Chapter 19
Korbin
I’m already in a mood when I walk through the door and see both Lincoln and Milton glued to their phones again. It’s been like this for days—my brother and my best friend walking around with the same dazed, stupid grin, like a couple of lovesick idiots.
I kick the door shut with my foot and toss my gear bag down hard enough that it echoes off the floorboards, the noise loud enough to make them both look up.
I catch my reflection in the mirror by the door—dark hair curling with sweat at my temples, brown eyes restless, like they’re always looking for a fight.
“Christ,” I mutter, yanking off my jacket. “What the hell is wrong with you two?”
Milton doesn’t even look guilty anymore. He just tips his phone toward me like a kid showing off a trophy.
“Checking something.”
“Yeah? Checking your balls, maybe?” I drop onto the recliner opposite them, leaning forward. “You two’ve been glued to those things all week. Don’t tell me it’s about that girl again.”
Lincoln’s thumb stills on his screen, but he doesn’t bother hiding what he’s doing.
“Bayleigh,” he says flatly.
“Oh, pardon the hell out of me.” I snap, my laugh sharp as glass.
“Did you forget who her brother is? You seriously chasing a Lennox?”
He meets my stare head-on. No flinch. No guilt.
“She seems nice. Hell, she rushed onto the ice to take care of me. There’s something different about her. I think I could like her, if I got to know her more.” Milton says, blowing out a breath of air.
“Yeah, well, I like bourbon and pretty omegas, but at least one of those things doesn’t make me a goddamn traitor.”
Milton snorts into his drink. “You’re so dramatic.”
“Dramatic?” I bark. “We’ve been competing against those bastards for years, and now you two are ready to crawl into bed with one of ’em? You hear yourselves?”
Milton just smirks, returning to his scrolling. “I’m not talking to her right now. Just… looking at a picture. Learning a few things.”
“Right,” I say. “Because stalking someone’s totally normal.”
He shrugs unapologetically. “You’d be looking too if you saw what Lincoln does.”
I turn my glare towards my brother.
“Oh, really? What, she flashes you a smile, and now you’ve forgotten what side you’re on? She’s a packless omega, Linc. You know how that ends. The second she finds her scent match, you’re out.”
Lincoln doesn’t blink. “She met him,” he says quietly. “He rejected her.”
That kills the room for a solid ten seconds. Milton stops scrolling. I lean back, studying him.
“She told you that?” His brows furrow and his eyes widen.
He nods once, jaw tightening.
I drag a hand down my face, fighting a dozen things I don’t want to say out loud. Mostly because they make me sound like I might actually feel something. Which I don’t.
“So that’s why Lennox acts like a feral dog every time she’s near someone.”
“Probably,” Milton says. “Or maybe he just gives a shit about his sister.” He hands me a beer from the ice bucket on the coffee table.
“Or maybe he’s just a dick,” I shoot back, voice hard and bitter. “Pretty sure the guy was born with a stick up his ass.”
Milton grins faintly. “You would know. You’ve been obsessed with proving it for years.”
I flick the bottle cap at him. It pings off his shoulder. “I’m not obsessed. I just hate the guy.”
Lincoln finally looks up, jaw tight. “You hate a ghost. Not him. Let it go, Korbin.”
“Let it go? You want me to forget that Gina mess? The black eyes, the locker room fights, the suspensions because Benton couldn’t keep his dick—or his elbows—to himself? She was with me first, remember?”
Lincoln’s patience cracks.
He leans forward, eyes hard. “You wanna talk about forgetting? Fine. But let’s get it straight—you’re not still mad about Benton throwing elbows. You’re mad about Gina. You’re mad she left you.”
My jaw locks, but he doesn’t stop.
“Then she slid her way right into his bed, just to end up with that bastard Jensen on the Devils. She wasn’t in love with either of you. She was climbing. Using every alpha dumb enough to believe she gave a damn.”
The words hit like a check to the ribs.
Lincoln sits back, calm again, like he didn’t just rip open a scar I’ve spent years stitching closed.
“Maybe it’s time you stopped letting her ruin your damn life, Korbin,” he says quietly. “She’s gone. But you’re still fighting the demons she left behind.”
Milton stays where he is, rolling his beer bottle between his hands, gaze fixed on the label instead of me. When he finally speaks, his voice is lower, rough around the edges.
