Chapter Sixteen Mason Reed
The Door Clicked Like a Starting Gun
Mason Reed had heard thousands of sounds on ice, skates carving hard, sticks cracking clean, crowds rising before the puck crossed the line, but the click of Harbour Ice Centre’s staff-only door opening behind Billie Hartley hit him harder than any arena roar ever had.
Because Billie went still.
Not scared.
That would have been easier.
Billie looked like someone had handed her the exact thing she had been preparing for and the exact thing she had prayed would not happen.
Her keys were in her hand.
Her chin lifted.
Her body angled slightly toward the door, as if she might put herself between Ryan Vale and the entire building through sheer force of will.
Absolutely not.
Mason moved.
Not in front of her.
Not over her.
Beside her.
That mattered.
He had learned that much.
The staff-only door swung wider.
For half a second, nobody appeared.
The lobby held its breath.
Then a teenage rink volunteer stepped through carrying a crate of folded event wristbands and wearing the stunned expression of a person who had accidentally walked into a hostage scene.
“Um,” the kid said. “Hi?”
The whole lobby exhaled badly.
Nate bent at the waist. “I aged.”
Coach Alby snapped, “Why are you coming through that door?”
The volunteer blinked. “Evie told me to get wristbands from storage.”
Evie, behind the counter, pointed at herself. “I said front storage.”
“You said the storage by the staff door.”
“The front storage by the staff door.”
“There are many staff doors.”
Billie closed her eyes.
Mason’s heart was still hammering.
False alarm.
Except not.
Because Billie’s phone remained lit in her hand.
Tell the Ice Queen I’m already inside.
The text sat there like poison.
Gabe Mercer stepped up behind Mason, face drained of polish. “What is going on?”
“No one moves alone,” Billie said.
Her voice was calm.
Too calm.
“Harper, lock the front doors.”
Harper moved immediately.
“Theo, Alby, check the public bathrooms and lobby corners. Do not confront if you see Ryan. Just call it out.”
Theo nodded once.
Alby’s face darkened. “If I see him, I’m confronting.”
“Alby,” Billie said.
He grimaced. “Fine. Professional call-out first.”
“Nate, take Max and the volunteer to the skate room with Evie. Stay there.”
Nate opened his mouth.
Billie cut him off. “This is not a joke moment.”
His face changed.
“Got it.”
He ushered Max, the volunteer, and Evie toward the skate room. Evie looked furious but obeyed, which told Mason more than the order itself.
“Sophie,” Billie said, “physio room door locked?”
Sophie had already moved. “Checking now.”
“Mark, call security. Tell them we need someone now, not Friday.”
Mark was on the phone before she finished.
Gabe looked at Mason. “Mase.”
Mason did not look away from Billie. “Not now.”
“This is exactly what I’m talking about.”
Mason’s head snapped toward him.
Wrong sentence.
Very wrong sentence.
Gabe seemed to realise it half a second too late.
Mason’s voice went cold. “A man is threatening people in this building. If your first instinct is to use it as evidence in your career argument, step outside.”
Gabe’s jaw tightened.
Then he looked around the lobby. At Harper locking the doors. At Billie standing with keys in one hand and phone in the other. At Sophie checking the corridor. At a rink full of people who had gone from chaos to emergency formation in under ten seconds.
Something in his face shifted.
He put his suitcase down. “What do you need?”
Billie looked at him.
So did Mason.
Gabe lifted both hands. “I mean that literally.”
Billie assessed him in one terrifying glance. “Stay by the front entrance with Mark. If anyone arrives, they wait outside until we clear the building. Do not improvise.”
Gabe nodded. “Understood.”
Mason almost smiled.
Billie could turn even agents into staff.
“Harper,” Billie called, “screenshots to Mark and Graham. Then call police non-emergency unless Ryan appears, then emergency.”
Harper nodded, phone at her ear.
Mason looked at Billie. “Where do you want me?”
Her eyes found his.
For one fraction of a second, she was not the Ice Queen, not the operations manager, not the person holding the building together with command tone and keys.
She was Billie.
And she was worried.
“Near me,” she said.
Two words.
Quiet.
Not romantic.
Not public.
Everything.
Mason nodded. “Done.”
They moved together toward the staff corridor.
The fluorescent lights hummed overhead. The corridor ran past the admin office, the small break room, storage, the archive hall, and the back emergency exit.
It looked ordinary. Worn paint. Rubber mats.
A recycling bin that should have been emptied yesterday.
A poster reminding staff to report spills immediately.
Now every doorway felt like a possibility.
Billie kept her phone in one hand, keys threaded through her fingers.
Mason noticed the keys and hated that she had instinctively made them into a weapon.
“No hero moves,” she said without looking at him.
He huffed once. “You stole my line.”
“I mean it. Your knee is taped and your agent is here to haul you back to the continent of sensible decisions.”
