Chapter 10
Rook
I should’ve played better tonight—I was half a second slow at least a dozen times and completely off focus the majority of the game—but even among the noise of the locker room crashing around me as my teammates lament our loss, I can’t find a fuck inside myself to give.
My head wasn’t on the ice during the game.
My head was on Honey Bee Café.
On Holland Slimefuck Thorne.
On Kylie Moon.
I don’t give a shit about hockey or championships or rec-league reputations. I care that something has shifted, and I don’t like the direction it’s moving.
Monsters don’t circle forever. They wait until they’re sure.
None of this shit is fair for her—and yet, I fear to the absolute root of my existence that fair’s long gone and danger is well-seated in its place anyway.
I yank the second skate loose and look up to find Cal chest-to-chest with evil himself at the door. I know he heard Holland’s remark about enjoying coffee with Kylie, and this is his way of doing damage control.
Because where he’s steady, I’m an earthquake—I will rock Holland’s shit into the next fucking solar system at the first smart comment, if given the opportunity.
Kane moves to Cal’s back as Holland’s guys, Mark and Evan, step up behind him out of the shadows, and I jump from my spot on the bench and head their direction too.
They don’t have gear bags because they didn’t play tonight, too busy following her to grace us with their normal fake injuries and whiny little bitchiness.
Holland catches my eye, essentially ignoring Cal and Kane, and smiles. “Didn’t make the game,” he says casually. “Busy night.”
He’s trying to bait me into losing my cool or giving away something about how much I know so he has insight into how locked in I am on her, but thankfully, I’m too invested to take it.
I know his tactics. I know his moves. And I know that if he can rile me with a simple remark, Kylie’s already in way more danger than she should be.
“It’s a shame, though,” he continues. “I was really looking forward to kicking some Slater ass.”
Even the curse seems foreign on his silver tongue. I roll my eyes. They might think they’re all fucking mighty, but they’re just a bunch of pussies.
Slow and deliberate, I move closer, easing Cal out of the way so I can give Holland my full attention. “You know the rules. If you didn’t play tonight, you shouldn’t be back here.”
One of his guys shifts, but Holland just holds up a hand. A silent gesture not to react. Quite a fucking pity, to be honest. I have so much anger and so much rage vibrating through my goddamn bones, it’d be cathartic for one of his goons to test me.
“Relax, Garbage Man,” he says, practically spitting. “We were just heading out.”
Garbage Man. I shake my head and smile. He really wants me to lose my cool, but I already know these games—how the elites and their gofers load and aim the gun while taping your fucking hand to it and then blame you for pulling the trigger.
And I refuse to leave her to fend for herself against these fucking bloodsucking, power-hungry vultures.
When Holland and his goons don’t move, I point toward the exit.
“The door is that way.”
“Wow, Rook.” Kane lets out a quiet laugh. “They really do need everything spelled out for them.”
Holland’s jaw tightens. “The way I heard it, you’re the ones who sucked at hockey tonight.”
Cal stares at him. “Pretty sure no one is talking about hockey right now.”
Holland’s smile thins. “The Slaters are a little touchy this evening, huh?”
I don’t respond to that, but I don’t have to. It’s a question as obvious as the elephant in the room, and Holland does everything short of acknowledging it completely when he glances toward the door—toward the hallway that leads back to the rink.
Toward Kylie.
“Maybe I’ll hang around for a while.” He smiles, observing me closely. “There’s just something about watching her skate, you know…”
My fists clench and my jaw ticks under the strain of my instinctual drive to kill him, and because I can’t without leaving Kylie even more vulnerable than she already is, he gets a hash mark in his win column.
He laughs with too much ego and not enough sense. It’s the hearty ha-ha-ha you can only let loose when you think you’re invincible.
It will come back to bite him, though. I’m surer of what I have to do than ever.
“You’re entirely predictable, Garbage Man,” Holland says lightly. “I’m not sorry to say, that’ll be your downfall.”
This asshole. He’s so fucking cocky, but I’d rather be a garbage man than a gofer for the elites. I’d rather be dead than be him.
And soon, he’ll realize just how willing I am to prove it.
“How about you worry about your own shit, goferboy,” I reply.
“Oh, but I am.” His gaze flicks back to mine. “That’s kind of the problem.” He steps closer to me. It’s not enough to provoke, but it’s just enough to encroach on my space.
Kane and Cal both crowd my back, ready to set a whole fucking explosion in motion if they have to. Evan and Mark do the same behind Holland.
“I know what you’re doing. I know what you’re trying to do. And you know better than this, Rook,” he says quietly. “Don’t get attached to her.”
I don’t move, but my jaw is pure steel. “Say her name.”
He doesn’t. That’s deliberate too.
“That blood…” Holland continues, voice low, smooth. “It’s not for you, and you know it. Step aside.”
“Over my dead body,” I declare.
Holland’s smile is foretelling. “That can be arranged.”
“You have no ownership rights, and you know it. To any of them. And the time for you and your masters to do whatever the fuck you want is running out.”
Holland chuckles. “Clearly, I need to remind you how things work.” He steps even closer to me. “Walk away from her, or pay the price.”
