She signed, confused, and brought the box inside. The return address was just a Boston zip code. No note on the outside.
She cut the tape carefully.
Inside was a jersey.
A Boston Steel jersey, home blue with silver numbers. Number 17.D'ARCYacross the shoulders.
His jersey.
Beneath it was an envelope. Libby's hands shook as she opened it.
The handwriting was angular, precise—undeniably Liam's.
Libby—
Please come.
x, Liam
Two passes fell out of the envelope.Family Box A, Section 102.
Libby held the jersey up, feeling the weight of it, the reality of it. He was offering his name. His family. His world. Publicly.
She pulled the jersey over her head, let it fall nearly to her knees, and looked at herself in Jane's bathroom mirror.
She looked ridiculous and hopeful and terrified.
Her phone sat silent on the counter. No texts. No calls. Just the jersey and two passes to his family box and a note that said Please come.
She didn't know what any of it meant.
But she knew she'd be there Tuesday night.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Liam knocked twice on the hotel door—sharp, professional—and waited.
Seven hours of travel on two hours of sleep. His suit jacket was somewhere on the chartered plane. His shirt collar felt wrong. The hallway carpet was too thick, too silent, the kind of deliberate luxury that announced itself in textures rather than words.
"Door's open!" Wickham's voice, careless and assuming. "Put the tray on the table!"
Liam turned the handle.
The suite was all white—linens, curtains, the kind of calculated coastal aesthetic meant to signal luxury to people who'd never experienced actual disregard for price. Wickham stood by the window in a silk robe, coffee in hand, looking out at water so blue it seemed artificial.
He turned. Saw Liam. Froze.
The coffee cup didn't fall—Wickham had always had good hands—but his fingers went white around the rim.
"D'Arcy." Too light. Too easy. The same voice he'd used talking his way onto Portland's roster, into Lydia's DMs, past every red flag he'd ever waved. "Come to enjoy the view? I'mapplying for citizenship—you can buy it here." A pause, then smoother: "Though I suppose you'd know all about that."
Liam closed the door. He'd watched Libby's ESPN interview three times on the plane. Heard her say Gray Wickham with that particular precision she used dissecting his every move for the past month. Seen her take apart an entire criminal operation with the same analytical brilliance she'd once turned on him.
He was exhausted. He was done.
"You're coming back to Boston."
Wickham laughed—high, brittle. "No extradition treaty. Your lawyers can't touch me."
