Page 138 of Broken Blades

It rattled me worse than any hit I'd taken on the ice in fifteen years.

Practice ended. I peeled off my gear in mechanical silence while the guys ribbed each other about weekend plans and upcoming road games. My hands moved on autopilot—unlacing skates, stripping pads, ignoring the ache in my shoulders from pushing too hard.

I headed toward the locker room, towel slung over my shoulder, already planning the text I'd send Chastity about lunch.

Then I stopped.

Barbara stood outside the hallway. Perfect posture. Expensive coat buttoned against the cold I knew she barely felt. Ice in her eyes that had nothing to do with the rink.

My stomach dropped, then hardened into something cold and familiar. The same feeling I'd had years ago when I'd walked into my bedroom and found her there with him. Betrayal dressed up in designer clothes and polite smiles.

She didn't move. Didn't speak. Just watched me with that expression I'd learned to read too well—the one that said she'd come to deliver a message, and I wasn't going to like it.

Every instinct screamed at me to walk past her. To pretend she didn't exist. To protect the fragile thing I'd accidentally built with Chastity by refusing to let Barbara anywhere near it.

But I'd never been good at walking away from fights.

So I stopped. Waited. Let her make the first move.

Because whatever she wanted, it wasn't going to change what had already happened. Chastity was mine now. And I'd burn the world down before I let Barbara take her from me.

I sighed, the sound rough and tired even to my own ears. "You stalking me now?"

Barbara ignored the jab, her gaze steady and clinical. Like I was a problem she needed to solve instead of a man she'd once promised forever. "The month is almost over."

I leaned against the wall, arms crossed, forcing every muscle into casual indifference even though my pulse kicked hard beneath my skin. "And?"

Her gaze sharpened, cutting through the space between us with surgical precision. "That girl is in love with you."

The words hit harder than a body check. Knocked the air from my lungs in a way I refused to show. I didn't flinch. Didn't move. Didn't give her the satisfaction of seeing how deep those words cut—or how much I wanted them to be true.

"Maybe she is."

Barbara studied me, her expression shifting into something that almost looked like concern. Almost. But I knew better. I'd learned years ago that nothing Barbara did came from a place of genuine care.

"And then what? You're going to break her heart just like you break everyone else's."

I laughed. Low. Dangerous. The sound echoed off the concrete walls and settled between us like a challenge. "Maybe I won't."

Barbara raised an eyebrow, disbelief written across every carefully maintained line of her face.

I shrugged, letting the words fall casual and devastating. "Maybe I'll marry her. Put a few kids in her."

Barbara's composure cracked for the first time since she'd cornered me. Her eyes widened, just barely, before she locked it down. But I saw it. That flicker of genuine shock that told me she'd expected anything but this.

"You won't." Her voice turned cold, brittle with something that sounded almost like fear. "Hurting people is in your blood."

I straightened slowly, every inch of movement deliberate. Controlled. Because if I moved too fast, if I let myself feel the full weight of what she'd just implied, I'd do something we'd both regret.

"Let her go, Wyatt."

Silence hung between us, thick and suffocating. The distant sound of skates on ice filtered through the hallway, normal and mundane against the nuclear tension crackling in the air.

Then I stepped closer. Close enough she had to tilt her head back to hold my gaze. Every inch of me hard. Unyielding. "That is not going to happen."

Barbara's lips pressed thin, her mask slipping just enough to reveal the steel beneath.

"You'll have to pry her away from me."