Chapter 14
JAY
“Is that all you’ve got? Try again.”
My jaw tightened at Volkov’s taunting look. The look that told me that no matter how hard I tried, I’d never get the better of him.
My fingers flexed around my stick as I pushed off the ice, skating down the rink, straight for the puck. When my stick connected with it, I thought I’d calculated the trajectory perfectly, but Volkov easily blocked it.
“Fuck!” I threw my stick down, sending it skidding across the ice.
“Again,” Volkov commanded. Ripping off my glove, I gave him the finger and then skated over to the bench. Slumping down, I stared at my skates, unseeing.
I’d never been so fucking frustrated in my life. Why was Volkov always shoving his superiority in my face?
“You want to play professionally, yes?”
“No,” I gritted out. Why did Volkov have to follow me over?
“No?”
My head flew up at the surprise in his voice. “Yeah. I don’t— No.” Why should I explain myself to him?
“You are going into our family business?”
Our family business. I saw red. Launching myself upright, I shoved against his chest. “There’s no fucking ‘our.’ Your syndicate may have helped with the funds, but my dad paid for that a hundred times over.
I seem to remember him saving your uncle’s life a few years ago when he was fucking bleeding out all over the clinic floor. Remember that?”
His icy eyes glittered dangerously as he pushed his chest into mine, and I was reminded that this was a man who would have absolutely no problems with killing in cold blood and disposing of the body.
Fuck. “Poshel nahui,” he growled, ripping off his goalie mask to bare his teeth at me, and I didn’t need to know Russian to understand the insult.
“Do not push me, Attwood. You will not like the consequences.”
“No?” There was a voice inside me telling me to calm down, but I was too angry for rationality.
“Terrorising your teammate? That’s a new low for you, Volkov.”
Breathing hard, we both pushed away from each other to find Vincenzo Fontana leaning against the boards with his helmet dangling from his hand. Volkov’s lip curled.
“This is Cranham’s ice time, not Whelford’s, so go back to whatever hole you crawled from.”
“No can do.” He tapped his stick on the ice. “If you look at the schedule, you’ll see this hour is allocated for stick time. We have just as much right to practice here as you.”
Another figure appeared at the other side of the rink, and I groaned internally when I realised it was Lincoln Bellingham. Fucking great. At least Dan wasn’t here to antagonise his rival.
“Volkov,” I hissed. He’d forgotten about me, too busy having a metaphorical dick-measuring contest with the Flames’ captain.
Personally, I had no issue with Enzo, other than the fact that he was on a rival team, but I knew there was some bad blood between the Fontanas and the Volkovs.
I needed to defuse this situation, fast.
“Hey, Attwood. No Hoyton today? Too busy swindling innocent people out of their money?”
I replied to Bellingham with my middle finger before pointedly turning my back to him. Pulling on my glove, I retrieved my stick. When I had it, I skated back to Volkov, stopping in front of him to block his view of Enzo.
I swallowed hard, trying to remind myself that this dislike of Volkov was irrational. He was my teammate, and that was the only thing that mattered right now. “Volkov. Let’s practice. Coach is expecting us to improve.”
His gaze slid to mine, and a smirk tugged at his lips. “Expecting you to improve.”
“There’s always room for improvement, even for you.”
“Maybe so.” He studied me for a moment, the rage in his eyes fading away to be replaced with amusement. “We will make it interesting. A wager.”
“A wager…” I repeated slowly.
“Yes. If you can score eight times before our hour is up, you can have one dance at my engagement party.”
Jerking back in shock, I stared at him. “What?”
“You.” He pointed at me. “Score eight times.”
“Yeah…”
“Then I will allow you to dance with my beautiful fiancée at our engagement party.” He moved closer, lowering his voice. “I’ve seen the way you look at her.”
Fuckfuckfuck. My stomach churned, bile rising in my throat. “You bastard,” I whispered.
“Yes. Do we have a deal?”
“Fine,” I managed. What else was I supposed to say?
Spinning around to face Enzo, I raised my voice, using every trick I knew to keep it steady and my face free of emotion.
Another two Whelford players had joined Bellingham and Fontana on the ice, doing warm-up stretches.
“You stay in your zone, and we’ll stay in ours. No crossing the centre line.”
Enzo rolled his eyes but nodded. With another jerk of his head, he sent his teammates skating down the other end of the rink and finally turned his back to us and left to join them.
When Volkov was back in front of the goal, I lined up a series of pucks and hit them one after another as fast as I could, skating up and down, putting everything I had into getting them inside the net.
Although I was doing all I could to push everything aside and focus on the ice, alarm bells were blaring.
He knew.
He fucking knew.
When our allotted hour was up, Volkov beckoned me over. Both of us were breathing hard and sweating from the exertion.
“Good,” he said simply.
I nodded, too drained to speak.
“Attwood. Nova is…special. With me, she will want for nothing.”
Special. Fucking hell. There was an uncomfortable lump in my throat, and a sick feeling of guilt was worming its way through my stomach. How had I let myself get so carried away with her? Did Volkov actually have feelings for her?
“Treat her well,” I said roughly, and then skated away from him, flying down the rink without even seeing where I was going, my vision blurring.
I collided with a wall, hard and fast.
“Whoa. What the fuck?”
No, it was a body.
“Shit. Sorry.” Reeling back, winded, I attempted to get my bearings. Pulling myself upright, I twisted away from him, rubbing my glove over my face as I tried to compose myself. The last thing Lincoln Bellingham needed was to see my moment of weakness.
“Here.” A bottle of water appeared in my field of vision. “You look like you could use this.”
I took the bottle, tipping it to my lips before handing it back to Bellingham. “Thanks,” I mumbled, wiping at my mouth.
“You’re welcome.” He kept his gaze averted, and the way he was being weirdly polite clued me in to the fact that he definitely knew something was up with me.
Sucking in a shaky breath, I glanced back at where Volkov was leaving the ice. There was no way I wanted to be alone in the locker room with him, and it was desperation that made me turn back to Bellingham. “Want to do some speed drills?”
“Consorting with the enemy?” he drawled, one brow rising. When I opened my mouth to tell him to forget it, he shook his head. “I suppose I haven’t got anything better to do. Give me two minutes.”
Skating over to Enzo, he spoke to him in a low tone. Enzo shrugged and then clapped him on the shoulder.
When Bellingham returned to me, I cleared my throat. “Uh. Don’t let Dan hear about this.”
He shot me a sly grin. “That’s not gonna happen. We have witnesses. He’ll find out, and he’s gonna be so pissed off. Don’t worry, I’ll take all the blame.”
“I’m regretting this already,” I muttered, and his grin disappeared. When he spoke again, there was nothing but sincerity in his voice.
“I know what it’s like when you need to silence the noise. C’mon. Let’s do this.”