He's watching his team follow someone else—my team, every last one of them locked onto Julian like he’s the only gravity in the building. Because Julian asked, or smiled, or simply existed in the right place at the right time with blood on his teeth.
I push up to the top of the crease, weight forward, eyes locked on the puck again, tracking every glide and bounce like it’s already painted in red.
Julian cuts back into the zone, head up, calculating, predatory. He accepts a soft pass from Finn, spins—that fucking dancer’s spin, fluid and lethal—and skates backward across the blue line, dragging two Belladonna defenders behind him like he’s stringing them up for slaughter, their skates scraping uselessly as they try to keep pace.
Then he stops dead.
The defender closest doesn’t have time to react. He clips Julian’s skate, stumbles forward—and Julian reaches out, grabs the man’s collar in one smooth motion, leans down, and whispers something against the edge of his helmet. Whatever it is, it’s just loud enough for the guy to flinch hard, eyes widening behind the cage.
Julian lets go and the defender crashes into the boards. Hard. The impact echoes like a gunshot.
No whistle. No stop. Just the game swallowing the sound and moving on.
Julian flicks the puck up, lifts it once, twice, and saucers it across to Vlad, who doesn’t even pretend to aim. He slaps it as hard as his body can bear and sends it wide—but it rattles the boards like an earthquake and makes a few Belladonna goons flinch in the stands.
That’s what this is.
A statement.
We’re not scoring yet. We’re reminding you why the fuck you should be afraid.
Julian coasts into the zone again, loose, grinning, sweat already dripping off his throat. I can see the black tape peeking out under his collar. The Sharpie’s smeared.
Ezio’s mouth is moving again. I see it before I hear it, jaw clenched like he’s been biting his tongue for a full period and finally decided to spit out the taste of blood. He’s standing at the edge of the bench, helmet still off, hair slicked back like he thinks this is still a photoshoot. His lips pull back, ugly and twisted, and then the sound rips out of him—louder than anything else on the ice. It cuts across the rink like he’s not just throwing shade, but trying to throw himself back into relevance.
“Get off the fucking ice, junkie!” His voice hits like a broken bottle—jagged and stupid. For a second, the crowd doesn’t react. The team doesn’t move. Even the Belladonna bench looks sideways at him like he might’ve just made a mistake too big for bloodlines to fix.
Julian doesn’t stop skating, but he almost stumbles. Just one fraction of a second—his edge slips, a whisper of imbalance, enough for my gut to tighten and my fingers to curl tighter around the stick. He catches himself quick, fluid, masks it behind a turn, but I saw it. I fucking felt it. The ghost of what Ezio’s words pulled up—that old sharpness, the echo of shame, the phantom of that fucking tape.
My hand twitches toward the waistband at my lower back. The gun is there—always is—loaded, safety off, grip warm against my skin from the heat of my body. My blood is already running faster, hot and impatient. I could do it before the puck even reaches center ice again. One shot. Quiet. Permanent. Clean.
But I don’t need to, because Leonardo stands. No ceremony. No warning. Just motion—the kind that bends the air around it, the kind that rewrites the room the instant it happens. One second the Don of La Fiamma Nera is seated in his high-backed, leather-wrapped box, surrounded by men who would die for him without hesitation or question. The next, he’s on his feet, rising like a blade sliding free of its sheath. And just like that—no bell, no fanfare—every fucking sound in the arena dies.
Every fan freezes mid-breath. Every bet hangs unfinished, marker hovering over paper. Every pair of eyes snaps toward the east box. Even the Belladonna men flinch, shoulders tightening like they’ve been caught in a spotlight they didn’t see coming.
Leonardo Bellini doesn’t raise his voice often. Tonight, he fucking roars. “Shut up, boy!” The command cracks like a whip, echoing down to the ice and up into the rafters. The weight of it doesn’t just land on Ezio—it buries him. His back stiffens. His jaw slams shut with a click audible from center ice. His face doesn’t change, but I see the tremor at his collar. The way his eyes twitch—once, fast, desperate—to see if anyone else is still watching.
They are.
We all are.
Julian skates one more stride, then turns. Doesn’t even glance up at Leonardo. The message is delivered. The throne has spoken. There’s a new heir on the ice, and his name isn’t Bellini.
Julian glides past the bench, slows just enough to catch Ezio’s eye, and drops a wink that could kill a god. It’s fast. Small. But it lands like a match in gasoline. He doesn’t say a word. Doesn’t taunt. Doesn’t snarl. He just winks, and skates away like a man who already knows how the story ends.
The puck’s back in play within seconds.
Julian’s there first. He doesn’t look rushed. He doesn’t charge. He moves with purpose, the kind of surgical speed that cuts before you even feel the blade. Two strides. A quick toe-drag. One shift of his hips. He fakes left, spins the defender so hard he almost faceplants, then curls right and drags the puck across the crease. The goalie flinches too late. The net flashes red before half the crowd even realizes what just happened.
The goal horn shrieks. Syndicate men rise from their seats, snarling and hollering and slamming fists against the glass. I see money fly. I see someone bite their knuckle hard enough to draw blood. I see Leonardo smile, slow and sharp, and take a drag of his cigarette like he’s been waiting for this exact moment since the tape first surfaced.
Julian doesn’t celebrate the way most would. Instead, he skates backward across center ice like a showman owning the stage, stick dangling loosely in one hand, helmet cocked just enough to bare the black tape wrapped around his throat. The words YOU WISH YOU COULD FUCK THIS are nearly illegible now—smudged, blurred, soaked through with sweat, effort, and sheer spite—but the message still lands like a slap. He flicks his tongue out once, licks his lips slow and deliberate, then blows a kiss. Not to the roaring crowd. Not to the cameras. Straight to the bench.
Ezio doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak. He just sits there—frozen, benched, shut down by his own father in front of five hundred killers and every man who’s ever whispered about who truly owns this team.
I watch Julian glide past the crease again. Our eyes meet. And for the first time all night, I smile. Because that wasn’t a goal. That was a fucking execution.
The second period ignites hotter than the first. There’s no warning, no slow build—just immediate, searing heat. Pressure. The kind of ambient violence that clings to your skin when every man on the ice catches the scent of blood and starts wondering whether tonight’s headline will read about the final score or the first body left bleeding out on the boards.
