The tunnel means nothing. The roar of the arena when we step onto the ice, thirty thousand voices howling for blood, means nothing. The cold bites my face, the lights sear my eyes, but my body moves on autopilot, skates carving the ice while my mind is already somewhere in Houston, ripping doors off hinges, painting walls red.
The game flows around me like I’m a ghost inside it. Jackson misses a pass he could have taken blindfolded. Zach lets one slip through that should have been brick-walled. None of us react. We’re not here. We’re already home, already hunting.
Someone tookmy wife.
The thought keeps slamming into me harder with every stride, every breath, until it’s the only thing left in my skull. It blocks out the crowd, the puck, the plays. It fills my mouth with the taste of iron and my veins with liquid fire.
Then he glides up beside me.
Alex fucking Vargas, smirking like the world is still funny.
“Something wrong, Bellandi? You look like you lost your favorite toy.”
The world collapses. Everything outside the circle of his face vanishes in a roar of white static as I stare at him. At the knowing grin as he eyes me up and down.
He knows.He fucking knows!
The knowledge detonates inside me like a grenade. He knows where she is. He helped put her there.
My hand shoots out before the thought even finishes forming. Fingers lock into his jersey, fabric twisting so tight the seams pop. I yank him into me with every ounce of two-hundred-and-twenty pounds of pure, unfiltered fury. His skates scrape, his balance shatters, and the crowd surges to its feet like they just saw God descend.
“Where the fuck is she?”
My voice is barely human, low, guttural, ripped straight from the beast that lives under my skin.
He tries to laugh it off. “I don’t—”
I don’t let him finish. My forehead cracks against his nose with a wet crunch that sends blood spraying across both our visors. The impact sings up my spine like lightning.
“Where is my wife?”I snarl as I punch him, and I see the way his face drops in shock at my claim.
He staggers, but I’m already on him, driving him down to the ice so hard his helmet bounces.
Then the fists start.
Not punches. Hammers.
My right hand comes down like a piston, once, twice, three times, each blow landing with the full weight of my body behind it. Bone gives. Cartilage shreds. Blood explodes across the ice in bright red arcs, warm and slick against my knuckles. I feel his teeth cut my skin and I don’t care. I welcome it. I want to taste his blood in my mouth.
“Tell me where my wife is!”
The words tear out between strikes, each one louder, each one more feral.
He swings back, desperate, his fist glancing off my shoulder. It’s nothing. A mosquito bite. I rear up and slam my elbow down into his throat, pinning him, crushing. His eyes bulge. Good. I want him to feel even a fraction of the suffocating terror she must be feeling right now.
Hands grab at me, teammates, opponents, refs, clawing, shouting, trying to haul me off. I roar like an animal caught in a trap, shoulders rolling, elbows flailing, fighting every single one of them while my free fist keeps raining down. Blood coats my hands, coats my jersey, coats the ice in a widening lake. I feel his ribs crack under my knee. I feel the moment his body starts to go limp.
And still it’s not enough.
I want to tear his fucking throat out with my teeth. I want to drive my skate blade through his eye socket and twist until the steel scrapes bone. I want to keep hitting until there’s nothing left of his face but pulp and the crowd is silent with horror.
They drag me back. Multiple bodies, full weight, skates carving grooves in the ice as I fight like a man possessed. My arms strain forward, fingers still curled into claws, reaching for him even as the distance grows.
“Where is she?!”
He doesn’t answer. Can’t. His face is a ruin of blood and swelling, eyes already swelling shut, but I still see the fear in them. Good. Let him drown in it.
The tunnel swallows me as they drag me away. The noise of the arena fades to a distant thunder. My heart is still a war drum in my ears. My hands are still shaking with the need to destroy.
