His Dangerous Love On Ice (Olivia and Zane) novel Chapter 160

Zane’s POV

My blood ran completely cold.

“Intelligence,” I repeated, the word tasting strange in my mouth.

“Yeah. And here’s where it gets really interesting-he was stationed at the same base where a specific operation was carried out,” JT continued. “An operation that was somehow erased from official records, completely destroyed and terminated from the military database. I couldn’t find any information about it in the regular files because someone went to great lengths to make sure it was wiped away completely.”

An operation.

What operation could he possibly be talking about?

Unless-

Fuck.

No.

“Are you absolutely sure about this?” I demanded, my hand tightening around the phone harder than usual.

“Positive. I pulled whatever records I could find about him before they disappeared, I had to hack through the military database for about fifteen seconds before their security systems detected me and ‘almost got caught,” JT said. “Had an insider help me get access. Because everything about his business persona was too perfectly constructed, too clean. But his military record? That was real. He was definitely there, Boss. But not at the same time frame as you were.”.

Only a handful of people knew l’d been in the military, knew about thatformer identity and the things I’d done during those years, and I’d planned to keep it that way for the rest of my life.

But Judy Byron had been military intelligence, stationed at the same base during but net the exact period.

Had he known about-

No. I stopped that thought before it could fully form, slamming the door shut on memories I’d locked away years ago.

I wasn’t about to go back through those particular nightmares, wasn’t going to open that box of trauma and guilt and things I’d done that I could never take back.

Id locked all of that away in the deepest parts of my mind, and I wasn’t gojng to think about it now because there was absolutely no way Judy Byron could have known about that specific operation.

No fucking way.

“What else did you find?” | asked, forcing my voice to stay level even though my heart was hammering against my ribs.

“He’s been making calls to an encrypted number for the past three months,” JT continued. “I can’t trace it directly, but I’ve been analyzing the pattern. It’s extremely consistent—once a week, always on Saturdays, always exactly fifteen minutes long, like they were following some kind of schedule.”

“Can you pull the actual call logs? Get transcripts or recordings?”

“Already pulled the logs, but no recordings-whoever set up this communication system made sure nothing was being recorded on either end,” JT said. “The last call to this encrypted number was two weeks ago. Then absolutely nothing until the night he had dinner with Olive. He made two more calls after that dinner ended, one to his mother, the discussions were…normal, and the second, the formerpattern and it lasted exactly ten minutes. Then he was dead six hours later.”

My hands clenched into tight fist.

“Who did he call?” I demanded.

“Can’t tell you that yet. The number is scrambled through multiple VPNs and proxy servers-like, military-grade encryption. Whoever he was communicating with absolutely did not want to be found or identified.”

“Keep trying. I need that number, JT. I don’t care what it takes or what it costs.”

“I’m on it. But there’s something else you need to know,” JT said, his voce dropping lower.

“I was able to track down some of his family’s

historical phone records going back further than the past few months.

And I found something really interesting, records of phone calls between Judy Byron and someone else. It happened consistently over an interval of three months straight. Multiple calls, some of them lasting over an hour.”

My brows furrowed as I tried to figure out where he was going with this.

Like whoever had been on the other end of those calls had said some kind of final goodbye and disappeared completely.

For a second, I wondered what Judy Byron had discussed with this person during those fourteen calls, wondered how they were connected, wondered why someone would wait thirteen years to kill Judy right after he’d met with Olive.

Unless something had happened between Olive and Judy at that dinner.Unless Judy had told Olive something specific, something dangerous, something that got him killed.

Unless Olive hadn’t been completely truthful about her encounter with Judy Byron.

My chest tightened painfully, betrayal hitting me like a physical blow, because for a second I understood exactly what it felt like to be sidelined, to not be told the truth, to have someone you care about keeping secrets that could change everything.

And something whispered in the back of my mind that something was forming in the background without my knowledge, pieces moving on a board I couldn’t fully see yet.

A worried line formed on my face as I stared at those call logs, as l tried to piece together what it all meant.

Now was not the time to have issues with Olive, not when someone was clearly targeting her, not when Judy’s murder was connected to something much bigger than I’d initially thought.

I couldn’t risk not being close to her right now, couldn’t let whatever anger or hurt I was feeling drive a wedge between us when she might be in serious danger.

If she wanted to know the truth about everything-about my past, about the military, about what really happened thi teen years ago-then I was going to have to tell her at least part of it.

Not everything. Not the worst parts.

But enough that she understood why I’d been keeping secrets, why I’d been so desperate to protect her from all of this.

I looked up at Nikolai, who was still watching me with those sharp eyes that missed absolutely nothing.”We need to talk,” I said quietly. “About Operation Resonance. About Judy Byron. About all of it.”

Nikolai’s eyebrows raised slightly. “I thought you didn’t want me involved.”

“I don’t,” I admitted. “But I think.l might not have a choice anymore.”