Chapter Two
LUKE
The first day of senior year, I hit the main corridor flanked by Theo, Jax, and Chase. The hallway split like the damn Red Sea. Heads turned. Conversations halted. Even the ones who hated me kept their eyes low.
One more year. Then I was out.
Not that college would be better. But it would be something else. Something mine—not preordained by my father or tied to the legacy of the King name. If I made it that far.
We moved as a unit, shoulders brushing, our presence too loud for anyone to ignore.
Theo threw a lazy grin at a passing cheerleader who blushed and tripped over her own feet.
Chase zeroed in on some sophomore he’d probably already hooked up with over summer break.
Jax stayed quiet—watching, always watching, his mood unreadable behind the sharp lines of his face.
He was the only one who might understand the noise in my head.
My mouth was dry. I barely registered the girls whispering near their lockers, or the way teachers stood a little straighter when we passed.
It didn’t matter. None of them mattered.
Hockey did. Or it used to. It had been everything—was everything—until she left and took the hope I’d had for something different with her.
Plans I’d made to rewrite the story—mine, hers, ours—disintegrated the second she vanished. That was a year ago, and I still hadn’t figured out how to bury the ache she’d left behind. I’d tried. God, I’d tried. But some wounds preferred to rot from the inside.
We turned down the final hallway, and the sea of students shifted again. A ripple of tension followed us like smoke. I didn’t stop it. Didn’t acknowledge it. Power, when wielded right, didn’t need noise.
I was captain of the undefeated Blackwood Blades. Heir to a kingdom built on silence and blood. No one questioned me. No one dared. Until her.
A flash of long, wavy dark hair at the far end of the corridor stopped me mid-step. My pulse kicked hard. A familiar tilt of the head. The curve of a cheek I knew as well as my own reflection. No.
My chest hollowed. It wasn’t the first time I thought I saw her. Hell, I saw her everywhere. In dreams. In crowds. On the ice. My brain liked to torture me with ghosts.
But this wasn’t a trick. The crowd split again, and she turned. Mila.
The world snapped to silence. And there she was.
My breath hitched like I’d been shoved. Air refused to find the bottom of my lungs.
For a second, I couldn’t tell if the sound cut out or if the sparking weight inside my chest had simply muted everything else.
The lights blurred at the edges. Faces dissolved into a wallpaper of motion.
It felt like I’d been pulled under and there was no surface.
She stood maybe twenty feet away, her shoulders straight and chin high. Same dark waves tumbling down her back. Same full mouth that used to whisper truths against my skin. Her gray-green eyes scanned the crowd, not landing on me. Not yet.
I should have moved. Heat crawled up my spine, my hands going numb at the fingertips.
A prickled cold started at the base of my skull and spread down, sharp and electric.
My vision tunneled until I could see Mila and nothing else.
I could see the line of her jaw, and the little scar that freckled the curve of her collarbone.
Panic tightened a fist around my throat.
It didn't make sense—I'd trained for games that mattered, for finals that decided seasons. But this was different—older and meaner and wrong. Old plans and promises I’d buried—the ones I’d swore I’d never speak—rose like tidal water and tried to wash me away.
There are rules, I told myself. King rules. Captain rules. There was no fracturing in public. I couldn’t look weak, or give away anything that someone could use against me.
So I did what I’d always done—I moved. Slower than anyone would notice but with mechanical purpose.
Hiding didn’t stop the tremor though. It just made it smaller—contained in a chamber behind my ribs.
I pressed my thumb into my palm until it hurt while counting.
If Mila saw, she could peel the bandage back and show the wound like it was some trophy.
The thought made something hot and ugly climb up my throat.
I slid into the bathroom and quickly closed myself off in one of the stalls.
Locking the latch, I leaned my head back against cold metal until the edges of the world stopped spinning.
I breathed in—three quick, shallow breaths—then out, forcing a slow even push of air that wasn’t there.
My ribs felt like they were closing in. I thought about calling Drew or smashing the first mirror in my path.
I even thought about the stupid star charm I’d kept in my bag and how heavy it had been the night she left me with it.
I couldn’t crumble. I would not hand her that power again. I’d had to learn how to make the pain useful—turn it into ice, into focus. But none of that stopped me from remembering that rooftop and her telling me to fight for the future I wanted.