“You realize what this is, right? You’re pissed because she’s Benton’s sister and she’s making you question what side you’re actually on.”
I scoff, but the sound’s empty.
He’s not wrong.
I glance between them—my brother and my best friend—and for the first time, I’m the one out of sync.
They’re both going soft lately. Lighter.
And it’s not just because of her, though she’s definitely a trigger.
It’s like they’ve found something outside of their work; something worth giving a damn about.
And me? I’m still chasing ghosts with my fists.
“You two realize how fucked this looks, right?” I say finally. “A Scorpion and a Lennox. That’s not just bad optics—that’s suicide.”
Milton leans back with that easy grin that pisses me off almost as much as it calms me.
“You mean it’s complicated. Not impossible.”
“Semantics,” I mutter.
Lincoln stretches his arm along the back of the couch, the picture of patience I don’t have. “I’m not asking permission, Korbin. You don’t have to like it. But you do have to live with it.”
I narrow my eyes. “You’re serious about this, aren’t you?”
He doesn’t hesitate. “Yeah. I am.”
I shake my head, exhaling through my nose. “Jesus Christ, Linc. You really are gone.”
Milton chuckles. “Guess that makes two of us.”
I look between them again—both of them smiling like idiots—and all I can think is that this is how it starts. How everything goes sideways. A rivalry, a woman, and two men dumb enough to think they can outrun fate.
“Fine,” I say, pushing up from the chair. “When this blows up, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Lincoln’s voice follows me as I head for the door. “Noted.”
The air outside hits cold against my face, biting, sharp. I breathe it in anyway.
Let them chase their little Lennox dream. Me? I’ll stick to what I know—the ice.
The gym in the garage smells like sweat and dust. Comforting,, in a way. I flick on the lights and start wrapping my hands. The routine’s muscle memory—wrap, stretch, flex, breathe.
A punching bag waits in the corner, swaying slightly from the last time I took my temper out on it.
I hit it again. And again.
Every impact echoes up my arms, dull and satisfying. It’s easier than thinking.
We’ve been a pack since we were eighteen—me and Milton.
Two halves of the same grind. No bullshit, no fake promises.
Just loyalty. And for years, we’ve tried to bring Lincoln in.
He’s blood. It made sense. But he always said no—we’re going places, he’s just a blue-collar worker, he’s fine on his own.
Except now he’s the one who actually feels like he’s in a pack—with Milton, of all people. The two of them, with their shared crush and easy silence. I’m on the outside looking in, wondering when that flipped.
The bag swings wide, and I catch it, breathing hard. My knuckles sting; my chest feels too tight.
“Stupid,” I mutter, forehead resting against the vinyl. “You don’t even want her.”
And maybe I don’t. Maybe Bayleigh Lennox isn’t the point.
Maybe it’s that everyone keeps moving forward while I’m still stuck on a shitty team—fighting memories, clinging to rivalries that shouldn’t matter anymore.
I think of Lincoln, signing clumsy words to a woman who makes him want to be better. And I think of Milton, smiling at his phone like he’s found something worth giving a damn about.
They’re happy. Or getting close to it.
And me?
I just keep swinging.
By the time I stop, my shirt’s soaked through and my arms feel like lead. I drop onto the floor, breathing ragged. The room’s quiet now—too quiet.
I stare at the taped-up bag across from me, the faint scuff marks on the floor, the walls closing in around the sound of my heartbeat.
Maybe Lincoln’s right. Maybe Gina’s been dead weight on my shoulders this whole damn time.
But it’s not just that she cheated on me that has me in knots.
It’s that I loved her. I really did. I thought she was it—the one.
I was ready to propose, ready to ask Milton to court her properly, to see if she could be ours.
He warned me. Said she seemed like a gold digger. Said she smiled too much when the cameras were around. I told him he was wrong. And now look at me. Miserable. Pissed off at the world because I gave my heart to a conniving cunt and almost broke my best friend’s right along with it.
I lean my head back against the floor, throat tight, pulse still hammering.
Maybe letting go isn’t about forgiving her. Maybe it’s about forgiving myself for being so damn blind.
But admitting that? Letting go? That’s a fight I’m not sure I’m ready to win.