My chest crackles with every breath, the fractures no doubt full breaks now. But I’m not going down without a fight. Fuck him and his misplaced blame and his thirst for vengeance.
I swing my arm, my fist connecting with his cheek. “You homophobic piece of shit.”
His head snaps to the side, a look of shock and fury crossing his features. But it's short-lived. Before I can even blink, his knuckles split my lip, filling my mouth with the coppery tang of fresh blood.
He stands, looming over me. “You and your friends think you run this team. Delusional pieces of shit. Doesn’t matter how much money you have—someone will always get to you if they really want to.”
His foot connects with my face in a burst of blinding pain, stars exploding behind my eyelids. “Now your father will know what it felt like for my family. He'll know what it's like to watch someone you love suffer.”
As the darkness closes in and the pain swallows me whole, my last thought is of Killian and those honey-brown eyes. And how I’ll never get to tell him how I feel.
That I . . . love him.
Chapter 13
Killian
Not hearing from Jackson just adds insult to injury. Coach reamed me out for myextracurricularactivities during Regionals, especially with the enemy. Luckily, video replay showed I hadn’t been playing any differently than I normally do.
But going after my teammate was a hard line for him.
Trembley crashed the meeting to forgive me in front of our coach, making me feel even more like shit. Outside of a verbal ass whooping, nothing really happened. Our season is over, and they can’t kick me off the team because of who I choose to date.
Most likely, I won’t be captain next year, but I’m okay with that in more ways than one. Seriously, babysitting the Serpents’hunts is exhausting. I’ll gladly hand over the reins to someone else.
“Fuck!” I look up at the sky. “Universe, please don’t let them punish me by making me captain again.”
“Blackwell.”
I whip my head to the left, the thick Russian accent too familiar to ignore. Alexei Petrov leans against a creamy silver Mercedes G-wagon.
“What are you doing here?”
He pulls the backdoor open. “Get in.”
“Uh, yeah. No thank you.”
My heart plummets when Viktor Novotny gets out of the passenger side. “Get in the fucking car. Now.”
Slowly walking forward, I look inside, but Jackson’s not in there.
When I freeze up, Petrov grabs my nape and shoves me in. I fall face first onto the seat and try to turn around to get back out but his large frame is there.
“What the fuck! What are you two doing?”
Novotny gets back into the SUV and closes the door. “Need to talk . . . and take care of something.”
Petrov rounds the vehicle, then gets in. He mumbles something in Russian and pulls away from the curb. I take out my phone and text Jackson to figure out what the fuck is going on.
“He won’t answer.”
“Why?”
I nearly vomit at the sorrowful look on Novotny’s face. The Titans’ goalie is unhinged, like a crazy fucking clown. But sad—I’ve never seen this expression on him before—the tension in the air only makes it worse.
“What happened?”
Petrov goes to speak but Novotny cuts him off. “Our assistant coach has an issue withus gaysas he likes to say just low enough for me to hear. Most of the time, it’s just disgusted looks, or the occasional comment directed at me.”
