Silas Vance did not sleep.
He built.
The rink was empty, the arena lights dimmed to their ghostly glow. The ice reflected fractured silver across the ceiling like a broken mirror. It was the only place his thoughts arranged themselves into structure instead of chaos.
Forty-eight hours.
That was how long they had before Ivy Sterling was placed on a jet and relocated like inventory.
Silas sat alone on the players’ bench, laptop open, engineering notebook beside him. Not hockey plays.
Equations.
Flow diagrams.
Pressure points.
Toby’s voice came through his earpiece.
“You’re pacing,” Toby said.
“I’m thinking.”
“Same thing with you.”
Silas ignored that.
“What did you find?”
Toby exhaled slowly. Keyboard clicking filled the line.
“The Whitestone subsidiary handling the Oakhaven m
