Page 104 of Pucked Around and Found Out

I want to believe that.

Want to believe that the man I love is capable of forgiveness.

But the memory of him shooting pucks at Cas on that ice is too fresh. Too brutal.

“We'll see,” I say, taking another bite of the burger.

Behind us I hear the door open and then footsteps. Halo’s low voice is giving instructions.

Masen is coming.

My entire body tenses.

“You don’t have to talk to him tonight,” Carnage says quietly. “You can rest. We can deal with all of this tomorrow.”

“No.” I force myself to stand, even though every muscle in my body protests. “I need to do this. I need to understand what we are really dealing with before our timer runs out.”

“Tor—”

“I need to know,” I interrupt. “I need to know the full scope of what my father built. What my brother has been running. What I’m really fighting against. Without that information, we’ll be fighting blind like we have been and I’m sick of losing.”

Carn studies me for a moment, then nods. “Okay. But I’m staying with you.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Masen appears in the doorway, Halo a step behind him. My brother looks exhausted. His face is clean but bruised, clothes rumpled, eyes shadowed with things I don’t want to name.

He looks at me, and for a moment, I see the boy I used to know. The one who taught me how to ride a bike. Who snuck me cookies.

The boy who promised to always protect me and keep me safe.

But that boy is gone.

Buried under years of lies and criminal enterprise and choices that can't be undone.

“We need to talk,” I say, my voice steadier than I feel.

Masen nods. “I know.”

He moves into the living room and sits in the chair across from the sofa. Halo positions himself by the door—close enough to intervene if needed, far enough to give us space.

Carnage stays beside me on the sofa, a solid presence I'm desperately grateful for.

“Tomorrow night,” I start. “You called all of Dad's—your men to the house for a briefing.”

“Yes.”

“How many are we talking about?”

Masen's jaw tightens. “Core operations? About fifty. If you count everyone on the payroll, distributors, enforcers, informants, closer to two hundred.”

Two hundred.

I let the number sit there for a moment before I respond to it, because there is something else in it that I need to look at first.

Not the number itself. The way he said it.

Core operations. Distributors. Enforcers. Informants. Three other states. He didn't list those things the way you'd list an inheritance you'd just been handed—with the particular uncertainty of someone reading from someone else's ledger. He listed them the way you list things you know by heart. The way Xaden rattles off his men's positions in a building he's never been inside. The way you talk about something you built yourself, piece by piece, until the architecture of it is inside you.