Chapter 156 The Real Enemy

Chapter 156 The Real Enemy
Levi's POV

The arena's backup generators kick in ninety seconds after the blackout, but ninety seconds is long enough for panic to spread through four thousand people in the dark, long enough for security to lose track of exactly who moved where, long enough for me to spend the worst minute and a half of my life with Anya's hand gripped so hard in mine I probably left marks.

I remember the sound of the crowd shifting from celebration to confusion to something closer to fear, phone flashlights blooming across the stands like a field of nervous fireflies, someone's kid crying somewhere below us in the dark. I remember the message still glowing on Anya's screen, the words almost a shame it won't last burned into the back of my eyes even after the lights came back.

By the time the lights flicker back on, arena security has the building locked down, exits sealed, everyone accounted for except the one thing that actually matters, whoever sent that message never needed to be inside the building at all. The blackout came from an external relay box behind the arena, accessed with a keycard that, according to the facilities manager pulling records for us in a cramped back office an hour later, hadn't been used in over a year. I sit across from him with Anya's coat still draped around my shoulders, adrenaline finally curdling into something colder and more exhausted, waiting for an answer I already suspect won't be simple.

"Whose card is it," I ask.

The manager squints at his screen. "Registered to a vendor account. Voss, Gregory. Facilities consultant, contracted through" He pauses, frowning. "Huh. Contracted through a company called Ridgemont Holdings, not the Whitfield estate directly."

Marcus, hunched over his laptop in the corner where he's been running his own parallel search since the second the lights went out, goes very still. The kind of stillness that means whatever he just found matters more than he wants to say out loud right away.

"Ridgemont Holdings," he repeats slowly. "Levi, I know that name."

"From where?"

He turns his screen toward me, and the cold, certain feeling in my chest turns into something sharper, colder, more specific.

"It's a shell company," Marcus says. "Registered two years ago. I only recognize it because it came up once when I was helping my dad research your father's old business dealings for a school project, back before any of this started." He scrolls, pulling up an archived news article, the kind that gets buried after a few news cycles and forgotten by everyone except the people it ruined. "Ridgemont was the holding company for Daniel Ashcroft. He used to be your father's business partner. Before the embezzlement scandal that got him pushed out of the company eight years ago."

The name lands like a physical blow. I remember Ashcroft vaguely from childhood, a periodic presence at holiday parties, a man who used to bring my sister and me elaborate gifts that always felt slightly too expensive, slightly too calculated, like currency instead of kindness.

I remember my father's face going tight and unreadable any time Ashcroft's name came up after the scandal broke, remember overhearing enough hushed conversations to understand that whatever happened between them had been ugly, personal, and never fully resolved even after the lawsuits settled.

I remember, too, the way my father stopped attending certain charity events for almost a year afterward, like he couldn't stand the possibility of running into the man he used to call his closest friend.

"He lost everything," Marcus continues, reading further. "Reputation, most of his fortune, custody battle with his ex-wife that apparently got ugly in the press. And he's spent the last eight years apparently rebuilding through shell companies and quiet consulting work including, according to this filing, a facilities contract with the Whitfield estate that put Voss on his payroll eighteen months ago."

"He's been using Voss," I say slowly, the pieces sliding into place with sickening clarity. "Voss wasn't protecting a Thorne-Whitfield business deal out of loyalty. He was working for Ashcroft the entire time, using his access to the Whitfield estate as a way to get close enough to hurt my family without ever putting his own name on anything."

"That's my read," Marcus says grimly. "Ashcroft's spent eight years watching your father's company thrive without him. What better revenge than destroying something your father actually cares about, you, and by extension, Anya, without ever leaving fingerprints that trace back further than a disgruntled estate manager?"

My hands are shaking, and I realize distantly that it's not fear anymore, or not only fear. It's rage, clean and focused, the kind I usually only feel on the ice in the final minute of a close game.

"He used Sloane's family," I say. "Her entire estate, her father's business, all of it as cover to come after Anya."

"Looks that way."

I pull out my phone, hands unsteady, and call Anya before I've even fully processed what I'm going to say to her. She picks up on the second ring, voice still thin with adrenaline from the blackout.

"Levi? What's happening, is everything"

"We found him," I say. "Or, not him exactly. We found who's actually been behind this the whole time. Voss wasn't working alone, Anya. He's been working for someone else. A man named Daniel Ashcroft. Former business partner of my father's, disgraced eight years ago. He's been using the Whitfield estate as cover this entire time."

Silence on the line for a long moment. "Why," she finally asks, voice small, "would a man I've never met want to hurt me this badly."

"Because hurting you is the easiest way to hurt me," I say, throat tight. "And hurting me is the easiest way to hurt my father. You were never really the target, Anya. You were just, collateral, exactly like Marcus said weeks ago. I'm so sorry. This entire time, it's been about tearing my family apart, and you got caught directly in the middle of it."

"Levi." Her voice steadies, sharper now, some of her old resolve returning even through the fear. "Where is he now? This Ashcroft. Do we know?"

I look at Marcus, who's already shaking his head at whatever he's seeing on his screen, jaw tight with an answer I don't want to hear.

"That's the problem," Marcus says quietly. "According to every public record we can find, Daniel Ashcroft supposedly died eighteen months ago. Car accident. Official cause of death, closed casket funeral, obituary and everything."

The office goes silent except for the hum of old fluorescent lights, the kind of silence that presses against your ears louder than any noise could.

"Then who," I say slowly, "have we actually been chasing this entire time?"