Chapter 37
Ryan POV
My boot struck the center seam of the double mahogany doors with enough violent momentum to shear the brass latch clean out of the frame.
The heavy wood slabs flew open, slamming against the interior molding of the President's Executive Boardroom with a concussive bang that shook the plaster ceiling.
Inside, six people sat around a thirty-foot polished table beneath the glare of crystal chandeliers.
Athletic Director Hayes, Dean Henderson of Academic Affairs, two senior university attorneys in tailored charcoal suits, and seated near the head of the table, calmly sipping black coffee from a porcelain cup, was Arthur Vance.
The room went dead silent.
I hadn't shaved in eight days. My dark hair was unwashed, plastered to my forehead with the freezing drizzle from outside, my heavy black wool coat hanging open over a stained grey thermal shirt.
My eyes were bloodshot, the skin along my cheekbones hollowed out into grey shadows, but my pulse beat with a slow, terrifying, unblinking clarity.
I crossed the Persian rug in four heavy, grounded strides.
I reached inside my coat, hauled Knox’s black laptop out, and slammed the heavy machine onto the polished mahogany with a concussive crack that rattled the crystal water carafes.
Behind the laptop, I threw down an evidence packet: a silver thumb drive, three certified affidavits from the state police cybercrimes unit, and thirty pages of forensic network logs.
"Sit down, Arthur," I said.
My voice didn't rise. It was a subterranean, gravelly scrape that sounded like iron dragging through gravel, stripped of every trace of human mercy.
Arthur Vance froze, his coffee cup pausing an inch above the saucer, his face turning an ugly, mottled grey as he recognized the silver USB drive on the blotter.
"Ryan, what is the meaning of this intrusion?" AD Hayes began, rising from his leather chair with his hands out. "This is a closed executive session—"
I hit the spacebar on the laptop.
The quiet of the boardroom was severed by the high-definition audio recording captured by the Science Library's ceiling microphones on Friday morning:
You resign your position as Technical Director effective immediately... leave him alone, disappear before tomorrow morning, and this file stays in my safe.
The voice was unmistakably Arthur Vance’s.
I clicked the trackpad, bringing up the second split screen.
The network forensic logs from the university IT directorate flashed across the monitor in bright crimson lines, displaying the Boston IP address registered to Vance Capital Partners and the digital fingerprint showing Julian Vance physically copying Nylah's credentials from an unlocked lab terminal during the Winter Gala.
"The file was a forgery," I rasped, leaning over the mahogany table until my massive shadow swallowed Arthur Vance’s face. "Your son stole her login. You manufactured the compliance memo, and you paid my father five thousand dollars to deliver it to my chest."
* * *
The two university attorneys stood up in unison, their faces drained of every drop of blood.
"Turn that off, Ryan," the lead counsel said, his voice shaking. "Shut the laptop right now."
I didn't touch the screen.
I planted my scarred, bruised knuckles flat against the polished wood, looming over the center of the table, my chest expanding with a slow, heavy breath that felt like ice water in my veins.
"The state police cybercrimes unit has the mirror of this drive," I rumbled, every word dropping like lead onto the glass carafes. "So does the state attorney general's office. You have fifteen minutes before the official press release hits the Boston media wire."
AD Hayes's hands were shaking violently as he skimmed the network forensic printouts. He looked up at me, his eyes wide with raw, institutional panic.
"Ryan, you don't know what you're doing," the AD said, his voice dropping to a desperate, hurried whisper.
"If this goes public, the NCAA vacates our regional championship.
The program faces a multi-year postseason ban.
And your draft stock... general managers will red-flag your name for locker-room volatility.
You will lose millions in your rookie signing bonus. "
A cold, dead smirk pulled at the corner of my mouth.
"I don't give a damn about the championship," I rasped, the words vibrating with a lethal, terrifying certainty that knocked the air straight out of the room.
"I don't give a damn about the trophy, the signing bonus, or the draft.