Walking away isn’t an option. She is mine.
“You know, Holland, things work until they don’t work anymore. Something tells me we’re right on the cusp of you finding that out.”
His eyes flash. “Careful, Slater.”
“Careful what?”
He shakes his head, smiling again and disengaging by taking a step back. “It doesn’t matter. After tomorrow, she won’t be your concern.”
That isn’t a threat; it’s a promise.
He straightens and claps his hands once. “Come on, boys. Let’s get out of here before we start smelling like fucking trash.”
Cal waits a beat before following them out of the locker room and into the parking lot to listen, and Kane stays back to calm me.
“You all right?” he asks, trying to push me back to the bench to sit down, but I muscle past him instead.
“Rook. Hey. Rook, where are you going?”
I’m shirtless, still in half of my gear and my feet only covered by a pair of fucking socks, but I don’t give a shit. There’s only one place I need to be, and I need to be there yesterday.
Kylie’s by the bleachers, bag at her feet, and pulling her hair back like she’s about to take the ice when I get to her.
She looks normal and calm and completely fucking unaware, and because I don’t have time to be careful, I nearly startle her right off the bench and onto the floor with how fast I approach her.
“Kylie, you need to go home,” I say immediately, my tone heavy with demand.
“Oh hey, Rook.” She snorts, gathering herself. “Hello to you too.”
“You need to go home,” I state again, too worked up to soften that shit at all.
Her eyes narrow in offense. “Excuse me?”
I can’t fucking blame her, but this isn’t a time for na?veté-necessitating lengthy explanations. Holland admitted it himself—she’s not safe at all, and after tomorrow, I won’t be able to save her. “You need to go home. Now.”
“What?” Confusion replaces affront as she takes in my clearly agitated expression. “Why?”
I open my mouth, but then I quickly close it. There’s no going back once I open the Pandora’s box of information.
The existence of vampires, her destiny to be with one, her blood’s value—and the corrupt nature of the wealthy that transcends her species—aren’t the kinds of things that put a woman’s already anxious mind at ease.
They’re the kinds of things that send even the strongest into a spiral.
“You shouldn’t be here, Kylie,” I say as gently as I can manage.
“What do you mean, I shouldn’t be here?” Her expression hardens. “I have every right to be here, Rook. The game is over. The ice is free.”
“This isn’t about the ice being free, Ky. This is about listening to me because I’m asking you to,” I say with a groan she wrongly interprets as frustration with her.
“Pretty sure I’m under no obligation to do anything under command, from you or otherwise, without an explanation. The only one who makes decisions for Kylie Kay Moon is me.”
“I’m not trying to rule your life, I swear.” I sigh. “I know I’m not the man who paints the room with flowery faces and smooth lines and even a fucking smile. I know. But I’m asking you, please, to leave this rink right now and go straight home.”
She stares at me like she doesn’t recognize the man in front of her, both because of my demands and the temporary bout of kindness. I can see it scares her—her pulse is thrumming like a hummingbird’s wings—but there’s at least a tiny break in the wall between us too.
She can feel it. This thing, my intentions, my desperation.
She lets out a deep sigh. “I came here to skate. Like I always do, Rook. I don’t see what the big deal is or why I can’t have this tiny, stupid moment for myself.”
She squints now, on the verge of tears as she fights against the war I’ve started inside her. I get it. I get it so much, and yet, I still have to be the asshole. Because people are watching us now—people, including Holland, who’s evidently returned to the ring for a second round.
Our enemies are too close for comfort and, at this point, may be making moves to preempt me by striking tonight, rather than tomorrow.
I lower my voice. “Please just go home.”
Her eyes narrow. “No.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
Fuck. “Jesus, Ky. Now is not the time to be a stubborn pain in my ass.”
Her jaw drops. “What did you just call me?”
Goddammit. Fuck this whole fucked-up situation.
I close my eyes, pleading with myself for patience. “Kylie. I’m begging you. On my metaphorical, grumpy knees, to please, please, go home.”
“You know what?” She huffs, abruptly tugging at the laces of her skates. “Fine. I’m going home. I’m going home and nailing the damn doors shut like a coffin until I escape whatever nightmare’s asshole this week climbed from.”
“Kylie, I—”
“Shut up. Just shut the hell up.” She rips her skates off her feet and tosses them into her bag. Her hoodie is pulled over her head next, and her bag is on her shoulder within seconds.
“I don’t know what your issue is,” she adds, eyes blazing, “but tonight is the last time I let you make it my problem. How about, in the future, just leave me the hell alone, okay?”
She storms past me, but mad is better than dead.
She disappears down the hallway and out into the parking lot.
I hear her car start and the tires roll away from the rink.
And I just stand there, staring at the empty space she left behind. I know that Holland and his cronies are still here. I know I’m on the precipice of an absolute shitstorm for myself and my brothers.
I know all the fucking things.
But she left because I asked her to, and that tells me she has the kind of fight in her that could keep her alive.
It’s a small mercy, but a mercy, nonetheless.
There’s no going back now, and I know tomorrow won’t be like this.
Tomorrow, they won’t ask. They’ll just take.
And I already know what I’m going to have to do before that happens.