His Dangerous Love On Ice Chapter 132: Zane's Pov

"How did he know?"

The words came out sharper than I intended, my entire body going rigid.

I'd made absolutely certain that the purchase was untraceable. Shell companies layered on top of offshore accounts layered on top of more shell companies. The kind of financial labyrinth that would take years to unravel, if it could be unraveled at all.

And yet somehow, Grayson Sinclair had figured it out.

"Maybe because he knows you'd burn the world down for my daughter," Walter said, and despite the tension, there was a hint of amusement in his voice. "Which, I really need to talk to you about. The whole burning-the-world-down thing. Because if you keep going like this, we're all going to turn to ashes. And I'm too old to spontaneously combust."

I almost smiled at that despite myself.

Walter had this way of injecting humor into the darkest situations. It's what made him tolerable. What made him one of the few people I actually trusted.

"Okay," I said.

"Okay?" Walter repeated, looking slightly confused. "Just okay? You're not going to argue or tell me to mind my own business or—"

"Put my father on the call," I interrupted.

Walter blinked. "Right now? In here?"

He gestured around at the warehouse, at the illegal racing operation happening below us, at Nikolai who was still leaning against the railing and very obviously eavesdropping.

I sighed, already turning toward the exit. "My office."

"Ah. That makes more sense." Walter nodded, looking relieved.

As I walked past Nikolai, he called out without turning around.

"Call her and stop being a dick."

I ignored him.

I wasn't going to call her.

If she needed space—if what I'd done scared her enough that she needed time to process it—then I was going to give her that space.

Even if it was killing me.

Even if every hour that passed without hearing her voice made me want to destroy something else just to feel something other than this hollowness in my chest.

The walk to my office felt longer than usual.

My racing office was one of my favorite spaces. I'd had it custom designed to look like the interior of a high-end sports car. The kind of space that reminded me why I loved speed, control, danger.

But right now, it just felt empty.

I dropped into the leather racing seat that served as my office chair and pressed a button on the armrest.

The room transformed.

Red lighting flooded the space. A racing background projected onto the walls—winding roads, sharp turns, the blur of speed. The ceiling darkened, creating the illusion of sitting in a cockpit speeding through the night.

Dark but balanced. Intense but controlled.

Exactly how I liked it.

"Put my father on the line, Walter," I said into the intercom.

"You sure about this?" Walter's voice crackled back. "Because he's been... aggressive. More than usual."

"I'm sure."

A moment later, the wide screen on the wall illuminated, casting a blue glow that cut through the red lighting.

My father's face appeared.

And he looked like hell.

The confident, cruel man who'd spent decades destroying anyone who crossed him looked... broken. Wrinkles carved deeper into his face than I remembered. Dark circles under his eyes that spoke of sleepless nights. His usually immaculate hair was disheveled. His tie was loose.

He looked like a man who'd finally realized he wasn't invincible.

And I couldn't hide the small smile that tugged at the corners of my mouth.

"Zane," he said, and his voice was rough. Tired.

"Father," I replied, my tone perfectly neutral.

Not warm. Not cold. Just... empty.

His jaw tightened slightly at my formal tone, but he pressed on.

"I need your help," he said, and the words seemed to physically pain him. "The company is under attack. Someone is systematically destroying everything I've built. And I need to know—" He paused, his eyes searching my face through the screen. "I need to know if you have any information about who might be behind this."

Interesting approach.

He wasn't accusing me. Wasn't demanding answers. He was asking for help.

Almost like he suspected but couldn't quite believe it.

"What makes you think I would know anything about it?" I asked, keeping my voice casual.

"Because you're smart," he said. "Smarter than I ever gave you credit for. You have connections I don't understand. Resources I didn't know you had. And..." He hesitated. "And you've always been good at seeing things coming before they happen."

It was probably the closest thing to a compliment he'd ever given me.

And it meant he was desperate.

"Tell me what happened," I said, leaning back in my chair.

He took a breath, and I watched him struggle to maintain composure.

"Someone bought Hopkins Enterprise," he said. "Outbid me by hundreds of millions. Paid an absolutely outrageous price for a company that was failing. And then—" His voice cracked slightly. "Then they handed it back to Grayson Sinclair. Just gave it to him. Like it was nothing."

"Interesting," I said.

"And that same day," he continued, his voice getting harder now, "videos surfaced. Private videos. Documents about my... personal business. Things that were supposed to be buried. Hidden. Things that only a handful of people knew about."

"Sounds like you have enemies," I observed.

"I have lots of enemies," he shot back. "But none of them have this kind of reach. This kind of precision. This feels... personal."

He stared at me through the screen, and I could see the wheels turning in his head.

Suspicion. Doubt. Disbelief.

"Zane," he said slowly. "Did you have anything to do with this?"

I held his gaze, my expression giving away nothing.

"Why would I?" I asked.

"Because you hate me," he said bluntly. "Because I've never been the father you needed. Because I've made your life hell and you finally decided to do something about it."

The honesty caught me off guard.

For a moment, neither of us spoke.

"If I had that kind of power," I said carefully, "that kind of money, that kind of reach... do you really think I would have waited this long to use it?"

It wasn't a confirmation. But it wasn't a denial either.

And I could see the way it landed. The way doubt flickered across his face.

"I don't know what to think anymore," he admitted, and for the first time in my life, my father sounded genuinely lost. "I've spent days trying to figure out who did this. The purchase went through so many shell companies and offshore accounts that it's impossible to trace. Whoever orchestrated this is a ghost."

"Maybe that's the point," I said.

"What?"

"Maybe they don't want you to know who they are," I explained. "Maybe the not knowing is part of the punishment. Leaving you to wonder. To suspect everyone. To trust no one."

His face went pale.