the guys,” I said.
“Players acting off in ways that didn’t track with injuries or fatigue.
Daddy P hasn’t been himself this season, as I know you know.
He got sick unexpectedly that one game and I thought — okay, that happens.
But then to have his injury flaring up so badly when it hasn’t been an issue, to have Ben as his backup being incredibly inconsistent… It just raised some red flags for me.
“And then I started paying attention. Fabian Lorenz was one of our most dependable defensemen, and suddenly, he’s unpredictable.
He’d shut down advances one week and miss easy clears the next.
James Hart, a rookie winger, shows up to a game wearing a fucking Rolex I know he can’t afford — not even if he spent every penny of his signing bonus.
“I watched how other staff members interacted with Nathan, how many off-script meetings were happening, how the conversation would stop whenever I entered the room.” I shook my head.
“There were games where medical decisions felt… influenced. Guys cleared too quickly. Others held out when they shouldn’t have been. ”
I hesitated, the words thick in my throat now. “And then there were the betting lines. They’d move in ways that didn’t reflect public money or analytics. It was like someone already knew how things were going to play out.”
Her breathing had changed, shallow and quick, and I could feel it where she was pressed against me.
“I heard things, too,” I admitted. “When I caught the end of those conversations that stopped when I walked into a room. There was a bookie’s name that came up more than once when it shouldn’t have.
And every time I tried to tell myself it was coincidence, something else happened.
Another roster decision that felt engineered.
Another game where the integrity just didn’t sit right. ”
I scrubbed a hand over my jaw, frustration curling tight in my chest.
“I know how insane this sounds,” I said, noting how Ariana was staring at me like I had more than a few screws loose. “Accusing a GM of manipulating outcomes is not something you do lightly, and I kept telling myself I needed more than instincts. That I needed proof.”
“It’s not crazy,” she interrupted, shaking her head. “I’ve seen things, too.”
Hope prickled at the back of my neck like the touch of a ghost, and we both sat up straighter, her hands holding fast to mine as I clung to the words tumbling from her now.
“Shane, I didn’t understand the signs before, but—” She swallowed.
“He has a second phone, too. A burner just like how you set me up with one tonight. I found it in his bag once and he brushed it off like it was nothing. He said he liked to keep some business separate so he wasn’t bothered with unimportant things when he was off the clock. ”
My pulse spiked.
“As I already told you, I don’t have access to our money.
But sometimes I’m sitting next to him when he’s on his phone, and I’ve caught glimpses of him in his banking app.
” She swallowed. “Recently, I noted that it wasn’t the same bank we use for everything else.
I thought maybe he’d changed banks without telling me or…
I don’t know, that he had opened an account with someone’s bank because he wanted them to donate to the team or something. ”
My chest went tight.
“I also saw deposits there. Big ones. Numbers that made my stomach drop. I asked him about it once, and he brushed it off like it was nothing, like I’d misunderstood what I was seeing.
He told me it was bonuses, or money moving between accounts that didn’t really belong to us.
” Her eyes lifted to mine, wide now. “I stopped asking because every time I did, he made me feel stupid for noticing. But it didn’t feel right. It never felt right.”
She shook her head slowly, eyes flicking back and forth like she was trying to search for more clues that she’d brushed off.
“And just like you, there have been times I’ve walked into a room when he’s on the phone and he’ll take one look at me and end the call abruptly.
There are emails, too — he closes them the second he’s not alone.
I thought it was just normal work, but…” Her grip tightened on me.
“I heard him fighting with someone once. I didn’t know who it was, but he kept saying something about odds being wrong and money being lost.”
Each word landed like confirmation, like the final pieces clicking into place.
I drew her closer, my arm firm around her back, my other hand sliding up to cradle her neck as I leaned my forehead against hers. “You’re not imagining this,” I said quietly. “And neither am I.”
Her voice dropped to a whisper. “What does that mean?”
“It means we’re taking him down,” I said, the resolve settling fully into place now.
“Shane…” Her fingers flexed against my chest, fear threading through her voice.
“Together,” I said gently but without wavering.
“How? Where do we even begin?” She swallowed, shaking her head. “Fuck, this scares me, too. It feels big.”
“That’s because it is,” I said quietly. “If what we suspect is true, then this is federal-level, career-ending, freedom-ending shit.” I exhaled, scrubbing a hand over my face.
“I already filed an anonymous report with the league’s integrity office.
It buys us time. It puts eyes on him. And once that happens, he won’t be watching you anymore — because he’ll be too busy watching his own back. ”
Her breath hitched.
