Stand and Defend (Lakes Hockey Series Book 4)

I swing by Uncommon Grounds to pick up a couple coffees—and an apple scone for my girl. It’s only been a week since we dropped the L-word. The guys gave me shit at practice today, but damn, I love being in love! And it’s Jordan. How I landed a showstopper like her is beyond me. She’s the entire package. She deserves the world, so I’ll work every day to deserve her.

When I arrive at home, I step inside with my hockey bag over my shoulder, a coffee in each hand, and a bakery bag wedged somewhere in there.

“Jordan, where ya at?” Silence. “Brought you an apple scone!”

Still nothing. The car she’s using is here. Where is she?

I hear footsteps, and she walks down the stairs, talking to someone on the phone. “Maybe someday. But I’m not ready yet . . .Thank you.”

Cocking my head to the side, I furrow my brow. She ends the call and stuffs it in her pocket. She runs her fingers through her hair, it’s already up in a ponytail, which makes it more messy.

“You okay? Who was that?” I ask, tossing my bag in the laundry room.

“I’m not okay,” she mutters.

Grinning, I enter the kitchen and hold up the bakery bag. “Would a scone help?” She doesn’t smile back, and it’s then I notice how disheveled she is. Not in her usual cute way either, in a stressed-the-fuck-out way.

I drop the bag. “Hey, what’s going on?”

“I need to show you something.” She hurries to the dining room table and returns with her laptop, spinning the screen to face me.

Biting her thumbnail, her gaze is fixed on the floor as she paces. What the hell?

I squint to read the document she has pulled up. It’s paperwork showing the funding being secured to move ahead with ownership of the Lakes. From B. Davenport Jr. There’s no way.

“Is this real?”

She scoffs. “If it isn’t, it’s a really good forgery.”

“And he’s got a meeting set up with the board? How the fuck did he get approved?! The NHL spends around twenty grand just to evaluate prospective owners.”

Her smile doesn’t reach her eyes. “Yeah, you know who also uses that law firm?”

My face falls. This can’t be real. “You’re kidding.”

“H&H.”

This is because of my thing on the ice with Jordan. I’m sure knocking a few of his teeth out didn’t help either.

“I called him⁠—”

“What?” I never want her to have to listen to him again.

She slides her phone from her back pocket and holds her hands up. “I recorded the call. Just listen.”

She hits play, and listening to him even speak to her makes my blood boil. He’s a fucking snake. “Have you told Camden yet? I’d love to tell him myself.”

My hands ball into fists as I listen. The second he says he wants Jordan, I scrub both hands down my face. Fuck, I want at him. She pauses it in the middle.

“I want to hear the rest.”

She yanks it away. “No.”

I rip the phone from her fingers and hit play.

“Cam, you don’t need to hear it, I promise, I’m not leaving you!”

I hear her voice over the recording. Blood drains from my face, and my world stops.

He hit her? Choked her?

My body is vibrating. I see red. Rage seeps into every pore. The rest of the call plays through. I can’t believe the balls on this motherfucker.

I stand, grabbing my keys. I’ll kill him. “Stay here.” This whole funding thing is moot because he’ll be dead before the ink dries.

“No!” She jumps up, pressing both palms to my chest. “Stop! He’ll be expecting you to resort to anger. He’s probably on his porch waiting. I won’t let him take you away from me. Please, I need you to trust that I’m handling this. Things are already in motion.”

Who was she on the phone with when I walked in?

“No way in hell are you dealing with him on your own.” I go back to the PDFs he sent and scroll through them again. I can’t believe what I’m seeing.

“It’s been in the works for a while, I didn’t want to involve you because I don’t want you to get wrapped up in it. I’m going to stop him at the source.”

“So am I.”

She levels me with a stare. “It’s not worth the risk. Bryan’s a stain on society, and he’s mine to wash out.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to ruin his life,” she says. “But, sweetheart, I need you stay out of my way.”

I pull her close. “Jordan, how come you never told me he hit you?” It breaks my heart she went through that. And I hope someday she’s willing to tell me about it. “I would have been more careful with you and the things we did.”

“Exactly. I didn’t want special treatment. I knew I was going to take care of him eventually, so it didn’t seem necessary.”

I can’t believe I didn’t know the whole thing. “How often was it happening?”

She wraps her arms around herself. “He would grab my wrists here and there, but it didn’t seem that bad. When I met with him to end it, he became violent. That was the worst. It was the night of the fundraiser, the one I saw you at before I left.”

I swallow. Fuck, I remember that night. I was right there. She needed help, and I let her leave with him.

“I was ashamed. Embarrassed that I let it get that far. When I was getting ready that night, I overheard a conversation with Bryan and his father. He said spouses can’t be forced to testify against each other. I knew he was up to some shady shit, but I didn’t know what. I realized that night I needed to take my life back. And I wanted to hit him where it hurt.”

Jordan’s a fearless little bulldog most days, but I recognize the bloodlust that flickers in her gaze . . . even I wouldn’t fuck with her.

