Thursday night.
I watched from behind a pillar as Donovan's silver Mercedes pulled out of the athletics building parking lot. Right on schedule for his weekly dinner meeting. I'd done my research—checked his calendar through the team's shared system, tracked his patterns for weeks. He was usually gone for three hours, sometimes four. Plenty of time to search his office and get out before anyone noticed.
I was wearing dark clothes, a baseball cap pulled low over my face, and carrying a small flashlight in my pocket. My heart pounded so hard I could feel it in my throat. My hands were sweating despite the cool evening air.
This was insane. I was breaking into the office of a man who might have helped murder my mother. A man who had connections to criminals. A man who had already proven he was willing to destroy innocent people to get what he wanted.
But I forced myself to move.
For the baby. For Ashton. For the truth.
The athletics building was quiet this late, most of the staff gone home, only a few lights burning in distant offices.
A janitor's cart sat abandoned in the hallway, but I didn't see anyone around. I used my team assistant keycard to get through the main door—thank God they hadn't revoked my access yet—and made my way up the back stairs to Donovan's corner office.
My footsteps echoed too loud in the empty stairwell. Every creak made me freeze, listening for sounds of pursuit.
Nothing. Just my own terrified breathing.
The door was locked.
But I remembered watching him punch in the code once when I delivered paperwork. Four digits.
I punched in the numbers, my fingers trembling.
The lock clicked open. I slipped inside.
The office looked different in the dark. The warm, fatherly space I remembered felt sinister now. Shadows pooled in corners. The championship photos on the walls seemed to watch me like witnesses to a crime.
I started with his desk, rifling through drawers as quietly as I could. Nothing but ordinary paperwork and expensive pens. The filing cabinet was locked, and I didn't have time to pick it.
I was about to give up when I noticed the painting behind his desk—slightly crooked, as if it had been moved recently. I pulled it aside and found what I was looking for.
A small wall safe with a digital keypad.
I tried the same code as the door. Nothing.
I tried his birthday. The club's founding date. Random combinations that might mean something.
Nothing.
Panic started to rise in my chest. I was running out of time, running out of options—
Then I remembered.
The watch on his desk. The antique one he was always fidgeting with during meetings. I'd noticed once that the back was engraved with numbers: 0-7-1-5-0-9. A date, maybe. July 15, 2009.
I punched it in and held my breath.
The safe clicked open.
Inside was a thick folder and a laptop.
I pulled out the folder first, and my blood ran cold.
Communications between Donovan and men with names I didn't recognize. Discussions of shipments, payments, "the Morris situation." References to my schedule, my routines, my relationship with "the bodyguard." Detailed notes about my classes, my friends, my habits—everything about my life laid out like a hunting guide.
Photos—not of Ashton, but of Donovan himself. Shaking hands with hard-faced men in expensive suits. Outside warehouses. In parking garages. The same locations from the fake evidence he'd shown me, but with Donovan in them instead of Ashton.
I recognized some of the men. Not their names, but their type. The same cold eyes and expensive suits as the men who used to visit my father late at night. The kind of men who made people disappear.
And beneath everything, the originals.
Unedited photos of strangers meeting strangers. No Ashton anywhere. With handwritten notes in Donovan's neat script about which images to use for the manipulation. Which angles worked best for the face-swap. Which lighting would be most convincing.
Use the parking garage shot—shadows hide editing artifacts.
Warehouse exterior has best resolution for face replacement.
Timeline: claim meetings occurred over the past 3 months to establish a pattern.
I was right.
It was all lies.
Ashton never betrayed anyone. Donovan had created the evidence from scratch—fabricated a traitor to destroy the real protector—and I'd fallen for it completely. I'd signed that complaint. I'd walked away from the man who loved me. I'd handed myself to the enemy on a silver platter.
My hands shook as I pulled out my phone and started photographing everything. Proof. I needed proof. Evidence that would clear Ashton's name and expose Donovan for what he really was.
I was halfway through the folder when a voice came from the doorway.
Smooth. Cold. Utterly unsurprised.
"I wondered how long it would take you to figure it out."
I spun around, phone clattering to the desk.
Donovan stood in the doorway, his fatherly mask completely gone. In its place was something hard and predatory. Something that had been hiding behind warm smiles and concerned check-ins this whole time.
Behind him, the hallway was dark. No one else was here. No one was coming to help me.
"The dinner meeting," I managed. "You're supposed to be—"
"A lie. Much like the ones I told you about your boyfriend." He stepped into the office, closing the door behind him with a soft click. "I have to admit, you're smarter than I gave you credit for. Your father certainly underestimated you. Then again, he underestimates everyone who isn't himself."
I backed up until my legs hit the desk. My hand fumbled behind me, searching for something—anything—I could use as a weapon. My other hand moved instinctively to my stomach, cradling the small bump that was barely visible beneath my dark shirt.
Donovan's eyes tracked the movement. His smile widened.
"Ah yes. The baby." He tilted his head, studying me like a specimen. "Ashton's, I assume? How deliciously perfect. Not only do I get to destroy Kian's daughter, but I get to destroy his grandchild too. And his most loyal soldier's offspring." He laughed softly. "Three generations of pain in one package."
I pressed my hand harder against my belly, as if I could shield the life inside me from his words. From him.
"You won't touch my baby."
"Such maternal instinct. Your mother had the same fire in her eyes, you know. Right before the end." He stepped closer, and I felt the desk digging into my back. Nowhere left to retreat.
My throat tightened. I could barely breathe.
"You killed my mother."
"Technically, no. That was handled by associates." He said it casually, like discussing a business transaction. "But I arranged it, yes. Your father took my brother from me. Destroyed my family's business. Left me with nothing but a hockey club and fifteen years of planning."
His smile didn't reach his eyes. It never had, I realized now. I'd just been too desperate for a father figure to see the predator underneath.
"Your mother was the first payment." He stepped closer. "You're going to be the last."
I lunged for the window.
I wasn't fast enough.
Arms grabbed me from behind—strong, familiar, wrong. I screamed before a hand clamped over my mouth, muffling the sound.
Nate's voice hissed in my ear. "Miss me, baby?"
No. No, no, no—
I fought. Kicked, bit, thrashed with everything I had. My only thought was the baby inside me. Protecting it. Surviving for it.
But Nate was stronger. And when Donovan produced a syringe, I couldn't stop the needle from sliding into my neck.
Cold spread through my veins. The world went fuzzy at the edges. My limbs turned to water, refusing to obey my desperate commands.
The last thing I saw before darkness took me was Donovan's cold smile and Nate's hungry eyes.
And I thought of Ashton.
Wherever he was. Whatever he was doing. The man I'd wrongly accused. The man who'd tried to warn me. The father of my child, who didn't even know I'd finally believed him.
Find me, I prayed as the darkness swallowed me whole. Please find me in time.