Chapter 30
Nick
I slammed the locker room door so hard the metal shook, the echo ricocheting off the walls like a warning shot. I didn’t care who heard it. The only thing running through my head was him. Gary. That smug son of a bitch and the filth that came out of his mouth.
“Guess you like sharing, Maddox. Bet she’ll crawl back to me once you’re done with her.”
I saw red.
I hadn’t even waited for the puck to drop before my fist found his jaw—and I’d have kept going if they hadn’t dragged us apart. Now, my knuckles were split and bloodied, my heart still hammering like I was mid-fight. Good. Let it hurt. Let it remind me why I did it.
He talked about her like that.
I paced the room like a caged animal, shoulders tight, blood pounding in my ears. The taste of adrenaline was still thick in my mouth. I could still hear the crunch of his face under my fist. It wasn’t enough.
“Jesus,” Toshi muttered, somewhere behind me. “What the hell was that out there?”
I didn’t slow down. “Handled business.”
“Looked like you lost your damn mind.”
I finally stopped, staring at the sweat-slick floor. “He brought up my wife.”
Toshi didn’t speak for a second. And when he did, his voice was lower. “What’d he say?”
I looked up, jaw clenched so tight it ached. “Enough to earn what he got.”
Toshi exhaled, running a hand down his face. “Nick, I get it. I do. But you gotta be smarter. You think that prick’s worth a suspension? A fine? Getting benched during playoffs?”
“He said her name like it was a joke,” I growled. “Like she was a thing. Like she belonged to him.”
Toshi’s expression sobered. “And you think brawling is gonna make him shut up?”
“No.” I stepped closer, voice low and even. “But now he knows not to say her name again.”
He held my stare, and for a second, I thought he was going to push back again. Instead, he nodded slowly. “Just don’t lose yourself over someone trying to drag you down. You’ve got something real. Protect that without setting fire to everything else.”
But I was already burning.
Because Kennedy wasn’t just someone I cared about—she was mine. And if anyone wanted to test how far I’d go to keep her safe?
They just got a glimpse.
I leaned back against the wall, jaw still tight, pulse refusing to settle. My knuckles throbbed like a war drum, a reminder that I’d lost it out there, and I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
The locker room door swung open with a bang. Axel came in first, sweat still clinging to his neck, a bruise blooming purple along his cheek. He grinned like he’d just scored a damn hat trick.
“Hell of a show, Maddox.” He slapped my shoulder so hard I staggered. “That wasn’t a fight. That was a fuckin’ statement.”
I didn’t answer. Just nodded, jaw grinding.
Dominic followed, wiping blood off his mouth with a towel and tossing me a water bottle. “Gary’s a piece of shit. You don’t let a guy like that walk around thinking he can talk about your girl and still breathe easy.”
One by one, the rest of the team trickled in—scratched up, bruised, high on adrenaline and still riding the wave of what we’d just lived through. Guys dropped gear with heavy thuds, groaning and laughing like we hadn’t just thrown down in front of thousands.
Greyson pointed to a nasty welt forming on his arm. “Tell me that wasn’t clean,” he joked. “Told their guy not to test me—but you? You went full damn grizzly.”
Their voices bounced off the walls, easy and sharp, the sound of warriors unwinding after battle.
No masks, no filters—just raw, gritty pride.
They weren’t just hyped about the win or the chaos.
They were proud because we stood our ground.
Because I didn’t let that bastard get away with talking about Kennedy like that.
And in that moment, something clicked hard in my chest.
These guys weren’t just teammates. They were mine—my family in every way that mattered. We bled together. Protected each other. No questions, no hesitation.
I cracked open the water bottle and took a long pull, the cool burn sliding down my throat. My voice came out low, tight with purpose. “Let’s show ‘em what happens when you poke the wrong fuckin’ bear.”
Heads nodded all around me. No bravado. Just steel.
“Together,” Greyson said.
“Together,” we echoed back, voices solid.
For the first time since my skates hit the locker room floor, I let myself smile. Not soft. Not sweet.
Ready.
The door creaked again, and the room quieted just a beat as Rhys stepped in.
Nose bloodied, shirt torn at the shoulder. He walked in like nothing was wrong, but his knuckles were raw, and there was a smear of red on his jaw that sure as hell wasn’t his.
“The fuck happened to you?” Drew asked, eyes narrowing as he leaned against a bench. Cool and casual, but his voice had that edge—like steel beneath velvet.
Rhys wiped at his nose with the back of his arm, still breathing hard.
