Chapter 30 Rafe
RAFE
The rink hums like it remembers violence.
The kind that bleeds across city lines, gets traded like debt, ends up in body bags on neutral ground.
This used to be a professional arena. Now it’s something else.
A cathedral for bloodsport. A cage dressed in nostalgia.
Syndicate flags hang where sponsors used to go.
Gold-ringed fingers clutch betting slips stained with sweat.
Every box is filled with a man who could order a war mid-period and have it finished before the puck drops again.
And all of them are watching Julian. He skates warmup like it’s foreplay. Like the ice should be grateful to feel him.
He doesn’t stretch. He doesn’t prep. He simply performs.
The blade of his skate cuts into the rink like it personally insulted him, each turn sharp enough to kick frost straight into the Belladonna box.
His head stays high, that filthy smile curling across his face, jersey stretched tight over the shoulders I bruised last night.
Black tape wraps his wrists; his throat looks even worse.
I gave him the tape. I gave him the knife tucked in his sock too—short blade, easy draw, coated grip.
His hands were still trembling from the orgasm when I slid it into place this morning.
He kissed me afterward, tongue first, and called me “sir” without being told. That part was just for me.
Every man on the ice tonight carries a weapon. It isn’t merely policy; it’s mutual understanding.
This isn’t hockey. It’s execution dressed up with rules.
And me? I’ve got my gun pressed against the small of my back, right beneath the pads—safety off, finger-twitch distance.
I’ll drop anyone who touches him. I’ll put a bullet through a syndicate heir and ask Leonardo for another clip without hesitation.
He won’t even blink. He knows exactly what this is.
He handed me the leash and told me to lead.
So I do.
From the net I stay still, silent, eyes tracking every twitch of my team like I’m already painting the violence in my head before it happens.
They look good tonight—fast, wired, feral.
Vlad’s jaw is taped shut because he cracked it in a fight two nights ago and never bothered getting it checked.
Misha’s stitches run fresh across his cheekbone, yet he keeps grinning at the enemy bench like it’s a private joke.
Luca wears a new scar. Finn has a fresh reason to snap.
Bishop is already leaking somewhere—I can smell the blood on him, and we haven’t even dropped the puck yet.
Julian isn’t healed. He’s sharpened. Burnt at the root and grown back twisted.
I didn’t fix him. I made him useful. I taught him how to bleed beautifully.
He skates another lap—tight turn, stop on a dime, spray of ice dust into the glass like a fucking encore.
He skates backward past the Belladonna side, stick dragging behind him like a leash he might choke someone with later.
Their captain—Antonov, third-generation Butcher—glares at him. Julian winks, then skates away.
I track him with my eyes, still and unblinking in the crease.
Every breath he takes, I match. Every glance he throws back toward our bench, I read.
He doesn’t need to speak. I know when the pulse at his throat quickens.
I know when his shoulder stiffens. I know when the weight of the knife rubs just a little too sharp against his ankle because I put it there.
The crowd’s getting louder now. Syndicate loud.
Roars from the west box. Whistles from Belladonna.
Gunmetal glinting in the hands of someone four rows up.
I see one man in a fur coat holding a blade in his teeth like he forgot which century this is.
Doesn’t matter. This isn’t about time. This is about blood.
About debt. About who walks off this ice and who doesn’t.
I flex my gloves and keep my face blank—no smile, no need. There’s no warm-up required; I’m already burning.
Behind me the glass rattles hard, someone pounding on it like an idiot who’s bet half a club on tonight’s puckline. They think the money’s riding on goals, on hits, on the scoreboard. No. They’re betting on who survives.
Julian glides out to center ice again, slows, then stops completely.
He turns toward me. Our eyes lock, and everything simply ceases—the crowd, the lights, the roar, the game itself, even the past. Time holds its breath.
Then he grins. One slow, obscene curl of his lips, dipped in blood and promise.
Like he knows everything. Like he can feel the weight of the gun against my back and the violence coiled tight in my throat.
Like he’s daring me to pull the trigger before the puck even drops. Good boy.
I watch him skate backward toward the bench—deliberately slow, cocky as hell, hips rolling the same way they do when he’s still grinding down on my lap. His jersey lifts just enough to bare the bruises staining his back. My bruises.
