365 Days With The Hockey Player I Hate

Chapter 7 - Time's up

~~~Soraya~~~

We barely made it out of the ballroom before I felt like I was going to throw up. Declan kept his arm locked around my waist, guiding me through the side exit like a protective wall. My parents tried to follow, but he smoothly told them I wasn’t feeling well and that we’d meet them for breakfast tomorrow. Mom looked worried. Dad looked suspicious.

The second we were alone in the back hallway, I turned to face him.

“Twenty minutes,” I hissed, voice shaking.

“We have twenty minutes before that psycho sends everything to my dad. What are we supposed to do? We can’t pay them.”

Declan’s face was stone cold, but his eyes burned with fury. “We’re not paying s**t. That’s how this never ends.”

He pulled me into a small storage room off the hallway and locked the door behind us.

“We need to think.”

My phone buzzed again.

Unknown:

“15 minutes. I hope you’re saying your goodbyes.”

I showed Declan the message. My hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

“I can’t lose my parents’ trust,” I whispered. “They already went through so much with Dad’s cancer. If they find out I married you for money… that this whole thing is fake… it’ll destroy them.”

Declan pulled me closer, both hands on my shoulders, forcing me to look at him.

“Hey. Breathe. I’m not letting that happen. We stall. We act like everything’s normal. And we try to figure out who the hell this is.”

Before I could answer, the door handle rattled.

“Soraya? Declan?” Maya’s voice came through, sharp and worried.

“I know something’s wrong. Open the door.”

Declan cursed under his breath.

I quickly wiped my eyes and unlocked it.

Maya burst in, Jax right behind her.

“Spill. Now.” She yelled.

Jax added. “You two look like you’re attending a funeral, not a celebration dinner.”

“We can’t..” I started saying.

Another message came through for the umpteenth time.

This time it was a video file. I hit play with dread.

It was footage of Declan and me signing the contract in the conference room, clearly taken from a hidden angle.

Maya’s eyes widened. Jax whistled low.

“Holy shit.”

“You told them?” Declan snapped at me.

“I didn’t say anything” I shot back.

“I figured it out myself,” Maya said.

“You’ve been acting weird since Vegas. And that message I saw earlier…” She looked between us. “How bad is it?”

“Very bad,” Declan said grimly.

“Someone wants fifty grand or they expose everything in few minutes.”

The four of us stood in tense silence.

My phone kept vibrating with new countdown messages.

“We need to get back to the penthouse,” Declan decided.

“Figure this out there. Soraya, you text your parents that you’re tired and we’re heading home. Make it sound lovey dovey.”

I hated how calmly he was handling this while I felt like my world was collapsing.

But I did what he said.

The ride back to the penthouse was suffocating.

Maya and Jax insisted on coming with us for backup. Every few minutes my phone would buzz with new threats. Screenshots. Voice notes. Proof that this person had been watching us for days.

The moment we stepped inside the penthouse, Declan went full captain mode.

“Jax, check if anyone weird has been around the team lately. Maya, same for the Storm. Soraya, try to see if the number can be traced somehow.”

He looked at me, voice softer. “We’ve got this. I promise.”

But ten minutes later, the final bomb dropped.

My phone rang.

It was my dad.

I answered on speaker, heart in my throat.

“Mija,” Dad said, voice heavy.

“A man just called me. He said he has important information about your marriage. That it’s not real. That you did it for money. Tell me he’s lying.”

The room went completely silent.

Tears burned my eyes.

Declan stepped closer, placing a supportive hand on my back.

“D..D..Dad… I…”

Before I could compose my sentence, the unknown number sent one last message, this time to both me and my father’s phone at the same time.

“Time’s up.”

And then my dad’s voice cracked through the speaker.

“He just sent me documents. Soraya… is this true?”

I turned dumb in a second, and deaf in the following second.

“Soraya answer me now.”