But Kai is already skating toward me. “Don’t pull it out,” he snaps, dropping to one knee beside me, eyes scanning the wound with surgical disgust. “Pretty boy, I swear to God, if you rip that out I’m stapling your leg shut without anesthetic.”
“I’m—fuck—I’m not touching it!” I snarl, sweat already breaking across my forehead.
Rafe turns. And when he looks at me this time? He looks unhinged. Not angry. Not annoyed. Something darker. He holsters the gun without looking, grabs me under the arm, and yanks me up so fast the world tilts.
My leg screams. I taste blood on my tongue. My vision flickers, but Rafe doesn’t let go.
He drags me close until his forehead almost touches mine. His breath is hot, furious, coated in the kind of rage that could split the earth. “You play,” he growls, voice deep and vibrating against my bones. “Right the fuck now, you hear me?”
“What—right—now—?” I gasp through clenched teeth, gripping his arm like it’s the only thing keeping me upright.
“You don’t worry about them anymore.” He jerks his chin toward the dead man on the ice and the others still frozen where they stand. “You score,” he snarls, eyes burning into me like a brand, “and I make them bleed.”
My heart slams hard enough to shake the knife in my leg. I nod. Because there’s no universe where I say no to that. No universe where I let him see me fall. No universe where I don’t fucking skate. Even if I die doing it. I grit my teeth and push off. Pain tears up my thigh like someone is dragging razors through my muscle, but I stay upright. I glide.I breathe. I ignore the fire. And when my blade cuts the ice again, clean and fast—the crowd roars like they’ve just seen a miracle.
10
RAFE
Leonardo issmirkinginto his glass like someone just whispered a joke about God dying.
Up there in his little metal box, lit by the flicker of cigars and greed, Don Bellini lifts his crystal tumbler in the air with the grace of a man who just won a bet that cost someone their life. Which, to be fair, he did. My bullet’s still echoing somewhere between the rafters. The corpse is still warm. One of the cartel runners is dragging it off the ice by the ankles, boots leaving red streaks across the rink like a signature.
Leonardo meets my eyes through the glass, still smiling.
There’s no nod, no salute, no acknowledgment at all—just that quiet, ugly satisfaction sitting on his face like he’s watching something he paid good money to see.
Fuck him.
Fuck all of them.
I skate back toward the crease with the kind of control that comes from rage welded into bone. My pulse is calm. My gun’s holstered. My blade drags clean across the surface. I pass the trail of blood without flinching. No one tries to stop me. No one even looks twice. The message has already been received: You touch Julian Reaver again, you don’tget up.
Finn’s still in my net, crouched low, mask off, smile too wide. When he sees me coming, he does a little pirouette, then bounces out of the crease like it’s all part of the dance. “Welcome back, big guy,” he chirps, slapping my ass with his stick as he goes. “Kill a man, take a seat. Love that for you.”
I don’t answer. I just slide back into position—pads heavy, gear biting into my shoulders, heart still dark and steady. The net is mine again. The ice is scarred. The crowd’s fucking high on blood. But I’m not watching the puck.
I’m watching Julian. Knife stillembeddedin his thigh, Kai’s fingers gripping the back of his neck like a leash made of steel. I know that hold. It’s not dominance. It’s grounding. It’s control through contact. And for a second, Kai pulls Julian closer—buries Julian’s face into his chest like a priest shielding a sinner from the flames.
If I didn’t know what the fuck Kai was doing, I’d slit his throat for touching him like that. But when Julian lifts his head again, I understand immediately. His eyes are wide and wild, shot through with something unholy.
His pupils are blown, his cheeks flushed, his breathing fast and uneven.
Kai gave him something.
For the pain, or the fire, or both—something strong enough to kick a horse in the ribs and make it sing. Julian isn’t just standing anymore, he’s buzzing.
That soft chaos that lives in his bloodstream has gone radioactive. He’s twitching on the edge of something violent and divine. And when he turns his face toward the ice again, he looks like someone reborn through fuckingviolence.
He’s back. No, worse—he’sbetter.Julian Reaver with a knife in his thigh and a bloodstream full of painkillers is agoddamn event.He hits the puck like it owes him blood. He slices through two defenders like they’re cardboard props. Spins past a third. Doesn’t pass. Doesn’t blink. Doesn’tslow down.
He plays like the NHL golden boy he used to be—except now he’sferal.Faster. Meaner. Burned raw and grinning through it.
He scores. Of course he fucking scores. The crowd loses its mind—half cheering, half screaming, all of them clawing at the edge of the rink like, if they could reach him, they’d tear him apart and eat him alive.
But no one will.
Because he’s mine, and I’m still watching. And if anyone else throws a knife tonight, I won’t stop at one bullet.
