Chapter 4 RAFE
RAFE
He still hasn’t taken the tape off.
It’s been over five minutes, and Julian Reaver—the same smart-mouthed, twitchy, firestarter who told Leonardo to go fuck himself with his junkyard full of murderers—is standing in the middle of my locker room with a strip of black tape still stretched tight across his lips.
Like he forgot it was there. Or he likes it.
Or maybe he’s finally figured out it’s better when he shuts the hell up.
Either way, I’m not taking it off.
Finn’s practically buzzing beside him, talking a mile a minute, grinning as he points to the open locker with Julian’s name stenciled above it—crude, rushed, already scuffed like it’s been there years instead of hours.
I’m only half-listening to the introduction, already stripping off the rest of my pads, sweat cold against my spine as I pull the damp base layer over my head.
Julian hasn’t moved a fucking inch. He’s standing in front of the cubby like it’s a loaded gun pointed at his skull.
Shoulders locked, breathing shallow, sweat sliding down his temple.
His hands tremble at his sides, twitchy and clenched, fingers flexing like he’s getting ready to punch something or bolt.
And he’s staring. Not at Finn. Not at the guys throwing casual glances his way. Not at me. Just at his locker. There’s something scrawled across the top in thick black marker. TRAITOR.
I saw it earlier. I didn’t stop it. Not my job to save him. He threw a game and burned a league—far as anyone here’s concerned, he’s a disgrace with a pretty face and a price tag. No one cares what the real story is. All they know is what it cost them, what it cost us.
But that’s not why he’s frozen. There’s something else happening behind his eyes. Something deeper than shame or embarrassment. This isn’t ego. It’s fear. Real, bone-deep, breath-hitching fear. He’s not blinking. Not breathing right.
I tilt my head, towel slung around my neck, and study him like a problem I haven’t solved yet. The room moves around us—Finn still talking, someone slamming a locker shut, boots thudding against concrete—but Julian doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t hear any of it.
Just stares at the locker like it’s about to reach out and fucking ruin him.
Finn bounces over like he’s the fucking welcome committee and not a chaos addict in goalie gear.
He struts right up to Reaver, who’s still locked in place like someone hit pause on his nervous system, and smacks him on the ass with a sharp whap that echoes way too loud in the quiet. “Get dressed, rookie.”
Julian jolts like a live wire just touched skin. His head snaps toward Finn, shoulders jerking, and it takes him a second—one full heartbeat—for the fog in his eyes to crack. And then, like nothing happened, like his body hadn’t been braced for an execution, he turns back toward the cubby.
I watch closely. He lifts his hand—slow, still shaking—and reaches for the door. His fingers pause an inch from the handle. I can see the sweat beading at his temple, the way his jaw locks tight behind the tape still stretched over his mouth. Then he closes his eyes like he’s bracing for impact.
And he opens it just a little. Inside, it’s just gear. Jersey. Pads. Gloves. Lined up exactly how it’s supposed to be.
I know because I put it there last night. After watching him pace his box like a feral animal. After deciding he wasn’t going to die in there, not yet. After realizing he’d been dragged to my doorstep with nothing—no gear, no bag, no prep.
So I gave him mine. It's enough to function until he earns the right to call anything his own. And still… he opens it like it might explode. Like he’s terrified of what he might find.
But there’s nothing. Just gear and the ghosts in his head.
He keeps his eyes shut as his fingers brush the edge of the jersey. Doesn’t even look at it. Like he’s hoping—begging—that if he doesn’t see it, it can’t hurt him.
It’s not shame or hesitation. It’s dread. The kind that lives in the spine. And I don’t know why. I just know that when a man opens a locker like it’s a fucking coffin, he’s not afraid of gear. He’s afraid of what he thinks he’s going to find.
I step past him slowly. I don’t stop, don’t reach for him, but I murmur, low enough only he can hear—“Next time, open your eyes.”
His spine snaps straight like I hit a nerve, and I keep walking. Out of the room. Toward the rink.
I don’t need to look back to know he’s staring after me.
The ice is already calling by the time I step into the rink, breath sharp in my throat, gear minimal as always—no leg pads, no blocker, just chest protection and the mask hanging off my fingers.
I don’t need armor. Not for this. Not in this place.
The cold cuts across my bare forearms, the tape on my wrists sticky with sweat, but I like it that way.
I like the sting. The edge. The honesty of it.
There’s no bullshit on this ice. No cameras.
No press. No shields. Just blood frozen into the surface and whatever rage we choose to bleed out of ourselves.
I cross to the net, drop my mask to the post, and stretch slow, letting the tension unwind from my back, my shoulders, one vertebra at a time.
My body’s already humming, not from exertion, but anticipation.
The others aren’t far behind—skates scraping the concrete, laughter too sharp to be friendly, that charged silence that comes before every session.
