His Dangerous Love On Ice Chapter 177: Zane's Pov

"You think she's not ready to hear the truth?"

Nikolai's voice cut through the sound of metal scraping against metal as I pulled the tire off the car, my hands already black with grease, sweat dripping down my back despite the garage being relatively cool.

I grabbed a new tire from the corner where I'd stacked them earlier and rolled it toward the car with more force than necessary.

"No, she's not," I said, positioning the tire and reaching for the tire iron. "She runs when she hears the truth. Every single time something gets too real, she bolts."

"If she runs when she hears the truth, then maybe that's for the best," Nikolai said from where he was leaning against my workbench, arms crossed, watching me work with that particular expression that meant he was about to say something I didn't want to hear. "Better than keeping her in the dark and having her find out some other way. That'll make her run even faster."

I stopped what I was doing and jerked my head up to look at him, my jaw clenching harder than necessary.

"And that's where there will be a problem," I said slowly, deliberately. "Because I don't want her leaving. Not now. Not ever."

"So you love her."

I could hear the condescension dripping from his voice, that particular tone he used when he thought he'd figured something out about me that I hadn't admitted to myself yet.

"You finally understand that you love her. No debates. No more pretending it's just physical or convenient or whatever bullshit you've been telling yourself."

I pulled myself out from under the car where I'd been working on the calibrator, my shirt completely ruined with grease stains, my hands black up to my elbows.

It was no secret that I was completely whipped for Olive Monroe, there was absolutely no denying that fact at this point, not after everything I'd done to her.

But I wasn't about to be a fool by accepting it out loud in front of Nikolai, who would never let me hear the end of it.

"Judy Byron is dead, and his murderer is still moving around out there somewhere," I said instead of addressing his accusation directly. "I need to focus on that right now. Finding out who killed him and why. And maybe it's best if Olive stays mad at me for keeping secrets. When the time comes and everything is over, she'll understand I was protecting her."

I grabbed a rag and tried to wipe some of the grease off my hands, though it was pretty much a lost cause at this point.

"I could help you find out about Judy Byron's murder," Nikolai offered, pushing off from the workbench. "You know I'm good at this kind of thing. Better than those amateurs you have working for you."

"No." The word came out sharper than I intended. "You don't get to be involved in this. I'm already working on it with people I trust."

Nikolai chuckled, that dark sound that meant he was getting annoyed with me.

"But I could find his killer faster than these pussies you have on your beck and call," he said, his Russian accent getting thicker the way it always did when he was irritated. "Much faster. You know this."

My eyes glinted dangerously and my hands clenched into fists, the rag falling to the floor.

"I'll tell you when you get involved or not," I said, my voice dropping to something cold and final as I walked toward the table where a bottle of water was sitting. "This isn't up for discussion."

"Oh, like not involving me in Operation Resonance?"

I stopped dead in my tracks, slowly turning around to face him, my eyes narrowed into dangerous slits.

I slowly shook my head, not even remotely surprised that he would know about Operation Resonance despite all my efforts to keep it buried.

I'd tried so hard to keep that particular part of my past away from Nikolai, had gone to extreme lengths to make sure he never found out about what happened during those years.

Because I knew exactly what type of person Nikolai was—had known since the day we met.

He was never the type to make things clean and quiet.

While I preferred calm, calculated jobs that left no trace except maybe a signature move that people would recognize as mine, Nikolai loved them bloody and messy, leaving trails that deliberately led back to him like he was daring people to come after him for what he'd done.

And that was intentional, part of his reputation, part of what made him so feared.

But whatever was going on right now with Judy Byron's murder and Alonso, didn't need Nikolai's particular brand of chaos—it needed precision and control and absolutely no unnecessary attention.

"Back off from Operation Resonance," I warned, my voice tightening as I stared him down. "I'm serious, Nikolai. Stay the fuck away from it."

I was about to add more when my phone started ringing, the sound cutting through the tension in the garage.

I glared at Nikolai one more time before pulling my phone out of my pocket, and when I saw JT's name on the screen, I knew this was the call I'd been waiting for.

JT was the closest person I had to tracking down what happened to the man my woman had dinner with before his unfortunate death, and if he was calling now, it meant he'd found something significant.

I pressed answer and brought the phone to my ear, very aware of Nikolai's icy stare boring into my back, that look that said he wanted to be involved whether I liked it or not.

"Boss."

"Have you been able to find out everything about Judy Byron?" I asked immediately, not bothering with pleasantries. "Every connection, every business dealing, every person he's talked to in the last month like I asked?"

"Yes sir."

"And?"

"I think his death is definitely connected to something bigger," JT said, and I could hear him typing in the background. "Something I haven't been able to fully figure out yet, but the pieces are starting to come together."

"Tell me what you found." I said, my jaw clenching as I deliberately ignored the way Nikolai had moved closer, clearly trying to hear the conversation.

"So I did extensive research on Judy Byron, turned over every database I could access, and every single record about him was clean," JT continued. "And I mean every fucking one. Too clean for a steel businessman his age. There was absolutely no information about him before six years ago—no childhood records, no high school transcripts, nothing. It's like he just appeared out of thin air six years ago when he supposedly started business school."

My blood was already starting to run cold before he even finished.

"His case looked way too familiar to some other identity reconstructions I've seen, so I made a few calls to some contacts who owe me favors," JT said. "Called in every marker I had to get access to sealed military records."

He paused, and I could practically feel him building up to the big reveal, because that's exactly how JT operated—he always wanted you to feel the tension before he dropped the bomb.

"So it turns out that Judy Byron had serious military connections," he said finally. "He did a three-year stint in the Army. Got discharged honorably nine years ago when he was twenty-four. He worked in military intelligence."