“What do you know about Nathan Grant?” I ask, leaning back in the chair he always gives me—the one that creaks under my weight like it might snap if the wrong truth lands in the room.
Leonardo hums thoughtfully and takes a slow sip of red, like we’re discussing a stock market dip instead of a man I want to kill. “The captain of the Toronto Vultures?” he asks, brows up. “Makes pretty money. Has a wife and two children. Good media. Good scores. Loyal to the league. Does charity games in the summer. Soft, clean, profitable.” He shrugs. “What about him?”
I tilt my head slowly. “He’s the reason you lost that bet.”
The glass stops halfway to Leonardo’s mouth as he looks at me over the rim, then he laughs—short and sharp. “The reason I lost that bet,” he says, “is because Julian Reaver bet against his own fucking team and then choked on the ice to cash out.”
I smile back at him, cold and measured, the kind of smile that makes people forget I used to be nice. Then I reach into my jacket, pull out the burner phone, and load the frame—just one frame, not the tape, not the sounds, not the heartbreak or the gasps or the softI love yousthat were never meant to be real.
Just the still. Julian in Nathan’s arms, naked and exhausted and ruined, Nathan’s mouth pressed into his hair while he looks straight at the camera—smirking.
I turn the screen toward Leonardo and let him stare, watching the way his jaw ticks and the air in the room slowly stills around us as the wine glass settles quietly onto the table.
“He never placed a bet,” I say, my voice low and steady. “He was blackmailed to throw the game—by him.”
Leonardo looks at me—really looks this time. He doesn’t ask where I got it; he knows better than that. He doesn’t ask who else has seen it either, because he already knows the answer is no one. Instead, he leans back in his chair and steeples his fingers, studying the image like it’s a ledger entry he’s deciding whether to erase or invest in.
And for the first time in months—maybe years—Leonardo Bellini looks interested.
He stares at the screen for a long time, longer than necessary, the wine sitting untouched beside him while his fingers tap once against the stem like he’s calculating futures, losses, executions. When he finally looks up, his eyes glitter with that particular kind of joy that only appears when violence and profit happen to share the same room.
“So you mean to tell me I have the wrong star in my flock?” he asks, his voice rich with amusement, like I’ve just handed him a better lottery ticket than the one he’s been polishing.
I don’t smile. I simply lean back, calm and coiled, and meet his gaze as I answer, “Mmm. He’d never win you as much as Julian does.”
Leonardo hums, clearly pleased.
I let the moment stretch just long enough to settle before adding, smooth as sin, “But you won’t have Nathan in your flock anyway, dad.”
His eyes flick upward at the word—that false endearment, that fake thread of blood we both pretend to believe in whenever it serves us.
It works.
It always does.
He laughs, not loudly, just a single deep exhale that tells me everything I need to hear.
He’s mine to hunt.
“So dramatic,” he muses, finally lifting the glass and taking a slow sip of wine. “But yes, fine. If the good captain has been stirring shit and costing me money…” He twirls the glass once before finishing the thought. “You may do with him as you wish. Just don’t let him die in front of a camera.”
I nod once. That’s all I need.
“One more thing,” Leonardo says, swirling his glass again, his gaze drifting back to the phone still glowing with that frozen frame. “You said he blackmailed our boy. How?”
I stare at him and say nothing.
His grin widens slowly, teeth flashing white before he lifts one hand in mock surrender. “Ah. Right. Not my business.”
I slip the phone back into my pocket and push to my feet.
“Not unless you want Julian walking out,” I say, my voice colder now. Because he would—broken, drugged, half-dead—if he thought for even a second that tape was circulating. He’d vanish into ash before he let anyone else see what he gave away for love.
Leonardo raises his glass in a lazy little salute. “Go on, then. Hunt your ghost.”
And Nathan Grant?
He’s officially on borrowed fucking time.
