Page 8 of Slap Shot (Charm City Chill #3)

H eather

Heather woke slowly, her body deliciously sore in places that reminded her exactly how she'd spent the previous night.

Oliver's arm was draped across her waist, his breathing deep and even against her neck.

For a moment, she allowed herself to simply exist in this perfect bubble—warm sheets, satisfied exhaustion, and the solid presence of a man who'd made her feel things she'd forgotten were possible.

She needed coffee. Carefully extracting herself from Oliver's embrace, she stumbled to the kitchen, noting her laptop still open on the counter where she'd left it the night before, still logged into her secure systems.

While the coffee brewed, she decided to check her overnight security logs—a habit ingrained from years of monitoring network activity. What she found nearly took her knees out from under her and she had to sit down before she fell down.

Someone had accessed her secure file server at three this morning. She'd been fast asleep at that time, thoroughly exhausted. But the access logs were unmistakable. There were commands executed from her own system, using her credentials.

Heather's hands started shaking as she pulled up her research folders. Empty. Months of work documenting Oliver's past as GhostWire47—FBI files, court records, immunity agreements, technical analysis—all deleted while she slept in the next room.

Whoever had done this knew exactly what files to target, which meant they had intimate knowledge of her investigation into Oliver's criminal history. They'd left everything else untouched. Only the evidence of Oliver's hacking past was gone.

And there was only one person who would benefit from destroying that evidence. One person who knew how to get in and out with the data.

The man currently sleeping in her bed.

The bedroom door opened, and Oliver appeared in the hallway, wearing only boxer briefs and a sleepy smile that made her heart clench. His hair was mussed from sleep, and there were scratch marks on his shoulders from her nails.

"Morning, beautiful," he said, moving toward her. "You're up early. Everything okay?"

The timing was impossible to ignore. "Someone deleted my files," she said, watching his face for any reaction. "All of my research on GhostWire47. Gone."

Oliver's expression shifted from sleepy affection to sharp attention. "What do you mean deleted?"

"I mean someone accessed my secure server this morning while I was sleeping and removed all trace of your hacker past.”

"That's impossible. Your systems are—" Oliver stopped mid-sentence, his gaze moving from her face to the laptop, then back again. She saw the exact moment when he realized what she was implying.

"My laptop was open all night," she continued, her voice steadier than she felt. "Logged into everything. Anyone in this townhouse could have accessed it."

"Heather, I would never—"

"Wouldn't you?" She stood, crossing her arms. "Your entire life with this team, your career, your freedom, it all depends on keeping your past buried. If those files fell into the wrong hands..."

"You already know everything in those files," Oliver said, frustration creeping into his voice. "You approached me because you'd identified me as GhostWire47. Deleting them now doesn't change what you know."

"But it changes what I can prove."

“Why would you need to prove anything?”

“I don’t. I wasn’t planning on weaponizing this information.”

“I know that. You could have blackmailed me into helping you, but you didn’t.”

"You couldn’t take that risk. Without that documentation, without evidence, it would be my word against yours. And who's going to believe the security consultant over the star player?"

Oliver stared at her, something dying in his eyes. "Is that really what you think of me?"

"I think someone who's spent years hiding from their past might panic when that past threatens everything they've built.

" She gestured at the empty folders. "The timing is damning.

We spend the night together. I'm vulnerable and trusting, and suddenly all the evidence of your criminal history vanishes. "

"So what—you think I seduced you to get access to your computer?" His voice was quiet, but she could hear the hurt underneath. "That everything between us was just manipulation?"

The question hit her harder than she'd expected. "I don't know what to think anymore."

Oliver was quiet for a long moment, studying her face. When he finally spoke, his voice was carefully controlled. "You want to know the truth? The real reason I wouldn't delete those files?"

She nodded.

"Because I'm tired of running from what I used to be." He ran a hand through his hair. "For years, I've been terrified that someone would find out about GhostWire47. That I'd lose everything I've worked for.” He closed his eyes and shook his head.

“Wouldn’t that mean you’d do anything to protect that knowledge,” she asked. Heather wanted desperately to be wrong. But she was too cynical to believe in miracles.

Oliver sighed. "Look, I started hacking because my family couldn't afford decent food, and stealing free coupons and manipulating rewards points to get stuff felt more acceptable than stealing actual money."

The honesty in his voice derailed her anger. "How old were you?"

"Seventeen when I started. Twenty when I got caught.

" He went back into the bedroom, and she followed him.

"The FBI agent who arrested me was actually decent about it.

He said I could use my skills to help people instead of hurting them.

That's how I ended up doing white hat work before hockey took over. "

He started getting dressed. "There was a job during my white hat days.