And I swear to God, if a single person lays a hand on him tonight, I will repaint this ice with their fucking lungs.
The puck doesn’t drop. It slams. A butchered slap from the side official—some Belladonna goon in a too-clean coat who looks like he’d rather be running numbers than standing between two teams of killers.
He doesn’t make eye contact with any of us.
Just drops the puck like he’s throwing meat into a cage and steps the fuck back.
It hits center ice with a sound like bone on concrete.
Julian lunges for it. His blade eats the puck before the other center can blink. Whoever they’ve sent to line up against him is a bad pick—too slow, too clean, too nice-looking to be in this rink. He gets spun so hard he hits the deck before Julian even finishes his first stride.
The crowd explodes. La Fiamma Nera goes feral in the east stands. Smoke bombs go off somewhere above section C. Belladonna whistles start shrieking.
Julian’s already flying. He cuts through the zone like the ice is bowing under him, the puck glued to his stick. Luca streaks up the right wing, eyes wild, mouth grinning like he wants to start a knife fight before the first goal. He shouts something—“YES, DADDY!”
Kai slams his stick into the boards so hard it makes a crack like a gunshot and snaps, “Shut the fuck up, Amari.”
Julian cackles—loud, open-mouthed, completely free—like this is exactly where he belongs, like the ice was carved out just for the sound of his laughter.
I don’t move. From the net I stay dead still, face unreadable, giving nothing away. But inside? I’m a fucking inferno, every nerve lit and roaring.
They’re listening to him. My team. Every single one of them tuned to his voice, his rhythm, his command. And he’s leading them like they owe him blood—like he’s already collected it and they’re just paying the interest.
Corso slams someone into the boards with a crosscheck that rattles the glass.
Misha follows right behind, body-checking a Belladonna forward so hard the man’s helmet pops off and skitters across the ice straight into our zone.
Bishop scoops it up without hesitation, gives it a long, deliberate lick, then tosses it aside like trash.
Vlad doesn’t even flinch—he just starts circling the helmetless player like a shark, slow and patient, waiting for a whistle that will never come. There are no whistles here.
No refs. No rules. Just one puck, twelve weapons, and fifty thousand dollars’ worth of blood bets howling for violence from the stands.
Julian still isn’t scoring. He’s toying with them.
He carries the puck into the slot, fakes left, spins on a dime, and slips it backward to Luca without ever breaking stride. Luca doesn’t flinch—he just grins wide, takes the pass, and fires a casual no-look shot toward the net. It goes wide. Doesn’t matter.
Julian skates past and slaps Luca’s ass like they’re running a fucking scrimmage.
“Good boy,” he says, voice carrying over the chaos.
Luca wheezes out a laugh, half-breathless, half-feral.
Kai mutters under his breath, “I hate it here.” Misha’s laugh rolls out like thunder, deep and unrestrained, shaking the whole damn rink.
The Belladonna team doesn’t know what to do yet. They’re holding back. Watching. They weren’t ready for us to come out playing. They expected brutality out of the gate—slashed ankles, knifed ribs, full chaos. But Julian? He’s smarter than that.
He’s putting on a show.
The crowd’s boiling over. Chanting. Betting. The side tunnels are already swarming with bookies making live updates. Above me, I see one of Leonardo’s men nod to another—hands moving in code, signals going to the rest of the compound. Ezio’s on the bench, helmet off, jaw tight, arms crossed.
He's watching his team follow someone else—my team, every last one of them locked onto Julian like he’s the only gravity in the building. Because Julian asked, or smiled, or simply existed in the right place at the right time with blood on his teeth.
I push up to the top of the crease, weight forward, eyes locked on the puck again, tracking every glide and bounce like it’s already painted in red.
Julian cuts back into the zone, head up, calculating, predatory.
He accepts a soft pass from Finn, spins—that fucking dancer’s spin, fluid and lethal—and skates backward across the blue line, dragging two Belladonna defenders behind him like he’s stringing them up for slaughter, their skates scraping uselessly as they try to keep pace.
Then he stops dead.
The defender closest doesn’t have time to react.
He clips Julian’s skate, stumbles forward—and Julian reaches out, grabs the man’s collar in one smooth motion, leans down, and whispers something against the edge of his helmet.
Whatever it is, it’s just loud enough for the guy to flinch hard, eyes widening behind the cage.