บททั้งหมดของ Chasing the Riot: The Alpha's Second Chance: บทที่ 101 - บทที่ 110

Jarett's povThe police interview room smelled like old coffee and disinfectant. It was too small for Jarrett.He hadn't taken off his pads. He couldn't - they wouldn't let him back to the locker room to change until the Crime Scene cleared it. So he sat there across from me in full Ironheads home black, shoulders taking up half the table, dog tag back around his neck where I'd put it, his hands cuffed around my cold ones under the table where the detective couldn't see."You're sure about the bracelet," Detective Ruiz said again. Not a question."I told you. There's a nick on the back of the moon. Vanessa dropped it on the Zamboni ramp on Tuesday. I helped her find it."Ruiz nodded and slid a paper across to me. Evidence inventory.I didn't look. I was looking at Jarrett's jaw. It was still tight, that amber still flickering every time someone walked past the door in the hallway."Ms. Voss, this is now a homicide investigation," Ruiz said. "Coach Callahan is being detained. But you u

Helena's pov The doors of the boardroom felt colder than usual as I pushed them open. Inside, twelve pairs of eyes snapped toward me in unison. The air tasted of stale coffee, expensive cologne, and panic."Helena?" Chairman Vance lowered his glasses, his face turning a dark shade of crimson. "What is the meaning of this? This is an emergency closed-door meeting of the Board of Governors. You have no standing here."I walked to the empty leather chair at the foot of the long oval table and pulled it back, the wood scraping against the carpet. I did not sit down. Instead, I rested both hands flat on the polished surface and looked down the line of men."I am well aware of what this meeting is, Vance," I said. "You are here to discuss my permanent ban and Jarrett's suspension.""It is a confidential legal matter," Board Member Miller said, leaning forward. His voice carried the sharp, authoritative edge he used on TV broadcasts. "You were told to wait outside with your counsel. Securit

Helena's pov The steel catwalk swayed gently beneath my boots, suspended a hundred feet above the silent, pitch-black ice rink. Rain battered the corrugated metal roof thirty feet over our heads, a relentless, rhythmic drumming that masked the sound of my movement as I eased forward down the narrow gantry. The air up in the rafters was thick with the dust of old iron, warm grease, and the faint, bitter scent of ozone left behind by the sudden power failure.Ahead of me, illuminated only by the dull, green glow of an emergency exit sign mounted near the roofline, stood Commander Ilya.He was standing near the central rigging junction, his silhouette blocky and broad against the darkness. In his right hand, he held a heavy, military-grade encrypted hard drive. It was small, no larger than a deck of cards, but inside its casing sat the physical master key to the league's entire corruption network. Every wire transfer, every rigged security log, every quiet payoff, and every doctored

Jarrett's pov The echoes of our Game 7 victory still bounced around the concrete walls of the arena training facility, but the celebration was already behind us. In five days, the Stanley Cup Finals against the Boston Vanguard would begin, and Boston did not play hockey—they fought wars. They were heavy, aggressive, and brutal, the kind of team that smelled blood in the water and tore through anything weak.It was nearly midnight. The rest of the team had cleared out hours ago, leaving the ice facility quiet and freezing. I stood alone in the locker room, the overhead fluorescent lights buzzing softly above me. My body throbbed with a dull, satisfying ache from the grueling series we had just survived, but my mind refused to settle down.I opened my tall steel locker to grab my gym bag, and stopped cold.Sitting directly on top of my folded street clothes was a plain, unmarked black envelope. There was no shipping label, no stamp, and no name written on the front. Someone had ph

Helena's pov The view from the visiting executive box at TD Garden was pristine, but the atmosphere inside the arena felt like a pressure cooker waiting to explode. Down on the ice, the Boston Vanguard were dressed in their dark, aggressive home black and gold. In the stands, eighteen thousand hostile fans roared, their chants reverberating off the concrete walls.I stood behind the glass, my hands clasped loosely behind my back. My encrypted phone buzzed in my blazer pocket.I pulled it out and tapped the screen. It was a secure text message from my lead financial auditor: 'Union accounts frozen. Board authorization accepted. Tom Vance is locked out of the primary server hosts.'A cold, sharp wave of satisfaction settled in my chest. While Tom Vance was currently down in his luxury suite sweating over his dead database access, my stealth investigation into his offshore accounts was already tearing through his paper trail. He had thought he could corner us with blackmail; instead,