You can strip my jersey off the arena wall, tear up my contract, and erase every goal I ever scored for this school. "
I took a step toward Arthur Vance.
The billionaire shrank back into his leather chair, clutching his armrests as if he were staring at an unchained animal.
"Here is what happens right now," I growled, pointing a scarred finger at Dean Henderson.
"You draft an official executive decree exonerating Nylah Collins of every single administrative allegation.
You send a formal, signed retraction directly to the United States Olympic Committee in Colorado Springs, taking full institutional responsibility for the security breach. "
I leaned down until my rough stubble was three inches from Arthur Vance’s sweating face.
"And then you hand this piece of trash to the detectives waiting in the lobby."
The heavy oak doors clicked open behind me.
Two uniformed state troopers and the campus chief of police stepped into the boardroom, their leather duty belts creaking in the silence.
"Arthur Vance?" the lead trooper said, unclipping a pair of steel handcuffs. "You're under arrest for felony extortion, wire fraud, and criminal conspiracy."
Arthur Vance’s porcelain cup slipped from his fingers, shattering against the mahogany in a dark spray of coffee.
Dean Henderson reached for his fountain pen with trembling hands, signing the executive exoneration order before the troopers could even finish reading Vance his rights.
* * *
The freezing drizzle coated the granite steps of the administrative tower in treacherous grey slush.
I shoved through the heavy exterior glass doors into the biting wind, my black coat billowing around my thighs.
Thirty yards down the lower landing, walking toward the varsity fieldhouse with a heavy medical kit in her hand, was Tess Alvarez.
I cleared the granite steps in four strides, my boots sliding across the icy stone.
"Tess."
Tess spun around. Her dark eyes hit my face with a look of pure, unvarnished hatred, her knuckles tightening around the handle of her medical kit as she squared her shoulders.
"Get away from me, Owen," she snapped, her voice shaking with rage. "If you take another step toward me, I’ll scream for the campus police."
I didn't square my shoulders.
I didn't use my size to crowd her space.
I stopped three feet from her boots.
My chin dropped to my chest. My massive, scarred hands hung limp and open at my sides, my limbs shaking with a raw, broken agony that stole every drop of air from my lungs.
"Tell me where she is, Tess."
The words tore out of my throat—a rough, cracked whisper that stripped away every shred of the captain's armor I had ever worn.
Tess froze. Her mouth parted slightly as she took in the bloodshot ruin of my eyes, the hollow, grey skin along my cheekbones, the absolute devastation carved into my face.
"I know what Vance did," I whispered, my chest heaving beneath my coat. "I know she was innocent. I had Arthur Vance arrested ten minutes ago. Her record is clean. The Olympic committee has the retraction."
A single, scalding tear broke from my lash line, tracking hot and silent down through the thick stubble on my jawline.
"I'm not going there to make excuses," I begged, looking into Tess’s eyes with raw, bleeding surrender. "I'm not going to ask her to forgive me. I just need to crawl at her feet. Please, Tess. Tell me where she went."
Tess stared at me in the freezing rain, her jaw trembling, the fierce hostility in her eyes slowly giving way to stunned, sorrowful disbelief.
She reached into the pocket of her green Carhartt parka.
She pulled out a folded slip of yellow legal paper and shoved it hard against my sternum.
"Her grandmother's cottage," Tess whispered, her voice tight and shaking with emotion. "Cape Breton coast. In Nova Scotia. She's alone, Ryan. If you break her again, I swear to God I will kill you myself."
I didn't say thank you. I didn't look back.
I turned on my heel, sprinted across the slick asphalt to my truck, and wrenched the driver’s side door open.
I threw the transmission into gear, the heavy diesel engine roaring to life as the tires screamed against the frozen slush, rocketing out of the campus lot onto the northbound highway.
Eight hundred miles of black ice lay between me and the woman I had destroyed.
My knuckles turned bone-white around the steering wheel as the speedometer climbed into the dark, my whole soul screaming her name into the storm.