CHAPTER 19 #2
When Olivia reached the practice rink, Daniel was taking passes at full speed. He saw her expression and skated to the boards.
“What happened?”
“Your equipment sponsor installed arena monitoring hardware last summer.”
“Performance sensors.”
“Did you authorize cameras?”
“No.”
The team gathered around.
Daniel pulled off his helmet. “My contract manager handled the installation. The company said the sensors tracked recovery and movement patterns.”
“Who is your contract manager?”
His face emptied.
“Melissa Grant.”
Luke swore under his breath.
Melissa Grant was Victor Sloane’s sister.
Daniel climbed over the boards before Coach Davis could stop him. “She has access to my house.”
Olivia followed him toward the tunnel. “Call the agents. Do not go alone.”
“She keeps my backup phone in the office.”
“Daniel.”
He turned. The charm had disappeared, leaving something raw and frightened beneath it.
“My sister is staying with me,” he said. “She is sixteen.”
The entire group moved.
Coach Davis began shouting orders. Luke called federal security.
Adam grabbed Daniel’s keys and refused to return them, forcing him into the team SUV.
Noah accessed the home alarm system from his tablet.
Olivia called Alex because she knew he would hear about the emergency and attempt to leave the hospital.
He answered on the first ring.
“What happened?”
“Daniel’s house may be compromised. We are going with federal agents.”
“I am coming.”
“You are handcuffed to a hospital bed.”
“Not currently.”
Olivia closed her eyes. “Alex.”
A pause.
Then, “What do you need?”
The question steadied her.
“Call Daniel. Keep him talking. Make sure he does not outrun the agents when we arrive.”
“I can do that.”
“And stay in the hospital.”
Silence.
“Alex.”
“I will stay.”
She believed him.
Daniel’s house stood in a quiet neighborhood west of the arena. The front door was closed. No forced entry. Noah confirmed the alarm had been disarmed with Melissa’s code forty minutes earlier.
Daniel’s sister, Sophie, did not answer her phone.
The agents entered first.
They found Sophie in the upstairs study wearing headphones, alive and furious that everyone had broken into the house. Melissa was gone.
The backup phone had been removed from Daniel’s office.
Inside a locked drawer, agents found contracts connecting the sponsor company to shell corporations used by Richard Parker.
Daniel sat on the stairs while Sophie argued with an agent about whether she could finish her online exam. His hands shook only once.
Olivia sat beside him.
“I brought Melissa into the room,” he said.
“You hired a manager recommended by the general manager.”
“I let her install the system. I let her meet the team. Every joke, every injury, every line change—”
“You did not know.”
Alex’s voice came from Daniel’s phone on speaker.
Daniel looked at the screen. “Easy for you to say. You only secretly monitored one woman.”
The words were cruel. Pain made people careless.
Alex answered without anger. “Yes. And not knowing why I did damage did not erase it. You will deal with what belongs to you. Do not take responsibility for Richard’s choices because guilt feels cleaner than uncertainty.”
Daniel stared at the phone.
“Since when do you sound emotionally functional?” he asked.
“Temporary medication.”
A faint laugh escaped him.
Olivia listened to the men speak and understood why the team survived them. They were not gentle with one another. They were present.
Noah emerged from the office carrying the recovered contract files.
“Melissa used Daniel’s phone to receive encrypted messages,” he said. “The latest contains a location.”
“Where?” Olivia asked.
“A private airfield outside the city. Victor Sloane is scheduled on a charter departing in ninety minutes.”
The drive to the airfield took fifty-two minutes.
Olivia remained at Daniel’s house because Sophie still needed a familiar adult and because adding another vehicle to the pursuit would not help. She followed the operation through Noah’s audio.
Luke rode with the federal team after identifying a secondary route Sloane might use. Adam stayed in the team SUV and complained about being treated as a civilian. Daniel sat beside him, silent for the first twenty minutes.
Alex remained on Daniel’s phone from the hospital.
“Tell me something that is not this,” Daniel said eventually.
Alex understood. “Coach moved you to third line because the Saints overcommit against your speed. He plans to double-shift you with Adam after defensive-zone draws.”
