Unknown number.
I stared at the screen. Didn't recognize the area code. Voicemail icon sat there, waiting. Daring me to press it.
My jaw tightened.
Most people deleted unknowns. Spam. Wrong numbers. Digital garbage cluttering up space better used for things that mattered.
I never deleted anything.
Information was leverage. Numbers were patterns. Even wrong numbers told you something—who was looking, who was searching, who'd gotten close enough to guess.
I saved the voicemail without listening to it. Pocketed the phone. Grabbed my keys.
The decision had already been made.
I just hadn't said it out loud yet.
The rink smelled like rubber and cold sweat and the kind of violence that came wrapped in rules.
I hit the ice before anyone else. Not performance. Habit.
Blades carved lines into fresh-Zambonied surface while my body remembered what my mind refused to think about. Crossovers. Backwards edges. The muscle memory that separated men who played from men who lasted.
"Early bird gets the puck." Hades coasted up beside me, grinning like he knew something I didn't. His dark hair was slicked back, even under his helmet. "Or the worm. Never could remember which."
"Worms don't survive on ice."
Jeremy appeared from the tunnel, stick already taped, expression carved from the same ice we skated on. "Touching. Really. Should I get the violins, or are we pretending to work today?"
"We're pretending you're pleasant," Hades shot back. "Harder lift, but I believe in miracles."
"Belief's for churches." Jeremy's blade sliced between us, effortless and sharp. "I deal in facts."
"Fact: you're still bitter about the All-Star snub."
"Fact: politics matter more than points." Jeremy's eyes cut to me. "Right, Barnaby?"
James drifted past before I could respond, stick balanced across his shoulders like a yoke. "Now, now. Let's not bloody the ice before we've had our morning skate. Bad form. Worse optics."
"Since when do you care about optics?" Jeremy countered.
"Since my publicist threatened to quit." James winked. "Third one this year. Starting to think I'm the problem."
"You are the problem," Jafar said from the bench, not bothering to look up from his phone. His voice cut through the banter like a knife through silk—precise, measured, absolutely certain. "The question is whether you're our problem or theirs."
"Theirs," James confirmed cheerfully. "Always theirs."
Gang Lu stepped onto the ice. Didn't announce himself. Didn't need to.
The temperature dropped five degrees just from his presence—not cold, exactly. More like the moment before a fight when everyone stopped pretending and started calculating angles.
He skated once around the perimeter. Silent. Deliberate.
Then took position at center ice and waited.
"Right then." James pushed off the boards. "Shall we?"
The others followed. Not because anyone gave orders.
