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Not Noah or Dev, which left four other players who owned the car the guy drove off in that night.
Bennett glanced around. He hesitated. There weren’t cameras in here, so no one would ever know. But it still didn’t feel right, invading guys’ privacy like this.
Fuck it.
Three guys deserved privacy, but one definitely did not. And there was no way to know who was the one without doing a little digging. Guys didn’t keep much here—a change of clothes, extra shoes, toiletries. Honestly, Bennett didn’t know what he hoped to find. It was just that this seemed like an opportunity to take advantage of while he had it.
Before he could talk himself out of it, Bennett hurried over to Pence’s stall. The design was simple, just walls instead of the fancy stalls in the locker room that came with bells and whistles like skate dryers and lots of room for gear. Here, all you had was a shelf, a few hooks inside the locker, and a drawer underneath.
Pence had nothing but rolls of tape on the shelf, so Bennett moved on to the drawer. Headphones, a puck, lip balm, razor. A set of keys. An extra phone charger. An old-looking protein bar that Bennett wouldn’t eat if he was trapped and starving on a desert island. Two gel electrolyte packets—and a plastic bracelet. The kind the guy in the photos wore at The Loop.
Bennett froze, then reached down to pick it up. The bracelet was cheap and light, nothing more than plastic beads on a string. Bennett always threw these away, so he wondered why Pence still had it. The beads were numbers . . . Oh. This was clearly a phone number. Glancing down, he found two more in Pence’s drawer, more numbers. Ah. That made sense.
Had Pence drugged Marzano’s cousin?
He put the bracelets back and moved on to the other lockers. Taylor had nothing of interest, just some family photos, trail mix, and lots of tape.
Next was Campbell’s locker, where Bennett discovered more plastic bracelets among the pens, stick wax, and Axe body spray. Minutes later, he found that McPherson had them, too. Fuck. Was this whole team hoarding plastic bracelets? McPherson’s bracelets were a mix of phone numbers and sayings, like Future Baby Daddy and Marry Me. There was one that said Put it in my five-hole. Jesus Christ.
Bennett closed the drawer just as the door opened. It was one of the equipment staff, and he started when he saw Bennett. “Oh! Sorry, Mr. Verreault. I thought everyone went home.”
“I was just on my way out,” he said. “Just hoping McPherson had some gum I could borrow.”
“I have gum.” The guy reached into his pocket and took out a plastic container. “Would you like some?”
“Sure.” Bennett thanked the guy and grabbed his bag.
And he left the arena chewing peppermint gum that he couldn’t wait to spit out.
They started with the empty apartments of the unmarried suspects.
As soon as the charter plane carrying the Reign players lifted off the next afternoon, Nico had his crew in motion. He took three guys with him—Filippo, Dante, and Antonio—and it required very little effort to get past each locked door. One of them didn’t even have a security system, only a deadbolt and a prayer, apparently.
They searched everywhere. They looked in drawers and closets, the freezer. Containers in the kitchen. Shoe boxes and books on the shelves. They weren’t worried about being neat. Instead, they were thorough. They weren’t thieves by trade, but years of being criminals and searching for valuables had made them experts on where to look. Dante even checked inside the toilet tank.
The result was the same, unfortunately. There was nothing in either McPherson’s or Pence’s apartment to indicate they were guilty of drugging Sofia at The Loop. No drugs, no photos, no receipts, nothing. Just lots of dirty laundry, creatine, video games, and cologne.
“Merda!” Nico said as they left Pence’s apartment. “I wanted to find something.”
Filippo was looking down, scrolling on his phone, as they walked to the car. “I still think we should grab all of them and beat them until someone confesses.”
Nico wasn’t opposed to the idea, especially as this dragged out longer than he liked. He preferred swift retribution when it came to personal insults to the family. “Let’s see how many of the other houses we can search tonight.”
“Just heard from the guys. Only one other house is empty.”
“I don’t care if someone’s home or not. Let’s go.”
They were in the car, driving to the next player’s house, and Nico used the time to catch up on work. After that, he checked in with Sofia and made his next chess move with Nonno. Then he asked Sergei if there were any developments with someone on the board of the IOC. Basically, he did anything but think about how much he was looking forward to Monday night.
It's not a date.
This was obvious. Nico could not date Bennett Verreault. They could fuck, quickly. Secretly. But even that was stupid. His men were always hovering, guarding each errand, no matter when or where. This left no time for anything public or an extended period of time, which was unfortunate. He desperately wanted to take his time with Bennett, spend long enough to work this specific man out of his system, and Nico didn’t know how to make that happen. These brief encounters, while hot and dangerous, were only stringing the lust along.
Maybe Monday night would finally sate this feeling inside him, a craving worse than sugar or heroin.
“We should also search their cars,” he said into the silence. “The six who drive that make and model.”
“Good idea,” Filippo said, opening his phone again. “We can search while they’re all parked in the lot at the airport. I’ll find out where the flight took off from.”
