CHAPTER 5 #2
“Then he had access to Evan’s medical file.”
“And he knows whether the clearance was real.”
They looked at each other as the shape of the conspiracy shifted.
Gerard had not merely carried evidence.
He had been part of what happened.
Alex reached for his phone.
Olivia caught his wrist.
He stopped.
The contact surprised them both.
His skin was hot beneath her fingers. A pulse beat steadily against her palm.
“Do not arrange another private meeting and beat the answer out of him,” she said.
“You have an alternative?”
“Yes. We follow the money and make him believe Parker intends to sacrifice him.”
Alex looked at her hand on his wrist.
Olivia released him.
“Manipulation,” he said. “I thought you preferred negotiation.”
“I prefer results that do not leave blood on my dress.”
His mouth curved slightly.
It was not the tunnel smile. This one warmed something low in her stomach.
She turned back to the computer before he could notice.
Too late.
“I remember your tea,” he said.
The change of subject made her look up. “What?”
“This morning. You asked how.”
“I remember asking.”
“You ordered the same thing after every home game. Black tea, one spoon of honey, lemon only when you had been shouting.”
“That was three years ago.”
“I know.”
The simplicity of the answer unsettled her more than a declaration would have.
“What else do you remember?”
His gaze held hers.
“Too much.”
The practice rink beyond the glass filled with the scrape of blades. Inside the room, neither of them moved.
Alex reached toward her hand, then stopped before touching it.
The hesitation mattered.
Olivia closed the distance herself, resting her fingertips briefly against the tape around his knuckles.
“Does it hurt?” she asked.
“No.”
“Liar.”
His eyes darkened, not with anger.
The door opened.
Luke entered carrying takeout containers. Ben followed, looked between them, and immediately turned around.
“No,” Olivia said. “Come back.”
Ben returned with a grin he did not bother hiding.
They ate around the conference table while Alex and Ben argued about whether noodles qualified as recovery nutrition.
Daniel wandered in, stole half of Luke’s lunch, and left before Luke decided whether murder was worth the paperwork.
Adam appeared long enough to announce that the kindergarten teacher had accepted the tickets.
For an hour, danger receded.
Olivia watched Alex with his team and saw the hidden architecture of his loyalty.
He gave Daniel the easier chair because of a bruised hip.
He moved a spicy dish away from Noah without asking because Noah hated it.
He cut Ben’s food one-handed when the bandage made it difficult, pretending not to notice Ben’s embarrassed silence.
Small acts. No audience.
The kind of tenderness a man could deny because he never named it.
After lunch, Olivia and Ben moved to a private records room while the players returned to the ice for special-teams practice. The room had no windows and one camera Noah had personally isolated from the arena network.
Ben spread printed transactions across the floor. “The two-hundred-thousand-dollar payment to Evan’s family is listed as compassionate support. The five hundred thousand to Richard is consulting.”
“Consulting on what?” Olivia asked.
“Risk management.”
She gave him a look.
“Apparently the risk was accountability.”
Ben’s humor carried the same dry edge as Alex’s, though he used it more generously. He was younger by seven years and leaner, with none of Alex’s intimidating size, but the resemblance appeared whenever he concentrated.
“Why public policy?” she asked while scanning the transfers.
“Because systems decide who gets hurt and then call the result inevitable.”
The answer sounded lived rather than learned.
“Alex paid for school?”
“Alex pays for everything he can reach.” Ben marked a transaction. “Tuition, rent, health insurance, the therapist he pretends not to know about.”
“Do you resent it?”
“I resent that every gift comes with a perimeter.”
Olivia understood too well.
“He told me about your father,” she said.
Ben’s pen stopped.
“How much?”
“The bottle. The broken wrist.”
“That was one night.”
“There were others.”
Ben sat back against a filing cabinet. “Alex thinks the worst thing our father did was hit us. It wasn’t. The worst thing was making us predict which version would come through the door. Nice enough to promise a game, drunk enough to forget, angry enough to blame us for believing him.”
“And Alex became predictable instead.”
“Exactly. He may control your entire life, but at least you know what he will do.”
The insight hurt because it made Alex’s behavior understandable without making it acceptable.
Ben picked up Evan’s record. “He was my age when he died.”
“Do you remember him?”
“A little. He gave me a puck at camp. Alex hated him because Evan teased me about sleeping in the stands.”
“Alex said he barely remembered.”
“Memory around that time is complicated for him.”
“Why?”
Ben looked toward the door. “Our father found us after Alex signed his development contract. He demanded money. Alex refused. Two weeks later Dad attacked him outside the old rink.”
“The scar?”
“One of them. Alex played through a concussion because missing camp meant losing the contract. Evan was there. He helped me get Alex to a trainer.”
Olivia’s understanding of the photograph shifted again. Evan had not been a faceless player Alex hit. He had helped them.
“Why would Alex forget that?”
“Because he remembers pain by function. What did he need to do next? Who needed protection? Details disappear.”
The door opened and Luke entered with a tablet.
“Noah traced the RP Consulting transfer,” he said. “Money moved again within twenty-four hours.”
“To where?”
“A sports-betting account in the Cayman Islands.”
Ben looked at Olivia. “Illegal betting existed around the camp?”
“Betting on youth-player draft positions is not regulated the same way, but using private medical information could create fraud.”
Luke displayed a series of deposits tied to Evan’s projected ranking. Before the cardiac evaluation, accounts controlled by Parker bet heavily that Evan would fall outside the first round. After he was publicly cleared, the odds changed. Parker placed opposite wagers.