1
ALEKSANDR
The slush soakinginto the team’s sneakers and their gear in the aftermath of the storm only added to the morose atmosphere as they disembarked the bus, dispirited after our two losses to the Hawks.
Cole and Tristan grabbed their bags, visibly isolated from the rest of the team, unusually quiet, not even looking at one another.
Dr. Parker stood beside me, watching the team disperse. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Did I want to confess to this woman, my peer, whom I respected immensely, who had dedicated her life to healing college athletes who abused their bodies in the name of sport, that I’d fucked three students last night? That I’d been forcing one of them to sexually serve me for weeks, only to discover she’d been using me as much as I’d been using her? That my cousin had sent me a Trojan horse that was destroying me from the inside out?
Fuck no.
“Tristan will need a friend,” I murmured softly, rubbing my chest to dissipate the pain of my career crashing downaround me because I’d been so fucking eager to get Eva’s lips around my cock.
Her eyebrows lifted.
Did she think I hadn’t noticed when she took him under her wing his freshman year, the only Black player on the team and desperately in need of kinship?
“What happened?” she asked quietly.
“It’s not my story to tell,” I answered.
“But you know the story.”
Her breath fogged in the cool air, and she was no less intimidating for being half my size. I swallowed against the swelling in my throat. Fuck, I was a mess.
“He’ll need a friend,” I repeated after a sharp exhale.
Dr. Parker nodded then awkwardly patted me on the back, surprising me with her touch. We’d never crossed the bridge from colleagues to friends, and we certainly weren’t going to start now.
She hurried to her car as the slush turned to snow, the flakes catching in her locs and shining in the overhead lights.
A miasma of emotion swirled in my gut. I’d hurt the team. Hurt Tristan. Hurt Cole, who was like a son to me. Hurt Eva, whose sweet submission had made me want to be the type of man who deserved her—the type of man I’d worked hard to be since I walked away from the NHL and the bratva, my brotherhood.
And yet, she too had betrayed me.
Fuck this. And fuck Dmitri, who’d sent me straight into her arms.
I’d gotten everything I ever wanted. I’d ruined Eva. Her father was going to suffer at Jed Carter’s hands. My revenge was complete.
Eva fucking Jackson. A spy. For Jed fucking Carter.
If I were Eva, I’d tell the whole fucking world what we’d done to her. Jed Carter had put her in our path, and we’d fallen for her, shown her the worst of ourselves. Now, he could do whatever the fuck he wanted with that information.
I rubbed my thumb over the screen of the phone in my pocket. I had pictures, so many pictures. Of her on her knees. Of her face streaked with tears as I fucked her throat. Of her luscious ass as she concentrated on making me the perfect macchiato. If I shared them, I could get ahead of the story, get ahead of the end of my career.
So why didn’t I want to? Why was I worried sick about that hateful, manipulative bitch?
I’d fought the urge to call her during the entire bus ride, unable to untangle my fury at her betrayal from my worry for the spitfire who’d melted for me, who’d come to me two days ago for a moment of safety, who was so fucking brave, and who was in so much fucking danger right now.
The buses pulled away, leaving me standing in the snow like a melodramatic anime character, staring into the darkness as if it held any answers for me.
Fuck this. I called Dmitri, the architect of this disaster.
“Sasha,” he breathed, using the familiar diminutive of my name I hadn’t heard in years. Goddamn that ache in my heart.
“You motherfucker,” I snarled into the phone in Russian. “You made a deal with Jed Carter?”