“What’s it look like?” he muttered, dropping onto the bench like his bones had finally remembered they were tired.
There was a pause.
Then Sam—big, broad-shouldered, always the one trying to play peacekeeper—huffed a laugh.
“Looks like you finally remembered how to throw a punch,” he said, shaking his head with half a grin. “Didn’t think you had it in you.”
Rhys glanced over, eyes sharp despite the bruise blooming under one of them. “Gary opened his mouth about Kennedy. So I shut it for him.”
Silence dropped again—heavier this time.
Not because it was shocking, but because Rhys didn’t fight. He was the guy who watched from the edge, who calculated, who cut with words instead of fists. He was the fucking assistant coach. Seeing him banged up like this? It meant something.
My throat tightened, and I looked over at him.
He just gave me a nod—barely perceptible, but I felt it in my chest. You protect yours. I protect mine.
Around us, the energy shifted again. Not hype now. Not adrenaline. Something deeper. Weightier.
Respect.
Brotherhood.
Toshi let out a low whistle. “We ride or die for Kennedy now, huh?”
“Damn right we do,” Dominic said, without missing a beat.
I looked around the room—at bruised faces, busted knuckles, bloodied jerseys—and felt it in every bone of my body.
This wasn’t just my fight anymore. They’d all picked a side.
Ours.
And we weren’t backing down.
I was still riding the high—adrenaline thrumming, jaw tight, blood crusting along my knuckles—when the locker room door opened one last time.
Coach stepped in.
Even after a win, the room tensed. Guys fell quiet. Everyone knew the difference between a celebration and a reckoning.
He scanned the locker room. We were bruised, bloodied, jackets half off, sweat clinging to skin and gear like armor. Rhys sat on the bench next to me, nose crooked and bleeding again, towel pressed to his face like it was the only thing keeping him from swinging again.
Then Coach’s gaze landed on me.
“If someone said that about my wife,” he said, voice like gravel ground through steel, “I’d have put him through the boards, too.”
I froze. No reprimand. No fine warning. Just a statement. A truth.
He looked at each of us in turn—Axel with a split lip, Toshi icing his shoulder, Rhys dabbing at a bloodied nose.
“You showed grit out there,” he said, voice low and even.
“You didn’t just skate—you stood the hell up.
That was more than defense. That was respect.
For each other. For this team.” He paused, letting the words settle, eyes sharp but not angry.
“And when it came down to it? You had each other’s backs. That’s what matters.”
Coach paced once, slow, hands on his hips.
“You earned that win—but more than that, you earned each other’s loyalty.
And that’s something no scoreboard can measure.
” He stopped near the benches, glanced down at Rhys, then out at the rest of us.
“Proud of every damn one of you. But don’t think this is over.
They’ll come harder next time. Let ‘em. We don’t back down. Not when it’s one of ours.”
He nodded once—just once—but it carried more weight than a ten-minute speech. That nod told me I wasn’t crazy for what I did. That protecting Kennedy wasn’t a weakness. It was loyalty. It was love.
Coach turned to leave, but stopped in the doorway. Didn’t even look back when he said it: “You know what’s at stake here, Maddox. Protect what’s yours.”
And then he walked out, boots echoing down the hall like a damn battle march.
I sat there, towel clenched in my fist, throat tight. Protect what’s yours. The words carved themselves into my spine. I glanced around.
Toshi cracked his knuckles like he was still amped. Axel had a beer in one hand and a busted lip, still grinning from the post-game chaos. Drew was helping Rhys clean up, muttering something like “Next time, swing first.”
We’d won the game, yeah. But this? This was more than points on a board.
This was ours now.
A team that bled together.
A team that didn’t let anyone touch their own.
I stood and met their eyes one by one. “He crossed a line.”
“Damn right,” Axel said. “And you drew one.”
The room didn’t explode into cheers. It just burned with that quiet, vicious loyalty—the kind that didn’t fade after the final buzzer.
We’d won the game.
Now we’d win the war.
The tie felt too tight, like it was choking me.
I adjusted it anyway, staring at my reflection while my jaw worked overtime.
My knuckles were still scraped raw, and the adrenaline hadn’t fully worn off.
But there wasn’t room for emotion now. Not here.
Not in front of the sharks waiting with cameras and mics.
The moment I stepped into the press room, the noise hit like a punch—flashes, voices, all of it blending into a wall of static I didn’t care to decode. I walked straight to the podium, planted my hands, and let silence do the heavy lifting. They quieted eventually. They always do.
“What happened on the ice tonight, Nick?” one of them called out.