Page 49 of Slap Shot
"Not this time, buddy," he said. "Where I'm going, you can't help. But I need you to stay here and be safe, okay?"
Charlie whined softly, clearly understanding that something dangerous was happening. Service dogs were trained to stay with their handlers during crises, and leaving Oliver behind went against every instinct the animal had.
"I know, I know. But this is something I have to do alone." Oliver scratched behind Charlie's ears, feeling guilty about abandoning his partner but knowing he couldn't risk the dog's safety in whatever confrontation was coming. "Guard the house. I'll be back soon."
He paused at the door, looking back at his setup still running tracking protocols on Kai's activities. Somewhere downtown, Heather was fighting a digital war against someone who'd spent years planning her destruction. Someone who'd hurt Oliver and was now using that history to hurt everyone he cared about. He could call her, bring backup, coordinate with police. But Kai had already threatened Heather once. The safest thing, for everyone, was to handle this himself.
After this is over,Oliver promised himself,I'm going to tell her everything. About the warehouse, about why I was so terrified of being vulnerable again, about how she makes me want to be braver than I actually am.
But first, he had to face the ghost of his past. Had to confront the man who'd taught him that trust was a weapon that could be turned against you. Had to prove to himself that he wasn't the same scared kid who'd been too naive to see betrayal coming.
Oliver locked the apartment behind him and headed for his car, leaving Charlie pacing anxiously behind the door. The drive to downtown would take twenty minutes in current traffic. Twenty minutes to figure out what he was going to say to someone who'd once been his best friend and was now his worst enemy.
Twenty minutes to prepare for a confrontation that had been three years in the making.
Chapter Fifteen
Oliver
The Meridian Building rose against the evening sky like a monument to modern ambition, glass and steel reaching toward stars that were invisible against the city's glow. Somewhere in that tower, on the eighth floor, Kai Moreno was orchestrating the destruction of everything Oliver had built since escaping that warehouse.
He sat in his car across the street, studying the building's entrance and fighting the urge to turn around and drive home to Charlie's reassuring presence.
Three years ago, he and Kai had used this exact building for a federal contract, something about tracking cryptocurrency flows for a money laundering investigation. They'd rented a small office on the eighth floor, spent two weeks mapping the building's network infrastructure, learning every router configuration and bandwidth allocation pattern.
Oliver had thought they were the good guys then.
He crossed the street and approached the main entrance, watching a steady stream of professionals badge in and out. The security looked standard—card readers, cameras, a bored guard behind a reception desk who was more focused on his phone than the people walking past.
A woman in a business suit approached the door, juggling coffee and a laptop bag while fumbling for her access card. Oliver stepped forward.
"Let me get that for you," he said, reaching for the heavy glass door.
"Thanks," she said, swiping her card and holding the door open for him as he followed her inside.
Oliver nodded his thanks to the woman and headed for the elevators, just another consultant visiting clients on a Tuesday afternoon.
The eighth floor was different from the public spaces below. Quieter, more focused, with actual offices behind frosted glass instead of open co-working spaces. Oliver walked the hallway slowly, checking door numbers and listening for the distinctive hum of serious computing equipment.
He found it behind door 847. The low whir of multiple machines ran at capacity, the kind of white noise that came from a professional-grade setup. Oliver tried the handle. Locked, but that wasn't surprising.
What was surprising was how easily the lock yielded to techniques he'd learned during his less legitimate days. Either Kai had gotten sloppy, or he wanted to be found.
Oliver pushed the door open and stepped inside.
The office looked like a mobile command center. Three laptops connected to a rack of portable servers, multiple monitors displaying scrolling code and network diagrams, cables snaking across the floor in organized chaos. But it was discreet, hidden behind the closed door of a legitimate rental office, not scattered across a public workspace where anyone could see it.
Kai sat behind the main desk, fingers flying across a keyboard. He looked up as Oliver entered, and that familiar smirk spread across his face.
"Took you long enough," Kai said. "Though I have to admit, the network triangulation was impressive. You always were better at infrastructure analysis than I gave you credit for."
Prison had changed him. The boyish features Oliver remembered had hardened into something more angular, morepredatory. Two years of federal incarceration had stripped away whatever softness Kai had once possessed.
"Hello, Kai."
"You look good. Clean living agrees with you." Kai leaned back in his chair, completely relaxed. "How's the anxiety? Still having panic attacks, or did the therapy finally stick?"
The casual invasion of his privacy made Oliver's chest tighten. "How long have you been watching me?"
