Vegas Aces: The Wide Receiver Complete Series

CHAPTER 27 TRISTAN

I check the garage just to be sure her car isn’t at the house, and I find I’m alone. I’m sure she’s spying on me with hidden cameras and recording devices, all the more reason to regrettably move out of this place and never look back.

I open her bedroom door. It’s my fucking house, so it’s not any sort of invasion. I open every drawer in her dresser, ready to take pictures of anything and everything I can find to use as evidence, but I come up empty.

I check the closet. Nothing. Just clothes and shoes. Tacky clothes and an overabundance of shoes, but I’m not here to judge.

I check under the bed, in her nightstand, and in her desk drawers, and I can’t seem to find anything she might use against me.

And then I spot it. The obnoxiously large jewelry box sitting on top of her dresser.

I stare at it a beat. She wouldn’t make it that easy, would she? She wouldn’t hide the evidence in plain sight…would she?

I flip open the top and find rows of necklaces. It looks like there’s another level to this box beneath the row holding the necklaces, so I tug on the velvety tray as my heart races. It lifts out.

This has to be it. I’ve looked everywhere else.

Beneath the row of necklaces lies…another row of necklaces.

I blow out a breath and yank that tray out, too. And sure enough, beneath that row, I see a small stack of papers, and the test results she’s been holding over me are on top of the pile. I know she has other copies of these since she loves to leave them around the house as threats, but I snap a photo of them where they lie inside her jewelry box anyway…and that’s when I hear the garage start to open.

Fuck.

My guess is she’s hiding the real stuff somewhere else—and probably not here in my house. Maybe a safety deposit box at a bank or in someone else’s house. The papers in here look to be insurance, photocopies of the originals that she can easily access to make others suffer.

It stops now.

I take out every piece of paper in there. There’s no time to read them right at this moment, not with her seconds away from coming into the house as soon as she puts her car in park and exits her vehicle, but I snap pictures of every single one of them. I’ll look at them later.

I shove them back in the box and replace the two trays, and then I slip quietly out of her room and into the hallway. I hear the door leading into the laundry room open and slam shut, and then I hear not one, but two voices.

I stay where I am, hidden away on the second floor hallway, thankful for the open floor plan that allows me to hear what’s going on downstairs as Savannah and her guest walk through the laundry room and into the kitchen even though I can’t see them.

Savannah is laughing.

She has no idea that I’m here…that I’m ready .

And on that note, I open the voice recorder app on my phone and I hit record.

“I’m sure he’ll be back from that hillbilly town before camp, but knowing him, he’ll be in town for OTAs too,” Savannah says. “But he’s not here now, and we have all sorts of freedom, babe.”

I hear a laugh. A male laugh. “What are you suggesting?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Her voice is all low and sultry. “On the counter? The table? The couch? His precious treadmill?”

“We’ve already done all those places. What about his bed?” the man asks.

She cackles, and I roll my eyes. At least I know I need to burn my sheets after this. And my countertops, table, couch, and treadmill.

I move my phone a little closer to the banister to make sure I’m catching everything they’re saying. I know Nevada is a no-fault divorce state, so it doesn’t matter that she’s having an affair…but it may help my case, and it may help me in the quest to keep what’s mine when the division is eventually made.

“What about my bed?” she murmurs. “Oh! Or the pool? Want to skinny dip again?”

My curiosity burns as I wonder what kind of idiot would bang this crazy bitch. And then I remember that I did once upon a time, so that’s a fairly dumb thought even in my own head.

They’re quiet, and then I hear a moan. Sounds a little like they’ve decided my bed and the pool are both out and they’ll just do it wherever they’re standing.

I cut off the voice recorder and open the camera. I start a video recording instead—not to invade their privacy in any way, but because I need this evidence. I will keep any revealing body parts out of my recording and focus on the faces once I get to them.

I creep quietly down the stairs and into the kitchen, and they’re both still fully clothed. The man’s back is to me, so I still can’t tell if it’s someone I know. I aim the camera at the two of them and ensure it’s recording before I speak.

