"My father taught discipline. Pain. Silence. And winning."
Each word tasted like ash. I watched Belle process them, watched her expression shift from anger to something worse—understanding she didn't want.
"It got me into the NHL."
Not pride. Not justification. Just fact.
The truth no one asked about when they watched me on the ice, when they screamed my name from the stands, when they counted my goals and my earnings and decided I'd won at life.
Belle flinched.
Not at the words themselves.
At whatever she heard beneath them.
The hollow places I'd learned to fill with achievement. With dominance. With the kind of control that kept everything else from bleeding through.
Her mouth opened. Closed. She looked at me like I'd just confirmed something terrible.
I hated that look. Hated that she'd dragged this out of me when I hadn't decided to give it.
"Don't," I said quietly.
"Don't what?"
"Pity me."
Her jaw tightened. "I wasn't?—"
"You were." I leaned in, close enough to see the pulse hammering in her throat. "I can see it. That shift. That softening. Don't waste it on me, Belle."
She shook her head, the movement small but defiant. "I don't pity you."
"No?"
"No." Her voice hardened. "I just understand you better now."
The words hit like a fist to the sternum.
Understanding.
The one thing I'd spent my entire adult life making sure no one ever got close enough to claim.
She'd taken it, anyway. Stolen it from a photograph I'd barely remembered leaving out.
My hands flexed at my sides. Control slipping. Rage and something dangerously close to grief warring beneath my ribs.
"That doesn't change anything," I said.
"It doesn't," she snapped. "You're still a monster."
My fingers closed around her wrist before she could pull away. Not gentle. Not cruel. Just certain. The kind of grip that said resistance was irrelevant.
I yanked her forward, spun her, bent her over the edge of the desk. The same fucking desk from the photograph. The same goddamn wood that had held my childhood like a cage.
She hit the surface with a sharp exhale, palms slapping against the varnish. The impact vibrated up my arm, satisfaction and something darker twisting together.
Her jeans were already loose from earlier. I hooked my fingers into the waistband and dragged them down—far enough to expose skin, far enough to make her gasp.