“On one condition, I don’t want you putting yourself in danger.”

She nods. “Agreed.”

“And you tell me your plan.” I want to clear it beforehand.

She hesitates. She can pout all she wants, but she’s not doing anything without first letting me know what her strategy is.

“Remember when I was talking to your dad at Thanksgiving about Bluetower?”

“Yeah . . .”

Jordan takes a deep breath. “My job at H&H was to review contracts on the new companies they were purchasing and send it up the ladder for the head execs to gain investors. Bluetower was one of those companies, it was just some small startup acquisition.” She bites her lip. “It doesn’t exist. It’s a dummy shell corporation.”

“How do you know?”

“I had a guy look into it, he got me the documents—signed by Bryan Davenport Jr., by the way—to back it up.”

“So are they being audited?”

“An audit would take too long, and it would give him time to cover it up. It needs to be a scandal. I want him publicly humiliated . . . I knew the circumstances around me being assigned the Bluetower account were suspicious, it was an IT company, whereas I dealt with the healthcare sector. Something didn’t sit well with me. It was confirmed when I spoke with your dad at Thanksgiving.”

That’s why Jordan told my father not to invest. She said the returns were too high . . . It’s coming together now. “He’s running a Ponzi scheme.”

She covers her mouth and nods. “Mm-hm.”

“Holy shit.”

“I know. And I’d be willing to bet that he’s using it as collateral to bankroll his purchase of the Lakes.”

“Why do you say that?”

“According to the falsified R&D documentation that Bryan signed off on, Bluetower works with wireless technology, the speed test results would be a technology leap equivalent to Apple releasing the iPhone. It would create a huge disruption in the industry—meaning massive payouts. As long as he’s borrowing from one investment to pay the other. Investors don’t care, so long as they’re getting the returns they were promised. He probably offered it to your dad as some kind of poetic justice to get revenge on you as well. Use your father’s money to help destroy your career.”

My nose wrinkles. “But that’s so risky. Why wouldn’t he just use H&H Holdings to finance the Lakes buyout?”

“Because H&H is Daddy Davenport’s. He’d never let Bryan get his hands on that. It’s also probably why Bryan did it, he wanted to impress his father with some big new company he brought in. They have office buildings and everything. I looked up the employees on LinkedIn—their photos are AI generated. None of those people exist.”

“But why wouldn’t he just submit the offer on the Lakes? Why tell you to break up with me first?”

“Because this way he can take both of us down. You heard what he said, he doesn’t give a fuck about the team. It’s personal. He’d rather punish us. He likes to make people hurt. He made a grave miscalculation this time. He assumes I won’t sink that low, but I’ve been at the bottom waiting for him.”

She’s a legion of one, taking no prisoners. “So, what are the next steps?”

“An audit would take months, but there needs to be a whistle blown from the outside, it has to be an ambush. We have to leak that the funds are coming from a fraudulent shell corporation to the financial agency. Fucking up his collateral will delay securing the loan, and he won’t be able to move forward.

“If I hand over the documents myself, they’ll ask me where I got them, and I refuse to implicate my source. I need them to come directly from Bryan himself. That part is already in the works.”

She’s going to plant the evidence. This woman’s blowing my mind. I scrub a hand down my face. Here she let me believe I was corrupting her, but she’s been her own villain all along.

“After, we take it to the NHL Board of Governors, packaged in a neat little bow with this recording.” She wiggles her phone. “He could show up with cash in hand, and they’d spit in his face.” Clever girl. “Then we’ll give the media a head start before the Davenports or H&H can begin damage control.”

“We should call⁠—”

“Alexis,” she says, following my train of thought with a smile. She and my sister chatted about work a lot over Thanksgiving. Jordan knows she’s a journalist in Boston. Alexis is cutthroat. She’ll eat him alive.

“And she can use it as a jump start to expose the law firm that’s taking bribes on the side. I’m sure the NHL won’t be too happy to hear about it.” After a moment, her eyes soften, and she looks up at me. “I’m sorry, Cam. I never meant for you to get wrapped up in this.”

After hearing he laid his hands on her, it doesn’t seem like enough justice, but I’ll do whatever I have to to protect Jordan as she takes him down.

“Whatever you need, say the word.”

“I need you to trust me.”

Jordan is savage. On the outside, she’s sweet and feminine, but she’s got a fierce streak that’s almost frightening. She’s a bad bitch with zero fear. And she’s mine. Just when I think I can’t love her more . . .

As much as I want to beat Bryan into the great beyond, I recognize her need to enact vengeance and love her enough to restrain myself to give her the satisfaction.

She’s thought this through, and Jordan’s right—this needs to be strategic. Bryan only has the balls to do and say the shit he does because of his money, business, and reputation. I grew up with the guy, I know the way his brain works. He’s nothing without cash and clout. He hides behind his prestige to give him the appearance of power.

And she’s about to rip it all away.