Carter’s face didn’t change. “He’s been lost to me for a long time. I intend to force him back into the fold, whether he wants to or not.”
I stepped closer, close enough that I could feel his breath on my face. “Touch my players, any of them, including your son, and I’ll do what I should have done sixteen years ago.”
Carter’s smile never wavered. “Careful, Coach Novikov. Threats like that have a way of coming back to bite you.”
“That wasn’t a threat.” I turned toward the tunnel, already hearing the buzzer calling the teams back to the ice. “That was a promise.”
15
EVA
I watchedthe game on television, watched the team play like they’d never seen the ice before, watched them leave Cole and Tristan hanging out to dry.
My fault my fault my fault.The refrain repeated in my head every single time one of them took an injury, every time the other team scored, every time something went wrong.
The Marauders had been the best team Yorkfield University had ever seen, and that was saying something, given how many championships Alek had won.
Now, they played like shit.
My father tucked a worn quilt around me as I curled up on the couch, his weathered hands lingering on the faded fabric. His fingers traced the delicate stitching with a reverence that made my chest tighten.
“Your mom’s mom made this,” he said quietly, “for your mother, shortly after we got married. Your mother hated the cold. Always said Yorkfield winters were trying to kill her.”
My eyes shot to his, and I leaned forward so fast, my stitches pulled, making me gasp. But I didn’t care. I wasdesperate—fucking starving—for any scrap of family history, any piece of the woman who’d given me life and then abandoned me.
I reached for my father’s hand, and he squeezed my fingers gently. “Tell me more,” I whispered.
Dad’s smile was bitter. “She made this quilt in blues and greens because they reminded her of the ocean back in Ireland.” His fingers stilled on the fabric. “She hated me.”
He squeezed my fingers gently, but his grip felt fragile, as if he might disappear if I let him go. “I deserved it, though—every bit of her hate.”
No. My father was a good man—broken, maybe, but good. Whatever Alek had accused him of?—
But the words were there, clawing at my throat, demanding escape. I had to know. I had to understand why Aleksandr Novikov looked at me with such hatred, why he’d used my body as revenge for sins I’d never committed.
“Dad, Alek—Coach Novikov—he said you hurt him.” The words came out in a rush, barely above a whisper. “I know you would never, but?—”
My father froze, his body rigid. His eyes squeezed shut, and, fuck me, a tear slid down his cheek.
“I did.” The confession was barely audible, spoken to the floor between us. “I hurt him. I took a crowbar to the back of his knee before a playoff game and ended his career.”
The world stopped.
My heart forgot how to beat. My lungs forgot how to pull in air. The quilt slipped from my suddenly nerveless fingers as everything I thought I knew about my father—about myself—shattered into a million sharp pieces, each slicing off a piece of my soul.
“Eva?”
I couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe. The room tilted sideways, and black spots danced at the edges of my vision.
“Eva!”
Dad’s voice cut through the roaring in my ears. A cool glass bottle pressed against my burning cheek, the shock of it dragging me back from the edge of unconsciousness.
“You did it,” I breathed, the words raw in my throat. “You actually did it.”
My father—this man who’d read me bedtime stories and taught me to ride a bike and held my hand through surgery after surgery—knelt beside me like a penitent. His shoulders curved inward, shame radiating from every line of his body, and the contrast between this broken creature and the giant who’d raised me made something fracture in my chest.
A sob tore out of me before I could stop it.
