Back in the main room, I grabbed my phone. One message. From her.
Hope you survived your trip! Can’t wait to hear about it.
It shouldn’t have made my chest ache the way it did, but it hit hard. I stared at it for a beat before typing back:
Still alive. No front teeth yet.
I almost added something else—Miss you, maybe—but stopped myself.
I opened my laptop, hoping to bury the tension under film review. Game footage filled the screen—hard hits, sharp passes, close calls. I watched myself move across the ice like a stranger, sharp but distant, like I was already playing from somewhere far away.
Every frame felt heavier. I’d won, but it didn’t feel like it. Not without her.
I leaned back in the hotel chair, the cheap wood creaking beneath me as I tapped my fingers against the desk. The screen of my laptop glowed in the dark, game footage frozen mid-play, but I wasn’t paying attention anymore. My eyes stared through it—past the highlights, past the plays. My thoughts were nowhere near the rink. They were back in Detroit.
More specifically—with her.
I wasn’t supposed to be like this. I was the Reaper. Ice in my veins. Cold when it counted. But Mina had found a way past all of it, like she’d slipped in through a crack I didn’t know I had. She’d worked her way under my skin and settled there like she belonged. I hated how much I didn’t hate it.
A knock at the door snapped me out of it.
“Volkov!” Asher’s voice, loud and lazy. “You sulking or sleeping?”
“Neither,” I muttered, sitting up. “Door’s open.”
He pushed in, all swagger and grinning like he’d already won whatever argument he was about to start. “You ghosted on the bar plans. Don’t tell me you’re too good for a drink now?”
I shrugged. “Not in the mood.”
He plopped down on the bed like it was his. “Nah, you’re in a mood. Big difference.”
I didn’t answer.
“You’ve been staring at your phone since we got back from the arena,” he added.
I didn’t have to say her name—he saw it in my face. That telltale flicker of something I couldn’t mask anymore.
Asher smirked. “You’re gone for her, huh?”
I shot him a look, but it didn’t have the fire I wanted it to. “You know what happens when you care about someone too much?”
He shrugged.
“You care better.”
I scoffed, but it was hollow.
She was a soft place in a life built on rough edges. A part of me craved that. Another part feared it. I could survive hits, slashes, fights—but this? This felt like the kind of thing that could actually break me if I let it.
And I’d already let her in.
Asher pushed off the bed, his smirk still in place. “We’re heading out, Reaper. Don’t sulk too hard. Take care of yourself.”
I grunted something in reply, just enough to get him out the door. The second it shut behind him, the noise from the hallway faded into nothing, leaving the hotel room wrapped in an unnatural stillness. I sat there in the quiet, the soft hum of the air conditioning barely enough to fill the space. It felt hollow. Too still. Too far from where I wanted to be.
I closed my laptop and rubbed a hand over my face, dragging it down as I leaned back in the chair. I should’ve been thinking about the game—about the goal I missed or the plays I needed to study. But all I could see was her smile. All I could hear was her laugh. Mina’s voice had somehow become louder than any crowd, her absence echoing more than the cheers ever could.
Then my phone buzzed on the table, vibrating across the surface with a sharp urgency. I didn’t think much of it at first—probably a text, maybe from her. But when I glanced down, the words made my blood run cold.
