CHAPTER 7
THE FIRST CRACK
OLIVIA
The private elevator to Robert Carter’s suite required a biometric scan, an executive credential, and a code that changed every hour.
Olivia had the first two.
Alex solved the third by driving his shoulder into the emergency stairwell door until the locking plate tore loose.
“You are suspended for violence,” she said as they climbed.
“I’m opening a door.”
“With your body.”
“It was available.”
The stairwell alarm should have sounded. It did not.
That frightened her more than the damaged lock.
They reached the suite level to find the corridor empty. The usual security officer was gone. The glass doors to Robert’s private box stood open, city light spilling across the carpet.
“Dad?” Olivia called.
Alex moved in front of her.
She caught the back of his jacket. “We enter together.”
He glanced over his shoulder.
“Together,” she repeated.
His jaw tightened. Then he moved half a step to the side, enough that they crossed the threshold shoulder to shoulder.
The suite had been searched.
Cabinet doors hung open. Papers covered the floor. A bottle of Robert’s whiskey had shattered beside the bar, filling the room with sharp sweetness. One of the framed championship photographs had been torn from the wall.
Robert sat behind the desk with blood at his temple.
Olivia ran to him.
“Dad.”
His eyes opened. Confusion lasted one second before control returned.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re bleeding.”
“I have survived paper cuts with more dignity than this conversation.”
Alex checked the adjoining rooms while Olivia pressed a clean napkin to her father’s head. Robert tried to push her hand away.
“Stop,” she said.
He stopped.
The obedience frightened her almost as much as the blood.
“What happened?”
“Martin came to discuss the security breach.”
“Martin Vale?”
Robert’s gaze moved toward Alex, who had returned from the bedroom.
“He asked for access to archived foundation accounts,” Robert continued. “When I refused, he struck me.”
“And then?” Alex asked.
“He searched the office. Took a flash drive from the safe.”
“What was on it?” Olivia demanded.
“Old financial records.”
“Evan Hale?”
Her father’s silence confirmed it.
Alex checked the balcony door. “How long ago?”
“Five minutes. Maybe less.”
Olivia stood. “Where would he go?”
“The executive garage,” Robert said. “He keeps a vehicle on level three.”
Alex was already moving.
Olivia followed.
He stopped at the broken stairwell door. “Stay with your father.”
“No.”
“Vale is dangerous.”
“So is whatever he took.”
“Olivia.”
She stepped into the stairwell. “Ask.”
His eyes flashed with frustration.
“Will you stay here?”
“No.”
For one second, she expected him to block her.
Instead he handed her his phone. “Call Mark. Keep the line open.”
They ran.
The garage below the arena was a concrete maze divided by support columns and rows of executive vehicles. Tires squealed somewhere beneath them.
Alex took the stairs two at a time. Olivia’s heels made speed impossible, so she kicked them off on the landing and continued barefoot.
They reached level three as a black sedan reversed from a reserved space.
Martin Vale was behind the wheel.
“Stop!” Olivia shouted.
His gaze found her through the windshield.
The sedan accelerated.
Alex shoved her behind a concrete column an instant before the car swept past. Wind and exhaust struck them. The side mirror missed Alex’s shoulder by inches.
He released Olivia and ran after it.
“Alex, no!”
The vehicle disappeared down the ramp.
Alex stopped only because the security gate began closing. He could not catch a car on foot. The knowledge looked like an insult to him.
Olivia raised Mark on the phone. “Vale is leaving the executive garage in a black sedan. Alert police, not team security.”
“Done,” the coach said. “Are you hurt?”
“No.”
Pain pulsed in her bare foot. She looked down and saw blood.
Glass from a broken taillight glittered across the concrete behind them.
Alex followed her gaze.
His expression became terrifyingly blank.
“It is a cut,” she said.
He crossed the distance and lifted her before she could object.
“Put me down.”
“No.”
“You asked about entering my bedroom. You can ask before carrying me.”
“Immediate threat.”
“The threat is driving away.”
“You are bleeding.”
“So were you last night.”
“I did not walk barefoot through broken glass.”
“I was chasing a man who attacked my father.”
His arms tightened. “And now you are done.”
Anger rose, but beneath it was the shocking awareness of his body. One arm under her knees, the other across her back. His heartbeat hard against her side. The scent of cold air, clean soap, and the faint metallic trace of blood from his reopened knuckles.
She could have continued fighting.
Instead she wrapped one arm around his neck so he could carry her safely.
The decision changed his breathing.
He took her to the Titans’ medical room while Mark coordinated police and Luke stayed with Robert. The arena doctor removed two slivers of glass, cleaned the cut, and confirmed she would survive the catastrophic injury.