“You saw the practice board?”
“Noah sent it.”
“Of course he did.”
They discussed hockey for the rest of the drive—faceoff tendencies, neutral-zone entries, the Saints defenseman who pinched too aggressively. The conversation was not avoidance. It reminded Daniel he existed beyond betrayal.
At the airfield, Sloane attempted to board before the agents completed the perimeter. Luke used a service gate to block the vehicle route. Adam saw Melissa leaving a second hangar and alerted agents instead of chasing her.
Coach Davis later called that his greatest contribution to the investigation.
Adam considered it insulting.
The arrests unfolded without violence.
That detail felt like victory.
Federal agents moved immediately.
The arrest did not produce immediate relief.
Sloane denied everything until federal agents showed him payments made to an education account in his daughter’s name.
Melissa demanded immunity. Richard’s attorney publicly called both of them disgruntled employees.
The story fractured into competing versions before investigators finished the first interview.
Olivia remained at Daniel’s house with Sophie while agents processed the office.
Sophie sat cross-legged at the kitchen island, still wearing headphones around her neck.
“Daniel says you are the person who tells everyone what to say,” she said.
“I help people tell the truth clearly.”
“That sounds like what a person who tells everyone what to say would say.”
Daniel entered carrying three mugs. “She has been suspicious since birth.”
“You taught me.”
He placed hot chocolate in front of her and coffee near Olivia.
The charm had returned around the edges, but his hands remained unsteady.
Olivia asked Sophie whether Melissa had visited recently. Sophie mentioned a woman entering Daniel’s office during a family dinner and taking a call on the back terrace. She remembered one sentence because Melissa had sounded angry: Richard does not get to destroy the asset before the final round.
“Asset?” Daniel asked.
Sophie shrugged. “I assumed she meant you.”
The remark landed harder than she intended.
Olivia saw Daniel retreat behind humor. “Many people have made that assumption.”
She waited until Sophie went upstairs with an agent before speaking.
“You are allowed to be angry.”
“I am delightful when angry.”
“You are deflecting.”
“I am excellent at it.”
“Melissa used your trust.”
Daniel’s smile disappeared. “I chose her because she never treated me like a headline. Turns out she treated me like a microphone.”
Olivia thought of the video released against her, the surveillance reports, and every person who converted intimacy into data.
“Being deceived does not make trust a mistake,” she said. “It makes the deception hers.”
He looked toward the staircase where Sophie had disappeared. “I brought her near my sister.”
“You also came home with agents instead of alone. You listened when we told you not to rush in.”
“Alex called me for twelve straight minutes.”
“What did he say?”
“Mostly that if I drove faster than the federal vehicle, he would leave the hospital and personally remove the tires from my car.”
“That sounds more like him.”
“He also said being fooled does not make me weak.” Daniel looked uncomfortable. “I preferred the threats.”
The conversation planted something Olivia would remember when Daniel’s own love story began: beneath the practiced ease lived a man who believed usefulness was the price of being kept.
For now, she placed one hand over his shaking fingers.
“You are not responsible for making everyone safe alone,” she said.
He laughed quietly. “You and Alex have become unbearable.”
“Temporary emotional competence.”
His gaze lifted. “He told you that line?”
“No. I am stealing it.”
The moment did not remove the betrayal. It kept Daniel from carrying it in isolation.
Sloane was arrested on the runway with Melissa Grant and two encrypted drives. He confessed within three hours after learning Richard had kept records of every payment.
The real scale of the network emerged overnight.
Richard had paid staff members across several teams for injury information.
He had manipulated youth development rankings, used sponsorship technology to gather private data, and placed wagers through offshore accounts.
Evan’s death had provided both motive and cover.
Richard claimed revenge while profiting from the same system that had endangered his nephew.
Yet one problem remained.
The stolen drive contained evidence. It did not contain the original betting ledger Eleanor referenced in her notes. Without that document, Richard’s lawyers could challenge the financial chain and isolate the crimes to Gerard, Sloane, and Melissa.