My cock twitches in my jock and I bite down a grin.
Jesus. No wonder I used to fuck before every game. This? This is better than coke.
It’s fucking terrifying.
I glance across the room. He’s there. Of course he is. Quiet, already dressed, already armored in black like a fucking war god with a cigarette behind his ear and murder in his jawline. He’s not watching me.
The locker room cracks open into the tunnel like a fucking throat—narrow, dark, hot with breath and heat and sweat-slick tension. My blades clink against the concrete as we walk. It’s different than before. This isn’t practice. This isn’t chaos for the sake of chaos. This is showtime. Every step feels like it echoes in my bones. I can hear Bishop behind me humming something unholy. I can hear Kai’s stick tapping against the floor ina slow, steady rhythm like he’s counting down to violence. Ahead of me, Luca is walking backwards, grinning at me, that bratty glint in his eye like he knows exactly how fucked I am and can’t wait to watch it happen.
“Watch out for the knives, rookie,” he says, too sweet, too slow, like a dare whispered between teeth.
“What knives?” I shoot back, smirking even though my ribs are already tightening.
He winks. “All of them.”
Fucking great.
We reach the gate. No music. No announcer. No lights flashing across the ice. No roar of a stadium crowd. Just the creak of the steel door being cranked open and the sound of hundreds of eyes turning at once.
And there is the rink. Not NHL ice. Not even junior league ice. This is a different beast. Open white space ringed in faded red, like a ritual circle painted in blood. No benches either—just crates and low steel boxes dragged to the side. The goal cages look like they’ve been repaired with wire and willpower. The surface isn’t smooth. It’s hard-packed and pitted, stained in places. I swear there’s a brown mark near center ice that looks like a dried-out body outline someone never bothered to clean.
And then there’s the crowd. It takes me a second to understand what I’m looking at. No fans. No signs. No jerseys. Just mobsters. Packed along the edge, standing shoulder-to-shoulder, no barrier between them and the game. Syndicate bosses in black coats and leather gloves. Men with face tattoos and girls with glass heels and pistols on their thighs. I spot fur, silk, gold chains thick enough to leash lions. And all of them—every single one of them—staring at the ice like they already know who’s going to die on it.
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter.
Finn cackles behind me. “Nah. He doesn’t come here anymore.”
I step out onto the ice and I swear, for a second, I forget how to skate. The sound of the blades hitting it? It’s different. No fake roar to cover the noise. No arena feedback. Just the scrape. Just the breath. Just the gamble humming in the air around us.
Because that’s what this is.
Not a game.
A transaction.
Every pass, every hit, every goal—it’s all money. It’s debt and blood and punishment with laces.
They’re not betting on who wins. They’re betting on who bleeds and I’m the fucking wildcard.
I glide forward. My heart thumps once—hard enough I feel it in my ears. I suck in a breath that tastes like old bleach and cigarette ash and sweat. My hands shake for just a second, and I shove it down.
I’ve skated in sold-out stadiums. I’ve signed pucks for kids with broken English and no teeth. I’ve been on posters. On screens. I used to be a god.
But this? This is the first time I’ve played for the devil. And he’s sitting somewhere above the ice, watching me sweat.
The other team steps onto the ice like it belongs to them.
There’s no announcement, no spotlight, no anthem—just the sudden shift in the air when they appear. I don’t recognize the jerseys, because therearen’tany. No logos, no names, no numbers. Just black. A different shade than ours. Not matte like La Fiamma Nera’s gear, but glossy, slick, like they were dipped in oil and pulled out of hell. Their captain’s got a busted nose and a scar across his cheek that looks surgical. One of their defensemen’s already bleeding from the knuckles. These aren’t players. They’re fucking assassins on skates. Cartel-linked. Drug syndicate out of Mexico, Rafe told me. Not NHL, not ex-pros. Worse. Guys who were never good enough for the league and decided they’d rather kill than be average.
One of them spits something on the ice as they skate past. Another one locks eyes with Bishop andlaughs.
Luca’s still next to me, twirling his stick like a baton, the blade wrapped in tape so dark it looks like leather. He glances at the other team, then back at me, and his grin spreads slow, like blood across white fabric.
I think back to earlier—Finn pulling his pads on over his shorts, that moment when I caught a glint under his sleeve. Not metal on accident. It was deliberate. It wassharp.Something small and shaped to be hidden in a glove. I’m sure of it now. And Kai—fuck, Kai definitely has something on him. His stick’s heavier than it should be. The way he wraps his wrists? It’s surgical. For damage, not protection.
Speaking of Kai.
He skates up behind me like a shadow that grew a spine. Taller than I remember. Not as wide as Rafe, but somehowheavier.It’s the way he moves—like he can see your pulse and is calculating how to stop it mid-beat. His blade ticks the ice once, twice, then heleans in. Close enough that I feel his breath on the back of my neck. It’s cold. Smells like antiseptic and mint and death.