“I’m staying beside you.”
“Beside is not in front.”
“I know.”
She glanced at him.
He did not smile.
He meant it.
Her gaze softened for half a second, then snapped forward.
They checked the break room first.
Empty.
Admin office.
Empty.
Storage closet.
Full of paper towels, cleaning supplies, and one kangaroo costume tail hanging from a hook like a warning from Australian mythology.
Mason stared at it.
Billie muttered, “Of course.”
He almost laughed.
The phone buzzed in Billie’s hand.
She stopped.
Mason leaned only after she angled the screen toward him.
UNKNOWN: Nice formation. Always did like watching you organise everyone.
Mason went cold.
“He can see us,” he said.
Billie looked up sharply.
The corridor camera.
No, the public corridor camera was near the corner. If Ryan had access to security feed, that was worse. If he was physically watching, worse in a different way.
Billie’s eyes moved along the ceiling, the doorways, the reflective glass of the office window.
Then she typed.
BILLIE: Police are being contacted. Leave now.
The reply came fast.
UNKNOWN: Still pretending you’re the victim?
Mason’s hands curled.
Billie said, “Breathe.”
He looked at her.
She did not look away from the screen.
“How are you telling me to breathe right now?”
“Because I need you useful.”
“I am.”
“You’re murdery.”
“Useful adjacent.”
“Mason.”
He inhaled through his nose.
Exhaled.
Her thumb moved.
BILLIE: You are not welcome here. Do not contact staff. Do not enter the building. Do not attend Friday.
UNKNOWN: You don’t own the rink.
Billie’s face changed.
Not much.
Enough.
Mason knew the sentence had struck somewhere old.
Maybe because Billie’s father had built half this place with favours and second-hand parts.
Maybe because Ryan had once thought Graham’s money gave him more right to the building than the woman keeping it alive.
Maybe because men like Ryan loved telling women they did not own the places they held together.
Billie’s voice went flat. “Archive.”
She walked faster.
Mason kept pace.
They reached the archive corridor.
The cupboard door was open.
Mason’s stomach dropped.
Billie had closed it earlier.
She had.
He remembered.
The archive cupboard gaped darkly, boxes visible inside. On the floor sat a single framed photo Mason had not seen before.
Billie stopped.
He stopped beside her.
The photo showed Harbour Ice Centre years ago. Younger Billie with her father and a group of junior skaters. Tom Hartley held a cardboard sign that read FIRST GIRLS SKATE DAY.
The glass had been cracked.
Across the photo, in black marker, someone had written:
STILL PERFORMING.
Mason saw red.
Not figuratively.
The corridor narrowed. The air thickened. His knee disappeared from his awareness. The only thing he could see was the cracked glass, the old photo, Billie’s face gone white around the mouth.
Then Billie crouched.
Carefully.
Not touching the glass with bare hands.
Still thinking.
Still controlling.
Still doing the work.
That snapped him back.
He crouched beside her, slower, because his knee was suddenly very real again.
“Don’t touch,” she said.
“I won’t.”
Her hand hovered above the frame.
“That was Dad’s first girls’ program,” she said, voice barely audible. “He started it after a mum asked if hockey was only for boys here.”
Mason’s chest hurt.
Billie’s phone buzzed again.
UNKNOWN: Some memories look better broken.
The sound that came out of Mason was low and ugly.
Billie turned her head.
“Mason.”
He was on his feet before she finished his name.
Not toward the exit.
Toward the deeper corridor.
He had heard something.
A scrape.
Soft.
Ahead, beyond the storage room.
Billie rose too. “No.”
He held up one hand, listening.
There.
A door easing shut.
Back emergency exit.
“Mason,” Billie said again, sharper.
He looked at her. “Call it out.”
Then he moved.
Not running.
Fast walking.
As controlled as adrenaline allowed.
The back emergency exit sat at the end of the corridor near the loading bay. The metal door was closing, slow and heavy.
Mason reached it just as it latched.
He shoved it open.
The loading area outside blazed with late Sydney light. Heat hit him hard after the corridor cold.
For half a second, he saw a man at the far side of the service lane.
Dark hoodie. Cap. Moving quickly toward the car park cut-through.
“Ryan!” Billie shouted behind Mason.
The man turned.
Just enough.
Mason saw his face.
Ryan Vale was younger than he expected. Early thirties maybe. Good-looking in a soft, entitled way that had probably worked on people who mistook confidence for worth. His smile flashed when he saw Billie.
Not fear.
Satisfaction.
That was the part that broke Mason’s restraint.
He stepped forward.
Pain shot through his knee.
Bright.
Hard.
Enough to buckle the leg.
Billie’s hand caught his arm before he fell.
“Stop,” she snapped.
Ryan laughed from across the lane.
The sound hit the wall and bounced back.