The air in the Metropolitan Arena was frigid, but the atmosphere in the locker room was incendiary. Silas arrived thirty minutes late, intentionally letting his heavy boots thunder against the concrete, his face set in a snarl. He expected to find a flustered socialite struggling with the cold; instead, he found Ivy Sterling sitting on his personal bench, looking like a queen who had just annexed a new territory.
She was dressed in a charcoal-grey power suit, her hair pulled back into a ponytail so tight it looked painful. She held a digital tablet in one hand and a stopwatch in the other. She didn't look up when he slammed his gear bag onto the floor.
"You’re late, Vance," she said, her voice clipping each word with surgical precision. "That’s a five-thousand-dollar deduction from your