Alex did not leave.
He stood near the examination table with both hands braced on the counter, watching every instrument the doctor used.
“Captain,” the doctor said, “you are making my patient nervous.”
“My patient is not nervous,” Alex replied.
Olivia looked at him. “Your patient?”
The doctor hid a smile. “I have made a tactical error.”
After he left, Alex took the bandages from the tray.
“What are you doing?” Olivia asked.
“Finishing.”
“The doctor finished.”
“The wrap is loose.”
“You are not medically qualified.”
“I have had this done more times than he has.”
“That is not the same qualification.”
He crouched in front of her.
The argument disappeared.
Alex’s large hands cradled her ankle with impossible care. His thumb rested beneath the bone, warm against her skin. He unwound the loose bandage and began again, slower than the doctor had, checking her expression each time he added pressure.
“Too tight?”
“No.”
His head remained bowed.
A scar crossed the back of his neck near the hairline. Olivia had seen it before but never close enough to notice its uneven edges.
“What happened there?” she asked.
His hands paused.
“Bottle.”
“During a fight?”
“At home.”
The room grew quiet.
“How old were you?”
“Fifteen.”
“Your father?”
Alex nodded once.
The cruelty of the image made her chest ache. A fifteen-year-old Alex standing between a violent man and a younger brother. Learning that protection meant absorbing the blow and delivering a harder one.
“He hurt Ben?”
“Not that night.”
“Because of you.”
“Because I broke his wrist.”
There was no pride in the answer. No regret either.
“Did anyone help you?”
“No.”
His fingers smoothed the bandage around her foot.
Olivia understood then that every lock he checked and every order he gave came from a boy who had learned no one arrived unless he became the rescue himself.
It did not excuse him.
But it made her want to touch the wound he pretended had closed.
She reached down and traced the edge of the scar.
Alex went still.
“May I?” she whispered, even though she was already touching him.
His eyes lifted.
“Yes.”
The word was rough.
Her fingers moved into his hair, brushing the scar once more. His face changed in a way she had never seen. The hardness did not vanish. It opened, revealing something exhausted and hungry beneath it.
He rose slowly, stopping between her knees.
Olivia’s hand slid from the back of his neck to his jaw.
The bruise from the game darkened beneath her palm.
His hand came to rest on the table beside her hip, not touching.
“Tell me to move,” he said.
She should have.
Her father was injured upstairs. Vale had escaped with evidence. Richard Parker was threatening Ben and using her mother’s death as a weapon.
Nothing about the moment was wise.
“I don’t want you to,” she said.
Alex leaned closer.
Not enough to kiss her.
Enough that his breath warmed her mouth.
“Olivia.”
She had heard her name shouted across boardrooms, whispered by lovers, announced beneath stadium lights.
No one had ever made it sound like a confession dragged from a man against his will.
Her eyes closed.
His forehead touched hers.
For one suspended second, that was all.
The medical-room door opened.
Robert stood in the doorway with a bandage at his temple and murder in his eyes.
Alex stepped back, but not quickly enough to pretend.
“What,” Robert said, “is happening?”
Olivia lowered her foot from the table. “Alex was fixing the bandage.”
“His hands are not known for medical precision.”
“They are known for many things you misunderstand,” she said.
Her father’s gaze sharpened.
Alex did not defend himself. That restraint was new too.
Robert placed a secure phone on the table. “The police found Vale’s car abandoned near the river. No sign of him or the drive.”
“Was the drive encrypted?” Olivia asked.
“Yes.”
“Can Parker open it?”
“He helped build the encryption system.”
Alex folded his arms. “Then assume he already has.”
Robert looked at him. “You are suspended. You should not be here.”
“Your security chief tried to run your daughter over.”
“He was escaping.”
“He aimed at her.”
Olivia remembered Martin’s eyes through the windshield. Alex was right.
Robert’s mouth tightened. “I will arrange a secure residence.”
“No,” Olivia said.
“Liv—”
“I am not going to your house. I am not entering a property controlled by the same security structure Vale managed.”
“I can replace the team.”
“Trust is not a uniform you replace.”
Robert glanced between her and Alex. “And you trust him?”
The question landed too close to the moment he had interrupted.
Olivia looked at Alex.
He did not ask her to choose him. He did not move closer or turn the answer into a test.
“I trust him to be exactly what he is,” she said.
Robert’s laugh held no humor. “That should terrify you.”
“Sometimes it does.”
Alex’s gaze caught hers.
Robert left after insisting Luke escort Olivia home. Alex did not argue because he had to meet Coach Davis and the team attorney about the suspension.
Before he went, he crouched to check the bandage once more.