“Cheating on your husband won’t look good to the courts, Mrs. Higgins,” I say, and the second they hear my steady and loud voice booming across the room, they both jump about thirty feet into the air as they move apart. The man spins around to face me, and I recognize him. “Eric Scott?”

He’s a tight end who was kicked off the Aces last season after he sabotaged another player, and he looks guilty. Not remorseful…but he’s got that look on his face like he knows he’s been caught.

“What are you doing here?” Savannah demands, her eyes full of fire as she glares at me. She wipes her mouth with her fingertips, like that’ll erase the fact that she’s fucking another man. “Turn that fucking camera off!”

“I came to surprise my lovely wife,” I lie. “Imagine my surprise at catching you in the arms of another man.”

“Oh come off it, Tristan,” she sneers. “It’s not like you’re innocent.”

“In fact, I am. I haven’t slept with anybody outside the bonds of our union, Savannah. Believe me, I’ve been tempted, but I’m not stupid enough to get caught cheating. You know what that’ll do to our divorce settlement?”

“Nothing,” she spits at me. “Nothing at all since we’re not getting divorced!”

I laugh. “Oh, I beg to differ.”

“You’re not getting divorced?” Eric asks. He glances between the two of us, and Savannah rolls her eyes.

“You think I’m leaving a working NFL superstar for someone who was kicked off the team and doesn’t even have a steady paycheck? Yeah, no. That’s not happening,” she says.

“I don’t care whose life you ruin after mine, but a divorce is happening,” I say.

“Turn that fucking camera off,” she hisses. She turns to her lover. “Eric, would you excuse us for a minute?”

I pretend to click off the camera, and I slide my phone into my pocket so it’s still recording our voices.

“I’ll excuse you for more than a minute,” he says, and he walks out the door the two of them came in, slamming it shut behind him.

“Thanks a lot!” she screeches at me.

“For what? Ruining your affair?” I take a seat at the kitchen table, cool as a cucumber.

She blows out a frustrated breath as she remains standing. “What are you doing here?”

“I told you. I came to see you. Look, I’ve tried to be civil, but I can’t be married to you any longer. I don’t care what you supposedly have on me. I’m pushing this thing through, and you can do your worst,” I say.

“So you’re cool with me bringing what I have to your boss?” she asks.

“You want to tell my boss that you drugged me with HGH, used a burner phone to make me think I was randomly chosen to get a drug test, and have been holding the results over me as blackmail for two years?” I ask, making sure to enunciate every detail of what she did to me.

“You tell the truth about what I did and you’ll miss four games, maybe get fined, too, and your reputation will be ruined. Are you sure that’s what you want?” Her hands are on her hips as she stands in a power stance that wields exactly zero power.

I lift to my feet, towering over her even though she stands a few feet away from me. “It’s better than staying married to you a second longer.” I start to walk out of the room, and then I pause and turn around to face her again. “Oh, there is just one more thing, though. Drugging another person? Illegal. Lying to get a drug test? Illegal. Blackmail and coercion? Illegal. How long’s that probation you’re on again?”

She narrows her eyes at me. “I’ve already told you. The courts don’t give a fuck about blackmail, so you’re wasting your time. You taking illegal substances is a way bigger issue than me blackmailing you about it.”

I press my lips together and nod. “Yeah, you definitely spent a long time convincing me of that. But here’s the thing. I hate you so much and I so badly want to escape this marriage that I actually already confessed everything to Coach. I talked to my lawyer, too, and he told me if I have proof of what you’re doing to me, he’ll fucking bury you in court and you’ll be going to prison.” I pull my phone out of my pocket and aim it at her. It’s still recording. “So I guess this would be proof enough, right?”

She lunges for the phone, but she’s no match for me. I was drafted in the first round because of my speed and agility, and those are skills that serve me well both on and off the field.

“Fuck you, Savannah,” I say. “My lawyer will be sending over amended paperwork today. You’re getting nothing. You need to move the fuck out of my house in the next twenty-four hours, and you will sign the goddamn papers or you’ll be spending time in prison. Any questions?”

I wait exactly one second for her to respond, but she just stands there with her jaw dropped open as she tries to come up with something.

She fails…but I’ll have this moment preserved in history forever thanks to the video recording device on my phone.