I walk behind him, hands fisted at my sides, heart pounding, dick stillfucking confused, and rage simmering just below the surface like a lit match in my veins.
The compound spreads out around us, sun cutting sharp lines over rusted metal and reinforced steel. I hear voices in the distance—laughter, grunts, the echo of something heavy slamming into something else. My head’s still swimming. I haven’t slept. Haven’t had anything in my veins in almost two days. But I’m alert. Everything’s moving too loud. Too fast.
Then we reach it the rink. Or what passes for one in this blood-soaked nightmare. There are no boards. No plexiglass. No logos. No sponsorship banners, no jumbotron. Just open ice in a wide, sunken pit of steel and concrete, with low walls slicked in grime and rust. There’s blood frozen into the ice—actual blood, red-stained cracks like spiderwebs across the surface, like someone went face-first and never got back up.
There’s a chill here that has nothing to do with the cold.
And we don’t even stop. Rafe walks past it like it’s just a hallway, and I trail him like a ghost, like if I blink, I’ll miss something that’s going to kill me later.
We head down another steel corridor, then into a wide room that reeks of sweat, leather, old fights, and newer ones. The locker room.
Ten people inside, and every single one turns when I step through the door behind Rafe. They look like a lineup from hell. Some shirtless, some mid-change, some sharpening blades like they’re prepping for war, not practice.
And Finn, of course, is front and center, sprawled across a bench like it’s a throne, grinning the moment he sees me. “There he is!” he crows, sitting up. “Daddy let you out of your box!”
I give him the middle finger. With the tape still across my mouth, the gesture feels appropriate.
Finn kicks his legs like he’s delighted. “Alright, listen up, psychos, we got ourselves a new toy. You’ve all seen the footage. Julian Reaver. Former NHL golden boy, current mouthy disaster.” He winks at me. “Don’t worry, he’scutewhen he’s gagged.”
I lunge at him but Rafe’s hand clamps down on my shoulder before I can move more than a foot. Of course.
Finn keeps grinning like he expected it. “Right, right, intros. That one—” He points across the room to a guy lounging with blood on his knuckles and singed sleeves. “That’s Bishop. Don’t give him lighters. He likes fire too much. That’s Vlad next to him. He’ll stitch you up while whispering Romanian prayers, and you’llcrywhile pretending you’re not into it.”
Vlad lifts his hand in a wave. “Salut.”
Finn points next. “That’s Kai. You see that dead-eyed doctor vibe? He’s our medic-slash-dealer-slash-moral compass. Except he doesn’t have morals. Hewillcut you open and make it your fault.”
Kai doesn’t look up. Just nods once, slow.
“That one’s Luca,” Finn continues. “He’s cute, poisonous, and calls KaiDaddy.Make of that what you will.”
Luca blows me a kiss.
“Over there, sharpening his stick like a serial killer? That’s Misha. He’s a good boy unless you wake him up wrong. Then he breaks things.”
Misha winks. It’sdisturbing.
“That’s Corso. He doesn’t talk. Don’t ask him to.”
Corso doesn’t even blink.
“Tank’s probably outside lifting a truck or something. Ezio’s likely in a mirror somewhere stabbing air with a monogrammed blade. You’ll meet them later.”
Then Finn gestures grandly toward the man still holding me in place like I weigh nothing.
“And this,” he says, smirking, “is Rafe. Our goalie. Our enforcer. Our unofficial captain. And the reason you still have all your teeth.”
Rafe says nothing. His hand stays on my shoulder. And I…I just stand there very aware that I just walked into a family of killers.
4
RAFE
He still hasn’t taken the tape off.
It’s been over five minutes, and Julian Reaver—the same smart-mouthed, twitchy, firestarter who told Leonardo to go fuck himself with his junkyard full of murderers—is standing in the middle of my locker room with a strip of black tape still stretched tight across his lips. Like he forgot it was there. Or he likes it. Or maybe he’s finally figured out it’s better when he shuts the hell up.
Either way, I’m not taking it off.