And then I hear it. The pause. The one set of steps that doesn’t join the others and I glance up.
Julian’s standing at the edge of the ice, one foot up, but not on.
Hands clenched at his sides. Body stiff.
He’s geared up—jersey, pads, gloves, skates laced—but he hasn’t stepped onto the ice yet.
He’s just staring at it like it’s foreign.
Like he doesn’t know what to do with it.
Which is bullshit. I’ve watched the tapes. NHL golden boy, fast as sin, instinctive, dangerous. He belongs on the ice. He was born for it. But now he looks like it’s going to swallow him whole.
I tilt my head from the crease, narrowing my eyes as I study him. Something about his posture is wrong. Not just the hesitation. It’s the silence inside him. The stillness. Like something’s cracked open and filled with static.
Then—unsurprisingly—Luca barrels straight into frame. Luca being Luca, cocky and sharp and perpetually in motion. He doesn’t even slow down—just nudges Julian from behind with one shoulder like the kid’s standing in his way and Julian stumbles forward onto the ice.
His blades catch, not cleanly, not with confidence. He doesn’t fall, but it’s close. And then he’s standing frozen in the middle of the sheet like he’s never seen it before.
I watch his chest rise and fall like he’s trying to find air.
Kai skates up beside me without a word. Doesn’t look at me right away. Just follows my gaze. We both watch Julian like a problem that doesn’t want to solve itself. “He’s in withdrawal,” Kai says quietly, arms crossed, calm and clinical. “You know that, right?”
I nod once. My eyes don’t leave the kid. “That’s not the only thing he’s in right now.”
Kai huffs a breath, low and unreadable.
“Keep an eye on him.”
“Always,” he says, and skates off to his post.
I let it go longer than I should have.
He’s still frozen in place, like the ice is lava, like one wrong move will send him straight through it. He’s breathing wrong, standing wrong. This isn’t a man on the verge of warming up—this is a man unraveling molecule by molecule.
The boys are circling now. Not close enough to swarm him, but close enough to start the chirps.
Bishop’s the first to laugh, low and sharp, skating past and muttering “Maybe he forgot how to skate.” Vlad follows with something in Romanian, dry and cold, probably a curse.
Misha circles once and snorts, “Didn’t know statues made the league.
” Even Finn, who should know better, glides by and offers a lazy, "Hey, if you fall, I’ll catch you, baby bird. "
They’re not even being mean. They’re being players.
But it still cuts. Because I remember the footage.
Julian Reaver used to be the fastest winger in the fucking league.
He moved like water—flowed through defense like gravity bent for him.
He could see plays before they happened.
Knew how to cut, strike, vanish. A million-dollar instinct wrapped in muscle and flash.
And now? He’s standing there like he doesn’t even belong to the ice anymore.
Something’s not right.
“Reaver!” I bark, stepping forward in the crease. “Look at me!”
No reaction. He's still staring straight ahead.
“JULIAN!” My voice echoes off the steel walls, ricochets off concrete and glass. “I SAID LOOK AT ME!”
His head jerks, his eyes lock to mine across the rink.
Good.
I don’t stop. I grab a puck from the net and hurl it across the sheet. Not at his head, not enough to hurt, but close enough to make a point.
Still, he doesn’t move, so I grab another and throw it harder.
Still nothing.
Another. This time, it hits the toe of his skate and that’s it.
That’s the moment his eyes flash. Jaw clenches and he snaps, reaches down, scoops up the puck like it personally insulted his mother, and fires it back at me without warning—laser-quick, sharp wrist shot, straight toward my mask. I catch it without blinking.
And there's the golden boy. The one who knows how to bite.
I smirk behind my glove, tossing the puck down like bait. “Good,” I mutter. “Now fucking skate.”
Before he can flinch again, before that fire behind his eyes has a chance to snuff out, something cuts through the air—a clatter, a whistle of velocity—a stick.
Someone throws it across the ice. Could’ve been Finn.
Could’ve been Misha. Could’ve been fate.
And Julian catches it without thinking. Gloved hand wraps around the shaft mid-air, smooth as muscle memory, a twitch-reflex save from a brain still wired to the game, even if everything else in him is short-circuiting.
And then—he moves. He doesn’t look at me. Doesn’t chirp. Doesn’t thank whoever tossed the stick. He just turns to the net and fires.
First shot rings off the post—clean, fast, no windup. The second hits the lower left pipe, hard enough to make it sing. The third slips past the empty crease and dents the back of the net with a brutal snap of the blade.
He's still shaking. Still jittery from the withdrawal, jaw tight under the tape, legs coiled too tight. But he’s shooting over and over. Like each puck is a piece of the past he’s trying to obliterate.
And I just stand in the crease, watching. Because this—this—is the closest I’ve seen him to alive since he arrived.