All Chapters of The Hockey Star's Spicy Stripper: Chapter 171 - Chapter 176

Jace's POV"Ladies and gentlemen…" I clicked to the final slide of my presentation, watching the projection illuminate the darkened boardroom with charts and projections that represented days of strategic planning, "...now with this approach, we can hit the oil market really hard, and people won't even notice the loopholes in our financial report. This is what I call the master plan."The silence that followed was thick with contemplation. I could feel every eye in the room on me, these titans of industry, these men and women who'd built empires from nothing, studying me like I was a specimen under a microscope.Then I caught my father's eyes across the polished mahogany table.The look on his face was filled with both pride and impression, emotions Richard Harrington rarely displayed publicly. He sat back in his leather chair, one hand stroking his jaw, the hint of a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. Though he didn't say it out loud and would never say it in front of the boa

Sabrina's POV"Shooting recorded outside popular Club Eden last night. No deaths were recorded, but multiple injuries were reported as rival gang members opened fire outside the establishment around 2 AM..."My eyes were fixed on the television screen mounted in the hospital waiting room, the news anchor's voice washing over me like white noise. The headline scrolled across the bottom in that ominous red text they always used for violence: GANG VIOLENCE ERUPTS AT ELITE NIGHTCLUB.I'd experienced one or two shootouts outside Club Eden during my time there, the hazard of working in a place where money, power, and danger intersected like tangled threads. So this news wasn't shocking to me. It was just... sad. Another reminder of the life I'd left behind, the world I'd barely escaped.I simply took my eyes off the screen and focused on steadying my breathing, trying to centre myself before the doctor called me back.Skye was remanded in prison, awaiting trial for accessory to murder. The

Jace's POV"You can go back to your duties. I can handle this." The words were heavy on my tongue, weighted with emotions I was still trying to process. I addressed the security guards hovering around Sabrina like sentries awaiting the command to strike."Yes, sir." They retreated like soldiers falling back from a battlefield after their commander's order, melting back into the shadows of the lobby.I didn't say a word to her. She simply followed me into the elevator, and before the doors closed, I felt every eye on the ground floor fixed on us. The staff pretended to work, shuffling papers, typing on keyboards, and speaking into phones, but the moment I glanced away, their gazes locked onto us like magnets drawn to metal.When the elevator doors finally sealed us in that small metal box, silence filled the space like water flooding a sinking ship. We both stood straight as soldiers, backs against opposite walls like two strangers forced to share the same square footage of air.But th