The scoreline doesn’t even matter anymore. It ends somewhere between chaos and comedy—Fiamma up by fuck-knows-how-many to a humiliating zero. They don’t even announce the final count. They just blow the horn and let the syndicates scream over it.
The rink detonates. The crowd surges to their feet, fists pumping, money raining down in thick stacks—credit slips, high-stakes bets, black-envelope bonuses—falling onto the ice like confetti at a mob wedding. It drifts in slow motion, as if the entire underworld has collectively decided that yes, that display was worth every drop of blood it cost.
Belladonna doesn’t even look angry anymore. They look wrecked—hollowed out, humiliated, left staring at the open grave of whatever ego they dragged in here tonight.
Up in the rafters, Leonardo Bellini rises to his feet, coat hanging open, cigarette forgotten and burning low between his fingers. For once he isn’t performing. He claps—sharp, deliberate, genuine applause that rolls through the arena like thunder. Not polite. Not performative. Applauding. Like the show just ended, the curtain dropped, and he’s crowning someone new. Like the whole city better fall in line behind him right now.
Because we didn’t just win the game. We won the rink. The bets. The power shift.
And Julian?
Julian doesn’t take a fucking bow.
He skates past the Belladonna bench—slow, deliberate—blood dried stiff on his jersey, tape still clinging stubbornly to his throat. He hisses. A real sound, sharp and feral, teeth flashing in a quick, dangerous glimpse. He doesn’t bother with words. He just bares his canines and dares one of them to meet his eyes. No one does.
Then he turns.
Gloves drop. Helmet’s already gone. Stick abandoned on the ice behind him.
He barrels straight across the rink—toward me.
I’m still planted in the net, half-braced for a last-minute desperation play or some idiot’s revenge attempt. But all I see is Julian—hair wild and sweat-matted, eyes blazing gold under the lights, jersey riding up to expose the bruises I left on him, sprinting with every ounce of energy left in his body like someone who just conquered Rome and now wants to claim the war god who made it possible.
He launches himself without a second’s hesitation.
Skates lift off the ice. His shoulder slams into my chest, arms loop tight around my neck, thighs clamp around my hips. I catch him on pure instinct—hands locking around his waist, pads grinding hard against the boards as his full weight crashes into me like he was born to end games this way.
His forehead presses to mine.
His mouth follows.
No one’s watching the rest of the team celebrate anymore. They’re all looking at us.
And Julian’s grinning into the kiss—breathless, laughing against my lips like the devil just won the lottery and set the winning ticket ablaze.
I slam him back—hard—into the post of the net. The clang echoes over the roar of the crowd like a warning shot fired directly into the throat of heaven. The force knocks the breath out of Julian in a gasp that ends in a laugh—head tipped back, throat bared, blue eyes burning like a god who just remembered he used to be feared.
I keep him pinned there, one hand gripping the tape at his throat, the other spread across his ribs like I’m holding something divine in place.
The crowd’s still losing its mind. Syndicate men are climbing the fucking boards, throwing stacks, screaming slurs, howling bets for who bleeds next. But none of it touches us. None of it dents what’s happening right here in the silence between breaths.
I lean in real close—close enough to taste the copper tang of blood still clinging to his smile—and whisper it like scripture, like prophecy carved into the air between us. “Did you enjoy being their god?”
Julian’s eyes flicker, lashes heavy with sweat and glittering at his temples under the harsh lights. Then that smirk returns—wicked, blasphemous, utterly unchained. He lifts his chin and doesn’t even blink. “Only when you watch.”
I see red, but not from rage. It’s worship, hunger, whatever feral thing inside me shaped him into this glorious, deadly creature and refuses to let him be anything else. Mine.
I drag my hand up his throat—slow, deliberate—until my thumb settles just under his jaw. His pulse hammers wild against the pad of my finger, but he doesn’t flinch, doesn’t pull away. I dip my head, lips brushing the shell of his ear, voice dropping lower than sin. “Do you know whose rink this is now, little halo?”
Julian blinks up at me, breath snagging in his chest. “Leonardo’s?”
I shake my head once. “Yours.”
The smirk dies. His mouth parts—just a fraction, just enough to reveal that behind the glitter and gore, behind the cocky swagger and the broken-toothed grin—Julian Reaver wasn’t ready for that. Not really. He gapes, staring at me like I just pressed the matchbook to the world into his palm, struck the match myself, and dared him to burn it all down. And he will. He fucking will.
Because tonight he didn’t just win the game. He took it. And now he owns the goddamn rink.
31