Government contract, tracking down someone who was selling military secrets.

My partner sold me out to save himself, and the people we were hunting decided I knew too much.

" His voice stayed level, but she could see the cost of the memories in his eyes.

"They grabbed me after work one night. Held me for three days, asking questions about what the feds knew. "

"Oliver," she breathed, reaching out without thinking.

"I got out. Eventually. But the trauma..." He gestured towards Charlie in the living room. "PTSD, panic attacks, the whole package."

"How long has it been?"

"Three years since the warehouse.” He met her eyes, something defiant in his expression. "I didn't delete your files. But I understand why you think I did. The evidence is pretty damning. I would never sabotage this investigation."

"Your word against the evidence."

"My word," Oliver said, "which apparently doesn't mean much to you."

The hurt in his voice made something crack in her chest. "Evidence doesn't lie. People do."

Oliver stepped closer. "Is that what you think I've been doing? Lying to you?"

"I don't know what to think." The confession came out rougher than she'd intended. "I want to believe you, but—"

"But you don't trust me."

"I can't afford to trust you. Not when my career is on the line, not when everything I've worked for could be destroyed if I'm wrong."

"And what about last night? Do you truly think that was part of some elaborate manipulation?”

Heather's cheeks heated. "I don't know what last night was."

"It was real," Oliver said. "Whatever else you think about me, what happened between us was real."

He was close enough now that she could feel the heat radiating from his body, could smell the scent of her sheets still clinging to his skin. Despite everything, her pulse kicked up.

"This is insane," she whispered.

"Completely insane," Oliver agreed. "You're accusing me of betraying everything I care about, and all I can think about is how much I want to prove to you that I would never hurt you.

But you know what gets me, Heather?" Oliver said pushed by her out into the living room.

"It's not that you had to ask about the deleted files.

I get it, the timing looks damning. It's that you didn't ask. "

"What do you mean?"

"I mean you saw the evidence and immediately assumed I was guilty. You built an entire theory about me covering up my past, and you never once said 'Oliver, can you explain this?'" His voice was quiet, but she could hear the pain underneath. "You went straight to interrogation mode."

"I was doing my job." But that sounded lame, even to her.

"Your job was to investigate the evidence. Not to assume I'm a criminal without giving me a chance to defend myself." Oliver shook his head, disappointment clear in his expression.

"Oliver—"

"I know how it looks. I know I was the only other person here. And I know I can't explain how someone else could have accessed your system." He motioned for Charlie to heel. "But I thought you knew me well enough to at least ask before assuming the worst."

The quiet accusation hit deeper than shouting would have. "I should have asked," she admitted.

"Yeah. You should have." He looked back at her, vulnerability flickering beneath the hurt.

“I think we both need some space to figure out what happens next.

" He moved toward the door, pausing with his hand on the handle.

"For what it's worth, last night was real.

Whatever you think about the rest of it, that part was real. "

The door closed behind him, leaving Heather alone in her kitchen with cold coffee and the growing certainty that she'd just made a terrible mistake.

She stared at the empty folders on her laptop screen, trying to push past her emotional reaction and focus on the technical details.

Something nagged at her about the deletion.

As she began analyzing the access logs more carefully, subtle inconsistencies began to emerge.

The syntax was correct but lacked Oliver's typical shortcuts.

The file targeting was accurate but showed none of his usual efficiency patterns.

Her pulse quickened as she found more discrepancies.

This wasn't Oliver's work. This was someone who had studied his methods but wasn't actually him.

The access logs were prominent, the timestamps convenient, the trail of suspicion leading directly to Oliver unmistakable.

Too unmistakable.

The timing was suspicious enough to implicate Oliver but not so obvious as to seem fake. The access method was sophisticated enough to seem like his work but contained just enough small errors to be traced back to him.

Heather had spent years hunting hackers, and the good ones never left such obvious breadcrumbs. This wasn't the work of someone trying to hide their tracks. This was the work of someone trying to create tracks that led directly to Oliver.

While it looked on the surface that the breech had occurred in person, an hour of digging showed her that her computer was accessed remotely. Someone had orchestrated this entire scenario, and she'd played right into their hands.

Oliver wasn't the perpetrator. He was the target.

Someone had deliberately framed him, and she'd fallen for it completely.

The pattern was suddenly clear, and it made her sick.

She'd done exactly what David's betrayal had trained her to do—assume the worst about someone who'd given her access to their vulnerabilities.

Her trauma had created a hair trigger for betrayal, making her see threats where none existed while completely missing the real danger lurking in plain sight.

What had she done?

She buried her face in her hands and cried.