Page 177 of Play Dirty

The boards exploded just then, with a resounding crack. Someone missed a crosscheck, crashed hard, then got right back up. I didn’t even see who. I was already looking back into the upper deck.

But the man in the suit had already walked away.

“Alright that’s enough!” Mercer snapped. “Off the ice!”

The guys peeled away, skating hard to the bench. Ares vaulted first.

“You see him?” I asked quietly.

“Yeah,” he said.

Grayson’s eyes said everything. Sebastian nodded once.

We all saw him. We all felt it.

Something bigger.

Something moving behind everything we’d just fixed.

“You’re off for the rest of the night,” Mercer told the team. “No workout. No practice.”

A cheer went up — halfway, at least. The coach squashed it with an icy look.

“Don’t get excited,” Mercer added, his voice cutting like a tile saw. “You didn’t earn a night off. You earned a few hours.”

The energy dropped immediately.

“Barrage was one thing,” he continued, pacing in front of the bench. “Sentinels are another. They’re already in town. They’re already preparing. And I guarantee you, they’re not taking the night off to celebrate anything.”

No one said a word after that.

Good.

“Two days,” Mercer went on. “That’s all you’ve got. Two days to prove this—” he jabbed a finger toward the ice — “isn’t a fluke.”

Ares rolled his shoulders, jaw tight. The rest of the team remained still.

“Enjoy your night,” Mercer said finally. “Blow off steam. Get your heads right.”

A beat. Then—

“But if you come back tomorrow looking like you forgot what’s at stake…”

The coach didn’t finish the sentence. He let the silence do it for him.

“Dismissed.”

The guys broke, not with cheers this time, but with something quieter and more focused. One by one they filed away, with Grayson casting a lingering glance toward the upper level before shuffling off.

I stayed where I was for a moment, letting the noise of the rink settle around me again. It was a place that never fully went quiet. A place I hadn’t realized how much I missed.

I powered my tablet off. The screen went black, and my reflection stared back at me for half a second — flushed with adrenaline, wound a little tighter than I wanted to admit.

Quebec Sentinels.

Already in town.

Already waiting.