Heartless Game (Kings of Reina University #2)

Chapter 1

1

Isaac

“Y ou might want to get on your knees, Jones, because you’re about to blow a good game,” my opponent, Colson U’s center, chirped at me as we faced off on the ice.

I snorted through my cage. The guy was deluding himself if he thought some uninspired shit-talking would throw me off my game. I ignored him, my eyes trained on the ref—and the puck in his hand. There were only four minutes left in the third period, and the Reina University Kings, my team, was tied with Colson, 4:4. Colson was known to win all their games that went into overtime, and I was determined not to give them the chance.

It had been an exhausting but exhilarating match so far, and I was determined to win. Not only because I wanted to give the victory to my team and my school, but because hearing the horns go in our favor would drown out my father’s voice in my head and erase his recent voicemail from my memory.

Enjoy the rest of the season and your senior year, Isaac. Because the second you graduate, your life belongs to this family. It’s time for you to become who you were always meant to be: Ruthless. Violent. Cruel. Everything you claim to abhor. That was our deal, remember?

No. Fuck that . There was no goddamn way I was going to become the man my father wanted me to be. I was the only member of my family who’d never killed anyone, and I was keeping it that way. More importantly, I was the Reina Kings’ first line center on the ice and their moral center off it. I kept these assholes in line.

I certainly didn’t respond to dumb chirps.

“Hey, Jones…” Colson’s center started again.

“Don’t bother,” his teammate said nearby. “Isaac Jones is unflappable. No one’s ever been able to get him to throw his gloves. Asshole’s a saint.”

The ref blew his whistle in warning.

“Can it!” he said.

Colson’s center stared me in the eyes.

“Maybe you aren’t the one who should get on your knees,” he started. “Your mom, on the other hand…”

Heat pooled on my neck, my mother’s face flashing in my mind, but I forced myself to take deep breaths and stay calm. It didn’t matter that he’d hit his target. Or that losing my mom had been the lowest point in my life. Although there was a well-hidden monster inside me that wanted to punch his teeth out, Good Guy Isaac prevailed. The jackass would eat his words when we won the puck drop—and then the game.

Judah Wasserson, the Kings’ left defenseman and one of my best friends, was not so calm.

“His mother’s dead, you goddamn asshole. But you’re welcome to blow my blade—” he started as he began to strip off his gloves.

The ref blew his whistle again.

I put my hand up.

“Judah, don’t,” I said calmly, stopping him before he threw the game into chaos.

Anyone else, Judah would’ve ignored. But for me, he lowered his hands reluctantly, leaving on his gloves.

“Fuck, man, I’m sorry,” Colson’s center said. “I didn’t know.”

“That’s okay,” I said, grinning at him through my cage. “You’re just used to your own mother being on her knees, aren’t you? Easy mistake.”

“You motherfucker—” he roared…

…just as the ref dropped the puck between us. Grinning harder, I caught it with my stick before passing it to Jack Feldman, our left wing and my other best friend.

“I don’t know why they ever bother,” Jack said as he skated away with the puck.

I turned my attention back to the game, aware of the pissed-off offenseman who had me in his sights. As he headed down the ice toward Jack, I skated beside him, putting out my elbow and—accidentally—knocking him into the boards.

“Whoops, my bad,” I called behind me, gliding quickly across the ice toward his team’s goal. As I did, I passed the penalty box—and her.

Tovah Kaufman. The currently pink-haired distraction sitting one row behind the penalty box. The girl I hated so fucking much, I followed her home every night, sitting outside her apartment in my car with the lights off, daring some slick motherfucker to buzz her door.

If anything was going to distract me from winning, it would be Tovah.

Head in the game, Jones , I reminded myself.

Just in time, because Jack caught my eyes through his cage. He then deked to the right, distracting Colson’s defensemen, before passing the puck to me.

I caught it with my stick, charging toward the goal.

We were down to ten seconds left of the game.

One, two, three, four…on the fifth glide, I slapped the puck straight into the net, an inch over the goalie’s right glove.

The horn sounded, signaling the goal, and our win. As the crowd roared, chanting, “ Jones, Jones, Jones ,” my team surrounded me, knocking chests and slapping me on the shoulder. In the past, the crowd’s ecstatic celebration as they cheered for me would’ve been all I needed to be happy. I loved the game. The feeling of the ice under my skates, the competition and challenge of pushing myself harder than my opponents, the joy of winning and being one with my team—it meant everything.

Lately though, it dimmed in comparison to her. My compulsive obsession with Tovah Kaufman was fucking with my equilibrium. My happiness. And my control. I hated it, which made it easier to hate her.

Like right now. I tried to celebrate with my teammates, but it was half-hearted. I was too distracted. As I took my perfunctory victory lap, I pulled my helmet off my head, brushing back my sweaty hair, and zeroed in on her.

Tovah was typing away on her phone. Probably working on an article for The Daily Queen , Reina U’s newspaper. Tovah was the sports editor, but I’d heard they were short-staffed so she was taking on story assignments that usually would have gone to someone else. I couldn’t take my eyes off the little journalist, or her big tits and lush hips. Some might have called the aspiring journalist fat. I called her a pain in the ass—a gorgeous pain in the ass. She was curve after curve after curve, and it made me crazy how badly I wanted to carve my name into every single one of them.

She’d dyed her hair a hot, daring pink since I’d last seen her.

I fucking hated that color.