“You mean…” she started, then stopped, like she was afraid to finish the thought.
“I mean that if this goes where I think it’s going, Nathan won’t have power over you,” I said.
“Not your schedule. Not your money. Not your fear. If we can work together to gather what we need to solidify proof, he’ll be under investigation.
Everything he’s built to control you will start collapsing in on itself. ”
She stared at me, something fragile and luminous breaking through her expression. I recognized it as the same emotion that had wrecked me since she’d come back into my life.
Hope, tentative and stunned yet indestructible.
“So… there’s a way out,” she whispered. “A real one. One where you don’t lose your job. One where he can’t hurt either of us.”
“There is,” I said, my voice steady even as my chest burned.
Then her brow furrowed again, reality crashing back in. “But that doesn’t fix everything. The prenup. Georgie. The money. I signed things, Shane. I don’t have access to anything, and I don’t know how long it would take to untangle all of it.”
“We’ll handle that, too,” I said without hesitation. “Together.”
She shook her head faintly. “You can’t be responsible for—”
“I’m not trying to save you,” I interrupted gently, forcing her to meet my eyes.
“But fuck, Ari. I love you. I always have.” The admission scraped out of me, rough and unavoidable.
“I loved you when we were kids. I loved you from afar. I loved you when you rightfully walked away from me in Boston on that cold winter night, and I loved you when you walked back into my life this year. It doesn’t matter that you’re married.
It doesn’t matter that there’s a risk here for both of us.
I love you, and that’s just the way it is. ”
Each word from my lips had her fingers curling more and more in my shirt, a smile spreading on her lips even as tears slipped from her eyes.
“And I’m not trying to become another man who runs your life. I know you need this to be yours.” I swallowed, the words tightening in my throat. “But if you let me… I’ll stand with you. I’ll make sure you and Georgie are okay while you figure out your next step. And his. For as long as it takes.”
Her lips trembled.
“You don’t owe me anything,” I went on. “This isn’t a transaction. This is me choosing you.”
“And Georgie?”
“And Georgie, too. I won’t disappear again. Not when things get hard. Not when it’s inconvenient. Not when staying costs me something. I left because I thought it was best for both of us, mostly for you, but I was wrong. I know it now.”
She pressed her forehead to my chest, her hands clutching my shirt like she needed proof I was real.
“Let me stay this time,” I murmured into her hair. “Let me prove to you that I’m not walking away again.”
Her breath shuddered as she finally nodded, and when she looked up at me, the fear was still there — but it was no longer alone.
For the first time, it was standing beside hope.
“Kiss me,” she whispered, fingers digging into my shirt and pulling me closer.
“Please, Shane. Kiss me. I can’t think about anything else.
I just… want you. Your touch. Your warmth.
Your voice. Everything about you. Let me be with you, even if just for tonight.
We can live in reality tomorrow. We can fight and…
God, I don’t know, put everything on the line to try to find our way out of this.
But tonight, please, just… hold me. Kiss me.
” She wet her lips, the next words even softer. “Touch me.”
My hands were in her hair without hesitation, threading through silk and skin as I pulled her into me and covered her mouth with mine.
The kiss was slow for exactly half a second before it wasn’t, before weeks of restraint and years of history collapsed between us.
She made a soft, wrecked sound against my lips, and it went straight to my spine.
I shifted, guiding her onto my lap, her knees bracketing my thighs as she melted into me like she’d been built to fit there. Her hands slid up my chest, her body pressing closer as I kissed her again, deeper this time, slower and more deliberate.
“It’s not just tonight,” I breathed against her mouth, her forehead resting against mine as our breaths tangled. “It’s me and you again, Ari. It’s always been us.”
Her eyes shone as she nodded, her hands fisting in my shirt like she was anchoring herself to the truth of it. “It’s always been us,” she echoed.
The music still played softly behind us, The Fray humming through the room, but the world had narrowed to the space between our bodies and the choice we were making.
It was reckless.
It was forbidden.
It was everything I’d spent years convincing myself I could live without, only to have the brittleness of that lie break the moment I saw her again.
Years, I’d yearned to touch her. Decades, I’d longed for one more night, one more chance.
And here it was.
I kissed her again, slow and unhurried this time, like I had all the time in the world, like I wouldn’t have to somehow sneak her back home tonight and stomach the fact that she had to stay put in that house with that piece of shit man — at least for now, until our plan played out.
For a moment of blissful ignorance, I pretended like everything was already okay, that we didn’t have anything to lose.
And I knew, without a shred of doubt, that neither of us was turning back now.