Page 176 of Play Dirty

And still—

Something felt off.

I leaned against the glass, arms folded, watching Grayson cut smoothly through the neutral zone like he’d been born there. Ares followed, all force and impact. Sebastian called out something from the crease, already reading the next play before it happened.

My eyes drifted. Not to the ice, but to the upper level. I didn’t mean to look there. Didn’t mean to find anything.

Only I did.

The man in the suit.

It was undeniably him. Same posture, same mannerisms, same presence that didn’t belong. He stood near the railing, one hand resting lightly against it. He wasn’t watching the play. Not really.

He was watching the flow. The structure.

The outcome.

Like a man tracking numbers instead of a game.

Something I could wholeheartedly identify with.

A staffer approached him and said something. The man didn’t react right away — just gave a small nod, like he already knew what was coming — and the staffer walked away faster than he’d come.

I pushed off the glass and crossed to Mercer, without taking my eyes off the man in the suit. When he turned toward me, I nodded upward.

“You know that guy?”

Mercer didn’t even look.

“Rourke,” he said immediately.

I blinked. I hadn’t expected that.

“What do you think of him?”

That earned me a look. I couldn’t tell if Mercer was scowling at me, or if those deep-set lines were just permanent features earned by years of squinting into bright ice.

“Why?”

“No reason.”

He grunted. “Everything’s got a reason.”

He had me there. I could’ve shrugged. I could’ve backtracked. Instead, I leaned in.

“Do you like him?”

“There’s not many people I like, Maxwell.”

His eyes searched mine, looking for answers, looking for reasons. I didn’t give him anything. I was too afraid.

Eventually he turned his attention back to the ice. I was about to walk away, when he grunted again.

“No.”

I blinked. “What?”

“The answer to your question,” Mercer said simply. “Is no.”