As if she’d heard my thought, Tovah looked up at me. I couldn’t see the color of her eyes from this far away, but I knew they were a soft brown. I’d seen them in my dreams too damn often. She tilted her sweet, heart-shaped face to the side as her friend Aviva leaned over and said something to her. Then her eyes shot forward, catching mine and holding them. Pink lips, the same in-your-face color as her hair, turned down and she shook her head at me.

I hate you, she mouthed.

Then smirked.

Fuck, I’d give anything to wipe that smirk off her face.

Ideally with the crown of my cock before I shoved it down her throat and choked her with it.

What was it about this woman? What was it about her that brought out the darkness I’d buried deep—so deep I didn’t recognize it?

Lost in my head and her eyes, I skated toward her. I didn’t have a plan, didn’t know what the hell I was doing, just wanted to drive the point home that she meant nothing to me.

You’re the fucking worst, she mouthed, clearly not done.

I’ll show you the fucking worst, I mouthed back and winked, making sure to smile so she could see my dimples. For whatever reason, seeing them always seemed to piss her off, and I planned to take full advantage of that discovery.

Even from ten feet away, I could see her cheeks flush pink. Now, that was a pink I liked. That was a pink I wanted to see all over her body when I tied her to my bed and?—

Holy fucking hell. What was wrong with me?

But then she’d had this effect on me since the first time I’d seen her.

“Isaac Jones! Isaac Jones!” a young voice called from behind the glass, redirecting my attention.

A kid, about seven or eight, was jumping up and down, holding up a white cardboard sign that said, “Jones is the boss.” The woman next to him waved at me timidly. She was pretty, with curly blonde hair and blue eyes, and usually I’d consider flirting my way between her thighs, but unfortunately these days, my cock only got hard for one woman.

I skated over to them.

“Hey,” I greeted the kid.

“Ohmygodohmygod. Mr. Jones, you’re my idol. My hero. I want to be you when I grow up!” the little kid cheered. He was so excited, tears filled his eyes.

“Well, thank you. What’s your name?” I asked.

He puffed out his chest. “Charlie. Will you sign my poster?”

Feeling eyes on me, I turned my head. Tovah was staring—no glaring—at me. Knowing she was watching made me stand up straighter, smile bigger, and become the best, most charming version of myself.

“I’ll do you one better,” I said. “If you come to the locker room in about thirty minutes, I’ll sign a jersey for you.”

His eyes went wide. “For me?”

I grinned. “Yup.”

I turned to the woman I assumed was his mom. “I’ll make sure they let you back there, just tell a security guard named Bill that Isaac said Charlie’s VIP.”

“Oh my god, thank you,” Charlie’s mom said on one grateful breath.

“Don’t mention it. I love my fans, young or...still young,” I said, winking at her. She blushed, but it wasn’t nearly as captivating as Tovah’s, which was fucking bullshit.

“See you in thirty,” I said, jerking my chin up at Charlie, who, after a second, copied me.

Smiling to myself, I skated away. Tovah might bring out the worst in me, but to everyone else, I was still Isaac Jones, Good Guy. As long as it stayed that way, I’d be fine.

Judah, and his twin, Levi, appeared, bumping me from both sides. Levi was the other defensemen for the Kings, and my other best friend. Together, he, Judah, Jack and I made up what everyone at Reina called “The Core Four”—the four best players on our hockey team…and the four biggest players on campus.

Or we had been, until Jack met Aviva.

Judah’s long hair was down, a rarity since he usually wore it in a man bun. He slapped me on the back, pulling me out of my thoughts.

“Good game, Jones. That was a nice goal at the end.”

Levi, who was more of an insightful Loki to Judah’s brash Thor, but with glasses, cleared his throat.

“You’re distracted,” he said. “What’s going on?”

I didn’t want to answer either of them, so I smiled.

“Nothing.”

Judah shook his head. “Don’t pull that bullshit with us. We know you too well for you to pull a Dr. Dimples on us,” he said, calling me by the irritating nickname he’d come up with when we were freshmen.

“Right, Jack?” he added.

But Jack ignored us, focused on his fiancée, Aviva, as she made her way down to the ice. The second she put a foot on the ice, Jack lifted her up, spinning her around and kissing her. There was a familiar burn in my chest. I’d admit this one to myself: jealousy. Not for Aviva, but for what they had. I was alone, and okay with being alone. I couldn’t bring a woman into my life, not when it didn’t belong to me. My world was too dark for love, and loving a woman would be a death sentence for her. I knew that, which was why I had fun with girls but never got serious with any of them. No, I was fine with being alone.

But sometimes, it fucking sucked.

Especially with Tovah Kaufman glaring down at me, like I’d committed some huge crime by my mere existence.

I smiled at her, giving her the full-on Dr. Dimples .

She rolled her eyes, shaking her head. But I could tell she was pissed.

Good. Her very existence pissed me off. It had since the first day I’d seen her, and it had rocked my very foundation. When seeing her woke up a monster inside me I’d never known existed, I’d had to confront a darkness, a violence, that was too much like my father’s.

I hated that side of me.

But not as much as I hated her.

And she should at least feel a little of what I felt when I was in her presence.

Hey, she might take over my brain and haunt my dreams—including the ones where I woke up and immediately needed to jack off. But I’d won this round.

Judah whistled. “Oh, I see how it is.”

“No.” I shook my head, heading toward the locker room. “You really don’t.”