His Dangerous Love On Ice (Olivia and Zane) novel Chapter 158

Olive’s POV

The attorney I’d been avoiding thinking about because thinking about him meant thinking about Judy’s death, which meant thinking about Klaus’s murder, which meant spiraling into the conspiracy theory rabbit hole I’d been trying to climb out of.

I stared at the call for three full rings, my mind instantly ftashing back to the scene of the interrogation at the police station, to Detective Harrison’s careful questions and the way he’d looked at me like I might be hiding something.

I sighed and picked up the phone with shaky hands, my heart already racing before he’d even said a word.

“Hello, Olive. I’m here to tell you about the investigation regarding

* Judy Byron’s death.”

Richard’s voice boomed through my phone with that particular professional tone lawyers used when they were about to deliver news that could go either way.

My heart skipped at how strange and weird it still sounded that Judy was actually dead-like my brain refused to fully accept that someone I’d had dinner with less than a week ago was now being referred to in past tense.

I still couldn’t pull that reality fully into my head, couldn’t make it make sense.

“Your name has been dropped from the case,” Richard continued, and I felt my entire body sag with relief I hadn’t realized I’d been holding back. “His mother confirmed that Judy himself had called her when you left, and he called her after some minutes after you left the restaurant. The investigators made sure to check every camera angle to verify, and they’ve determined the time of his death was some hourslater or so after you departed the premises.”

He paused for a second, and I could hear papers shuffling on his end.

“But the investigators believe his death wasn’t something random or crime-of-opportunity,” he said, his voice dropping lower, more serious.

“The cause of death has been officially released, and I probably shouldn’t be discussing this with you, but I want you to be aware-Judy Byron was murdered. It was a professional hit. Clean, calculated, nearly perfect. The kind of job where someone knows exactly what they’re doing.”

My heart stopped completely, then started again at double speed.

The thoughts I’d been having, the investigations I’d been doing the previous night when I’d found that article about Klaus, it was all confirmed now.

This wasn’t paranoia. This was real.

“Have you seen anything strange or weird around you recently?” Richard asked, his tone shifting to something almost protective. ” need to make sure you’re safe, and I need to be certain you’re not somehow still connected to his death in ways we haven’t uncovered yet.”

My mind flashed back immediately to the strange messages l’d received yesterday, those two texts that had screa ned danger from every word, that had known exactly where I was and what I was doing.

Messages I should absolutely tell him about.

Messages I was going to keep to myself because admitting l’d received them meant admitting I was digging into things I probably shouldn’t be digging into.

“No, I haven’t,” I lied, the guilt of it heavy in my chest like a stone. “If I see anything suspicious, I’ll let you know immediately.”I was playing a risky game, and some part of me knew it was going te blow up in my face eventually.

“Alright then. Take care of yourself, Olive. And seriously-if anything feels off, call me. Don’t wait.”

He said his goodbyes and ended the call, leaving me sitting there with my heart thudding so hard

A heavy breath left my lips as a cold sweat swept through my body despite the office temperature being perfectly regulated.

I swiped my laptop open with fumbling fingers, my hands typing furiously from panic as I tried to navigate back to the site where I’d saved the article about Klaus’s investigation into racing corruption, the article that had confirmed my brother hadn’t died in an accident at all.

But when I typed in the search terms I’d used before, I couldn’t find it.

I froze, my fingers hovering over the keyboard.

I typed it again, searching more desperately this time, checking my browser history and my bookmarked pages and anywhere else I might have saved it.

I went back through my Chrome history, retracing every single step I’d taken the night before when I’d found that article, following the exact path that had led me to that devastating discovery

But I couldn’t find it anywhere.

Not even a single trace that it had ever existed.

All of it had been wiped clean, erased right out from under me like nothing had ever happened, and for a second it felt like I was losing my mind, like maybe I’d imagined the whole thing in some kind of grief-induced hallucination.

The threat from last night hung over my head like a guillotine waiting. to drop.

I groaned out loud, so furiously frustrated that I grabbed my hair in both hands and scattered it around my face, pulling at it like the physical pain might ground me back in reality.

“Yes…” She drew the word out suspiciously.

“Well,” I paused, trying to pick my words carefully because I really didn’t want Brenda having a complete meltdown over this. “She invited us to an Italian club. She said we could come fuck Italian men together.

I don’t know why that’s her selling point, but I believe it’s exactly your kind of thing.”I held my breath, waiting for the explosion.

“Oh my god, you accepted a club invitation so fucking easily without me having to drag you?” Brenda’s voice came through so loud I actually had to pull the phone away from my ear. “I’m fucking going, Olive. I absolutely need to meet this woman who makes you agree to go clubbing without me creating a whole scene about how boring you usually are.”

“And then we can discuss Zane,” | added.

“And us getting married,” Brenda finished for me, and I could hear the smile in her voice.

“Hopkins Company is doing great, thanks for asking,” she continued before I could respond. “And your father has been making some really weird decisions lately, which is so unlike him that people are starting to talk.”

My brows furrowed even though she couldn’t see my confusion. “Weird decisions? What kind of weird decisions?”

“It’s something I’d never imagine Grayson thinking of,” Brenda said, her voice dropping to something more serious.

“Somehow Hopkins stock

plummeted recently, like, significantly, and now the company is somehow considering buying and building our own hockey stadium! I don’t know how that’s even financially possible given our current situation, but apparently we’re courting potential investors for it.”

She paused, and I could hear her moving around, probably pacing like she did when she was stressed.

“Grayson should really be the one telling you this since you’re the Senior VP of Strategic Development now, but I wanted to give you a heads up. And also, several staff members were fired recently, like, a whole department worth of people. We found out they’d been leaking confidential information about the company to our competitors for months, maybe years. So much is going on right now that the companyis basically on fire, but somehow we’re also thriving? It’s weird.”

She ended the call shortly after that, leaving me sitting there with a thousand different questions barging through my mind about why Grayson was making these decisions, about what was actually happening at Hopkins that nobody was telling me about.

I grabbed my phone, about to call Grayson directly and demand answers about what the hell was going on with the company I was supposed to be helping run.

But before I could dial his number, my phone pinged with a message notification that made my blood run completely cold.

I stared at the screen, my heart skipped, my eyes widening.