Chapter 19
The hotel room is dark except for the faint glow of my laptop screen, and the city lights flickering just beyond the window. It’s well past midnight, and the world outside is winding down, but I’m still wide awake, my fingers flying over keys, with tabs on my browser multiplying like rabbits.
Kai Morrison’s name is everywhere as usual. Headlines, old articles, gossip blurbs. Half of it is just noise––women linked to him, speculation about his temper, and photos taken out of context. But buried under all that glitter and smoke is something far uglier.
A coroner’s detailed report on his mother’s overdose.
I stare at the words for too long, my stomach turning. She died in his apartment. No charges were filed, but the photos, God, the photos were leaked to the press not long after. I remember the media storm vaguely, from years ago. They made it look like a scandal, not the tragedy that it is.
I dig deeper, tracing payment histories tied to those leaks. It starts to form a pattern. Small, steady payouts over several years, each one coinciding with a conveniently timed tabloid story. Anonymous tipsters, always routed through the same shell accounts.
Someone close to him has been feeding stories the wolves that are out to get him.
I rub my temple, trying to quiet the noise in my head. This isn’t what Marcus wants. He wants scandal, something flashy and mildly damaging. But this? This is a wound. A raw, festering wound someone keeps tearing open for money.
My chest tightens, not with triumph, but with anger. I feel anger for him.
And that’s the part that scares me, because I shouldn’t care this much. I’m supposed to be the observer, the reporter. I’m supposed to disassociate and be detached. But somewhere between the ice and the hotel walls and the feel of his hands on me, I’ve crossed that invisible line.
I close one of the tabs, and then another, but the damage is already done. I know too much now. And the worst part, I want to protect him from it.
The cursor blinks at me, like it’s waiting. My coffee’s gone cold, my shoulders ache, but I keep digging. I can’t stop now.
The payments I flagged earlier weren’t just random tips. The same account keeps surfacing, feeding multiple gossip sites over the years, and the timeline is always around key moments in Kai’s career. Big wins, injuries, personal losses. Every time he’s vulnerable, something ugly gets leaked.
I pull phone records next, the ones tied to a handful of names I’ve seen in the old press releases and team announcements. And there it is. A string of calls, always from the same unlisted number, always connecting to the same two tabloid editors.
My breath catches as I realize that this isn’t some opportunistic stranger. This is someone with access. Someone who knows when and exactly where to strike.
The realization hits with the force of a body slamming a wall. Kai’s been stalked from the inside. Every scandal, every photo, every humiliating headline was fed by a ghost hiding in plain sight.
I scroll through the timeline again, piecing together the pieces of the betrayal.
It started small, and seemingly harmless.
A blurry photo of him leaving a club, then a story about a heated argument at practice.
But then the leaks sharpened. There’s the bar fight.
His mother’s overdose. Details no outsider could possibly know unless they were close. I’d say too close.
A sour taste fills my mouth. Because while I’m here, unraveling the threads of his private life, I’m part of the same machine. I may not have sold his secrets, but I’ve circled his walls, pressed against his defenses, taken information that wasn’t freely offered.
I lean back in the chair, rubbing the bridge of my nose. My editor would salivate over this. Marcus would package it, spin it, weaponize it. I can already hear his voice saying, “This is gold, Winters. Don’t overthink it.”
But it’s not gold. It’s blood and destruction of a career.
I think of Kai, his guarded looks, the sharp edges he wears like armor, the rare flashes of something real beneath it. I think of how he makes love, that look in his eyes when I make him come.
And now I know why he has those walls up, why he doesn’t trust anyone so easily. Someone has been profiting off his pain for years.
The stakes shift in that instant. This isn’t about a headline anymore. This is about who’s been pulling his strings, and how far they’re willing to go.
Kai walks out of the hotel room’s shower. The room feels too quiet when he opens the door, like the air itself is holding back from breathing.
I don’t waste time. “How long has this been happening?”
His brow furrows. “What?”
I step past him, my laptop under my arm, and my heart hammering in my chest. “The leaks. The payments. Someone’s been feeding the tabloids ugly stories about for years, Kai. Every low point in your life, there’s a trail.”
For a second, he just stares at me. Then his jaw tightens, and I see it, the flicker of recognition, of something he’s buried deep.
“Who told you that?” he asks, voice low.
“No one told me anything. I found it. I followed the records of money sent to a certain account. I traced the calls.”
He exhales, a sound closer to a growl than a sigh, and sinks onto the edge of the bed, rubbing the back of his neck.
“I thought I was paranoid,” he mutters. “After my mom died… I got these anonymous messages. They had photos of her, in my apartment. They said if I didn’t play nice, they’d make it worse.
That if I tried to find out who they were, more would come out. ”
My stomach twists. “You never told anyone?”
“Who was I going to tell?” He looks up, eyes sharp now. “The league? The cops? They don’t care unless it’s a headline. And that’s the point, isn’t it? Keep me chasing shadows while they get paid.”
I sit across from him, the glow of my laptop casting a dim light between us. “This isn’t just bad luck, Kai. It’s systematic. Someone close to you is making a living off your pain.”
His hands ball into fists. For a heartbeat, I think he’s going to throw something, but he doesn’t. He just stares past me, jaw working, fuming in silence.
“Why are you showing me this?” he finally asks.
“Because you deserve to know,” I whisper. “And because I can’t keep pretending I’m just here for a story.”
Something in his expression softens then, barely, but it’s enough. The walls aren’t down yet, but they’ve cracked open.
Kai doesn’t answer right away. He leans forward, elbows on his knees, as he stares at the floor like it might give him something solid to hold onto.
I should leave it there. I should take my laptop, my findings, and write the piece that I get paid to write. That’s what I came here to do.
Instead, I find myself saying, “You didn’t deserve that. Any of it.”
He looks up, with a slow, skeptical glance. “Deserve doesn’t matter. They got what they wanted… to control my reputation.”
Something twists in my chest. I think of the way he carries himself in front of cameras, the controlled arrogance, the smirk he wears like armor. I’ve spent weeks trying to break it, to expose it. Now I see the cost of him keeping it up.
“This isn’t about clicks anymore,” I hear myself say, my voice a little softer. “Whoever’s doing this… they’re not just after headlines. They’re bleeding you, Kai.”
His jaw ticks. “So what? You’re going to save me?”
I lean in. “No. But I can help stop this. I know how these people work. I know where to dig, how to trace a ghost that doesn’t want to be found.”
His eyes narrow but it’s not in suspicion, but in something close to relief that he’s not ready to admit.
I place my laptop on the coffee table, the list of payments still glowing faintly on the screen. “I’ll find out who’s doing this to you,” I promise. “Not for a story or to fulfill my job demands. I’ll do it for you.”
The words sound strange, too intimate and too personal for a man who was supposed to be the subject of my stories, not one whose secret I want to protect.
But the line between those two roles feels thinner than a thread now.
Kai leans back, watching me with a gaze that’s unreadable but no longer cold. “You know if you dig too deep, you’re going to become part of it, right? Once you’re in, you’re in.”
I nod. “Then I’m in.”
A moment of silence stretches between us. It’s not tense or uncomfortable. It’s just charged with something new that’s not the usual flirtation or sharp banter. It’s just something else.
He exhales through his nose, almost a laugh but not quite. “You’re out of your mind.”
“Maybe,” I say, packing up my laptop, “but someone has to be.”
And for the first time since I started this assignment, I’m not thinking about what this will mean for my career. I’m thinking about how to protect Kai Morrison, even if it burns me in the process.