“You too.”
We broke apart because we had to. He headed for the rink. I watched him go then pressed my palms to my eyes until the afterimage of him burned away.
If I told him too little, I’d lose him. If I told him too much, I might lose him anyway. Either way, Mom’s hammer kept slamming in my head.
I didn’t go home—not yet. I stayed until the shade crept over my toes and the wind picked up, rattling the leaves. Then I went to find Avery—because if the world was going to keep swinging, I was going to hold on to what I could.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
LUKE
Mila’s words, mixed with the PI report, stayed under my skin the whole walk to the rink. Dunn deposits. Darren’s house sold. Money tucked away neatly. No withdrawals. Her mom destroying something in their kitchen. And the name—Langley—threading through all of it, thin as fishing line, invisible until it cut your hand.
And there was Avery—slipped a drug at Tori’s party. That wasn’t rumor. That was one of us hurt, and Elise had been at the center of it.
By the time I hit the rubber mat that led onto the ice, my jaw ached. I shoved my feet into the skates hard enough that my ankle protested. The locker room noise washed over me—sticks rapping benches, jokes tossed around, the humid funk of gear that never really dried. Every step led toward whatever Elise had started—the people she’d attempted to break and the risk she’d put on Mila’s shoulders.
Theo clocked my face and didn’t ask—just nudged a water bottle toward me at the gate.
“I’m fine,” I muttered. But tensions were high. With me. And with Chase. Even though he’d accepted his sister and Jaxbeing together, what had happened to Avery at Tori’s party was dangerous. I got it. I just couldn’t shake my own frustrations. And from the expression he wore, he couldn’t shake his either.
Theo didn’t argue. He knew a lie when he heard it. He stepped onto the ice, easy and balanced, and I followed with blades biting.
The cold cut through me, and for a minute, it cleared the noise. The rink stretched wide and merciless under the lights, every inch daring me to slip.
Coach’s whistle shrieked. We dropped into lines, drills designed to set lungs on fire.
Chase cut in fast on my left, sharp as a blade turned the wrong way. He didn’t look at me. He hadn’t looked at Jax all day either unless he had to. Avery’s face in the hospital last night had carved through him. I could still see the shadows it left behind.
Chase had seen his sister at the hospital. Elise didn’t just hurt one person—she worked a long game to push, isolate, and turn people against each other until someone cracked.
Another whistle. We reset. Start-stop sprints that burned. My chest did too.
The thought landed mid-circle:Lorne would neutralize a Dunn plant within King. Neutralize. What a pretty word for what it meant.
I stumbled out of the turn and clipped Chase’s heel. He spun, fist already up. I caught his wrist mid-swing, grip iron.
“Stay in your lane,” I ground out. “This isn’t about you, Chase. It’s what happened to Avery. It’s what Elise did to one of ours.”
His eyes flared, but the fire banked as he took a measured breath. None of us were angry at each other. We were just bleeding out against what we couldn’t fix.
“Enough,” Jax snapped from behind us, voice a rasp that cut. He wasn’t near enough to make contact, but it seemed as though he was. “We don’t do this here.”
We. Don’t. The words cooled me half a degree. I let go of Chase, and he yanked his arm back, breathing hard.
Coach’s whistle split the air. “Again!”
We went again. Skates cut hard into the ice as it shaved froth under our blades. Sweat stung my eyes. The rink buzzed, lights humming, cold seeping through my pads and still not getting deep enough to numb what needed numbing.
What if Mila’s right?
It wouldn’t be the first time King hands did something brutal and called it necessary. One wing of the hospital stamped with our name, the other side of town scrubbed clean by Lorne when someone got in the way. Drew wrapped it in speeches about legacy. Dad didn’t bother—he just knew which doors opened when you said our name.
Mila had stood under our tree and told me the truth about what her mom did, what she might be hiding. Trust didn’t feel clean. It was bleeding out into someone else’s hands and hoping they didn’t squeeze too hard.
We shifted into scrimmage. I took center, because it was mine. Theo mirrored me on the right, Jax set low on the left, coiled.
The puck dropped. Everything narrowed. Instinct took over. I won the faceoff, tapped the puck to Theo, then cut hard into open ice, calling for it back. He threaded it through traffic, and I caught it on my forehand, snapping a shot from the slot. Crossbar rang. The clang ricocheted off the rafters and back into my chest.
