“Are you fucking kidding me?” Rami trotted into the kitchen, annoyed, hands laden with paper plates.
“Do you remember when Jed Carter tried to get you to throw the game against the Horde last year?”
Rami’s expression turned serious. “Yeah, I refused, and he threatened to have me kicked off the team and my sister kicked off the women’s team if I didn’t cooperate.” He looked at me. “So my dad donated a bazillion dollars to the women’s hockey program, and suddenly, AD Hall couldn’t touch either of us.”
“AD Hall knows about this?”
“Eva, are you digging up dirt on Jed Carter?” Rami’s voice was sharp with worry.
I took a deep, shuddering breath. “Yes,” I admitted.
“You’re gonna turn him over to the cops?”
“To the bratva,” Tristan said from the doorway. I hadn’t heard him come in. He leaned against the frame, muscles pushing against his t-shirt in a way that should have been illegal.
Rami’s eyebrows rose. “It’s like that, is it?” he asked, looking at Tristan contemplatively.
Tristan swallowed and nodded.
“Lemme see what I can do,” Rami offered.
“Thank you,” I said quietly, the words feeling inadequate. “Thank you both, for being friends.”
Rami ruffled my hair as he walked past. “What’s a little blackmail between friends?”
I froze.
He stopped mid-step, looked down at me, and then at Tristan, who’d also gone still. “Oh shit,” Rami said. “For real for real?”
I couldn’t stop the laughter that bubbled up—slightly hysterical, but no less joyful. “For real for real.”
He tilted his head thoughtfully. “Is that why you’re so serious about taking out Jed Carter?”
I swallowed hard, not quite ready to spill all my secrets.
Haruto clapped a hand on Tristan's shoulder. “We’ll see if we can get any information for you.”
39
COLE
By the timeI shoved back from my desk, in my own corner office down the hall from my father, it was past nine on a rare Friday with no game.
My father knew exactly what he was doing, asking me to finish the financials tonight. He thought he was keeping me from Eva, from Tristan, from the team, and that I’d do it because I’d turned over a new leaf.
He didn’t know I knew he’d set a deadline for Eva on my rehab records and blackmail on Alek.
He didn’t know I relished the opportunity to pore over the way he used shell companies to hide the money he’d stolen from his own company.
He didn’t know I was going to stop him from hurting anyone else ever again.
No matter what it took.
The party wasnoisy and loud and full of gorgeousassholes getting absolutely wasted—exactly what a frat party at a school for the elite should be.
My costume was minimal—a glowing mask, courtesy of Katie, who’d giggled about MaskTok when she handed it to me, and black leather gloves on top of the black button-down and slacks I already wore. I’d teased Eva about chasing her through the campus, and, to my delight, her eyes had gotten wide. Her lips parted as her breath stuttered before she laughed and shot me down.
A stranger shoved a full red cup at me, and I shook my head. As tempting as it was, I needed Eva as much as I’d needed any drug, to smell her, to taste her, to wrap my hands around her waist and pull her against my body, soft and stunning and fucking perfect. My hands shook, and I reminded myself why I was doing this, why I was sober, and just how fucking badly my father wanted me to fail.