By the third set of inhales, I could feel the edge of the panic dull.
The tremor stayed, a low engine vibrating under my skin, but the world was righted enough to function.
I unlocked the stall and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror.
A vein in my temple visibly throbbed. I scrubbed water over my face, slammed the faucet off, and smiled at myself in the mirror—almost feral.
When I headed back out into the hallway, I carried anger like a shield. Panic had been private and useless; anger could be wielded. I let the heat harden into something that would look like motive to anyone watching. Jax threw me a look—questioning, not accusing. I shrugged like nothing was wrong.
The panic had been a hole I could step around. Anger was a weapon I could drag across everything that stood between me and an answer.
My hands curled into fists at my sides. I forced them to relax. Forced my face blank.
She wasn’t supposed to be here. Her silence meant she was never coming back. But there she was—walking my halls as if she belonged and hadn’t shattered me into pieces and ghosted like I was just another mark.
I couldn’t think past the roaring inside my head. She was back. And she looked exactly the same. Like she’d never left. As if the last year of wreckage meant nothing to her.
And suddenly—brutally—I was back on that rooftop with her.
It had been past midnight, the town stretched out in lights and shadows below us. She’d sat between my legs, back against my chest, wrapped in one of my sweatshirts three sizes too big. Her fingers played with mine, slow and distracted, as if she already knew what I was going to say.
“I don’t want to take over King Enterprises.”
She didn’t react. Not immediately. Just squeezed my hand, grounding me.
“I know,” she whispered.
I let out a breath. One I’d been holding since I was old enough to understand what my last name meant.
“He’s already decided. Has the board groomed to welcome me the second I turn twenty-two.
Summer internships. Dinner meetings. The way he talks, it’s as if it’s already done.
I don’t get a choice, despite my brother being the firstborn. ”
“And hockey?” she asked, voice small.
“That’s mine,” I growled. “The only thing that’s mine.”
She twisted in my arms until she was facing me, her expression open and raw. “So fight for it.”
“He’ll cut me off.” But that wasn’t the real problem. My dad and his circle didn’t just control—they owned, ruled through blackmail, bribes, and a full arsenal of quiet threats dressed in tailored suits. If they wanted a business, they took it. People either fled or got hurt.
“Let him.” She shrugged as if it was that easy. “You’ll find another way.”
“And if I fail?”
She smiled then. Soft and fierce and terrifying. “Then you’ll fail knowing it was your choice. Not his.”
I stared at her, this girl who came from nothing and had more courage in her pinky for her future than I’d ever been allowed to show.
Her reaction settled something in me—she didn’t care about my legacy, about money.
It was me that mattered to her. Her eyes were lit up with belief—in me.
As though I could take down empires with a stick and a dream.
I leaned in and kissed her—slow, reverent. Like maybe she was the only real thing in my life.
“Stay with me,” I’d whispered into her skin. “Don’t ever leave.”
Her answer had been yes. Over and over, in kisses and sighs and the way she fit against me as if she’d been built to.
Now, that same girl was walking down my hallway like none of it had happened. I stepped forward before I even realized I was moving. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I muttered.
She didn’t hear it. Didn’t see me yet. But she would.
She turned the corner, vanishing into the crowd again before I could get closer. It didn’t matter. This wasn’t over. Not even close.
If she thought she could walk back into Blackwood as if the past didn’t exist, like she hadn’t carved me open and left me bleeding, she was dead wrong.
I was done playing nice. First stop: the front office. It took ten minutes and a look at the receptionist that dared her to challenge me. Mila’s schedule.
We didn’t share a single class. Not a problem. That would change this week. I’d already submitted a request for course adjustments. Being a King had perks. She wouldn’t be able to take a piss without me knowing about it.
By the time I got to calculus, my blood was still running hot.
The classroom buzzed with lazy conversation. A few people scrolled on their phones. Some hovered by desks, catching up on bullshit that didn’t matter.
Jax, Chase, and Theo had already claimed our usual spot in the back. They spread out, owning the place—because we did. We didn’t ask for space. We took it.
I dropped my bag beside Jax and stretched, pretending like I gave a damn about math.