Playing Captain (BL)

Chapter 2 - The Architect

Inside the taxi, Milo beamed.

He sat in the back seat staring at the check in his hands like it might disappear if he blinked.

Fifty-seven million. With this he could pay everyone their share, clear every loan, and still walk away with at least two million in profit.

The rest he’d invest or use to book more games.

He was deep in his grand plans when the taxi braked hard, jolting him forward.

“Why are we stopping?”

“There seems to be a blockage ahead,” the driver answered, gazing out the window.

Milo tucked the check away and leaned back, trying to calm his rapidly beating heart.

He’d been discreet when he left the stadium and even kept his head down. Nobody had followed him. This was probably just a normal checkpoint.

That thought had barely settled when he watched someone yank the driver’s door open and shove him out onto the road.

Milo didn’t wait. He threw his door open and stepped out.

Unfortunately, another person was waiting by the door and grabbed him immediately.

The man who had attacked the driver, appeared behind him and started going through his pockets.

“No! Get off me!”

He fought back. At least tried to when the man holding him drove a fist into his stomach.

Milo doubled over, gasping.

“The Architect wants to see you.”

“The what?” he wheezed.

They didn’t explain and simply dragged him into their car.

Sandwiched between the two men, Milo’s mind was running in every direction. Nobody had seen him, not even the cameras. So who was this?

His brows pulled together.

The cashier, maybe?

The car soon stopped outside the stadium and they pulled him out, dragging him into one of the back rooms.

The moment they shoved him inside, he scrambled straight for the door.

Locked.

“This is a*******n!” He banged hard on the door. “Unless you have actual evidence, you cannot hold me here!”

“Oh, I have proof.”

He immediately spun around.

He’d been so focused on the door that he hadn’t noticed the man sitting quietly in the corner.

Middle-aged, unhurried, a hat resting against his chest and a toothpick tucked in the corner of his mouth. He was smiling like someone who had nowhere else to be.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Milo said flatly.

The man shrugged, tugging on his grey mustache. “You see, Idris is anything but a liar. He’s a composed man who’d never make an accusation without being absolutely certain.”

“You have the wrong person.” Milo didn’t wait for him to continue and deadpanned, turning back to the door.

“Hey! Let me out of here!”

The man watched him bang on the door for a few seconds. Then he stood and walked around the table.

Milo saw him from the corner of his eye and sized him up. They were nearly the same height, and despite Milo being taller, something about the man made the air feel smaller.

He moved like someone who had never once been in a hurry because things always went his way eventually.

When he dropped his hat on the table and pressed Milo toward the chair, Milo sat without fully meaning to.

Then the man placed something on the table.

A button.

Milo stared at it, his pupils dilating.

“I also have surveillance footage showing you entered the stadium with a full set of shirt buttons and left with one missing.” The man tilted his head. “Imagine the uproar if I took this to the organizers. You’d lose every coin of your winnings. The fans of both clubs would find every way imaginable to get their hands on you.”

He paused briefly and smacked his lips. “And Idris Vale… well. He and his club would make sure you spent the rest of your life in a prison cell.”

Milo’s shoulders dropped.

If this ever got out, he was finished. Worse than finished.

“You want to make a deal,” he said, looking up slowly. “That’s why you haven’t handed me over yet.”

“Very smart.” The man nodded, leaning against the table with an easy smile. “I hear you were the best center in your high school hockey team. Won so many awards. Almost sad you never made it to the big screens.”

He then pulled out a chair and sat beside Milo.

“Harlow Hawks will need a center soon. I’ll get you in. And then we begin the brief journey on how you buy my silence.”

Milo stared at him for a moment. Then he laughed.

“You sound like you’ve lost your mind, if there was really an open spot at Harlow Hawks it would be gone in seconds. There’s no vacancy. Something like that would be all over the news.”

The man said nothing. He simply reached into his jacket, produced a cigarette, lit it, and picked up his phone to make a call.

“Do it.”

Two minutes later the television mounted on the wall which had been showing a weather forecast, cut to breaking news.

“Breaking News! Front liner Jones Hartridge has been involved in a terrible accident. We do not yet know the full extent of his injuries, but he is currently in surgery at Harlow Hospital. Hartridge is a key player for the Harlow Hawks…”

Milo’s stomach dropped.

The man exhaled a slow breath of smoke and looked at Milo with calm, satisfied eyes.

“Congratulations, son. You’ve just become a Harlow Hawk.”