1. Hudson
HUDSON
Years later…
Wham!
I slam my helmet on the wooden bench outside my stall, followed by my gloves.
My bad eye throbs beneath the old scar tissue.
“Fucking fuck,” I growl as I practically throw myself onto the bench to rip my gear off. "That was the worst game I've played in my entire goddamn life."
“Shake it off, brother,” our backup goalie, Vadim, says. “We all have bad days.”
“Coach should’ve pulled me,” I say. “What the fuck was that?”
Vadim just shrugs. He’s dressed and ready, but he didn’t play at all, which only makes me more annoyed. I let in five goals tonight.
Five.
One sailed over my shoulder like I was standing fucking still.
Christ almighty, I hate hockey sometimes.
I blow out a long, frustrated breath as I pull off my skates and layers of socks. “Why do I even play this stupid fucking game anymore?”
It’s rhetorical. I don’t want an answer.
“Because you're still one of the best goalies in the league,” our captain, Nikolai, says as he strips off his jersey.
I snort.
“Could've fooled me.”
“Yep, nine times out of ten I’d pick you, despite your ugly face.”
Connor chirps from his stall. His red hair is a wet, tangled mess, sticking out everywhere. He grins, showing the gap in his front teeth.
"You scare the shit out of people, and that's reason enough to give you a pass for a bad night. And I do mean bad. There's no polishing that turd."
“Shut the fuck up, Murph,” Nik says. “Last time I checked, hockey is a team sport. Cross wasn’t out there by himself tonight.”
He tosses his jersey into the bin.
“Yeah, he had a rough game. So did the rest of us.”
The room quiets.
“Five goals got in our net, but that means the puck got past five of us before it got to him. And no goals went in their net, so there’s that.”
“We fucking suck,” one of our newer players mutters. Jack or Jake or something. He’s like eighteen. Makes me feel a million years old.
“Welcome to Chicago,” Connor says.
The asshole is grinning.
I honestly think he just enjoys annoying people.
Maybe that's why he's survived this team as long as he has.
Most of us are still trying to figure out how to play real hockey again.
Nobody says much after that.
What is there to say?
We got our asses kicked.
Everyone knows it.
The room slowly empties as guys shower, change, and make plans to lick their wounds with hard liquor and hot women.
Somebody points at me.
“What about you, Cross?”
“No.”
“Come on,” Connor says. “There's gonna be women.”
“Not interested.”
“Fine. Be weird.”
I shoulder my bag and stomp through the arena halls toward the player parking garage.
The Mustang is waiting for me.
Finally, something that doesn't piss me off.
Brand new. Custom-built. Black as sin.
The tinted windows are so dark you could hide anything inside, and the red leather still has that new, expensive smell.
I slide behind the wheel and fire up the engine.
It purrs like a big cat ready to hunt.
I fucking love it.
Beautiful.
I roll the windows down, crank the death metal, light a cigarette, and back out.
One of my teammates lifts a hand as I pass.
I flip him off.
Then I bury the gas pedal and leave a pair of black streaks on the concrete behind me.
I don't go back to my apartment.
Instead, I drive forty minutes west to my uncle’s mansion—the headquarters of the Iron Eagles Motorcycle Club.
At the gate, I punch in the code and rumble up the long driveway.
Harleys and muscle cars crowd the front of the massive brick house.
I kill the engine, drag both palms over my face, and climb out.
I'm already over this night.
Inside, the library is full of Eagles, rough-looking bikers built like linebackers.
Most are big bastards.
A few are dangerous.
These are my uncle’s closest guys, the ones he trusts most to handle things for the club.
"Rough night,” somebody says as I pass.
I answer with a grunt and drop into an empty armchair.
The Eagles have motorcycles, sure.
They also move enough drugs and weapons to make the DEA collectively shit itself.
Martin built the club into something that stretches from Chicago to the West Coast, where I’m from.
I started as an errand boy.
Now I'm the guy they send when they want a problem solved permanently.
I get about five minutes of peace before Martin strides in.
The room straightens immediately.
He’s broad-shouldered, always dressed sharp, and dangerous in a way most people don’t notice until it’s too late.
He’s as tall as I am, though not quite as muscular. He looks smooth and businesslike, but everyone here knows not to cross him.
Martin is the kind of guy who smiles while he ruins your life.
“We have a problem,” he says in a clear, crisp voice that cuts through all of the conversation in the room.
"A weapons shipment bound for Minneapolis disappeared before it cleared the city. The handlers are dead. Nobody's claiming responsibility. Nobody's talking."
His gaze sweeps the room.
"I want answers."
A few minutes later, the guys are filing out the door.
I stand when my name is called.
As I walk by, Martin clamps his hand on my shoulder as if he owns me.
“What the fuck happened out there tonight?” he asks.
“I played piss-poor hockey.”
"Well, you cost me a fuck-ton of money. I always bet on you, Hudson. Perhaps I shouldn't."
"Yeah," I mutter. "I wouldn't bet on me either."
A few heads turn.
Martin just smiles.
Which is somehow worse.
"Go see Lucian before you head out," he says, dismissing the conversation like it never happened.
He knows I'm feeling sorry for myself.
And he doesn't care.
"Send Cross west," one of the older enforcers says from the back of the room. "Whoever hit that shipment won't stay breathing long."
A few low chuckles ripple through the crowd.
Martin's mouth twitches.
His hand tightens once on my shoulder.
Possessive.
It’s like he wants everyone to remember I belong to him.
I shrug off his hand and walk out.
Lucian is nineteen, eleven years my junior.
He is technically my half-brother.
Same father, a bastard neither of us ever knew.
Martin took us in.
The rest is history.
He turned me into a murderous psychopath, but so far I’ve kept Lucian out of it. And who knows, maybe I was already fucked in the head to begin with.
I find my brother in his room.
Actually, it’s rooms. Somehow, the kid convinced Martin to give him a whole suite.
Right now, he’s in the gaming room. LED lights glow along the floor, and his absurdly expensive computer setup is lit up like a Vegas casino.
A streaming camera sits on the corner of his desk while he talks to his followers through some first-person shooter game.
Normally, he wears headphones.
Tonight, he's using speakers.
Mostly, I hear gunfire, explosions, and Lucian talking nonstop.
Then somebody says, "Hey, is that Hudson?"
Shit.
I glance at the monitor and realize I'm standing directly in frame.
I've ended up in enough of his videos over the years.
At first, it was intentional. Lucian wanted help building an audience.
After that, it was mostly by accident, since I try to keep my ugly face off camera.
Apparently, NHL players fascinate teenage boys.
Who knew?
Lucian has more than a hundred thousand followers now.
Not that he'd ever admit that's impressive.
According to him, follower counts are bullshit because only a fraction of them are actually watching at any given time.
“Tell your bro he needs to show up next time the Reapers play a game!” one kid says.
“He’s fuckin’ old,” someone else chimes in. “Maybe he needs glasses.”
“Maybe he can’t see out of that fucked-up eye,” another says.
I just stand there, arms crossed over my chest, face set in a stoic mask.
Lucian’s had enough, though. He says, “All right. We’re done. You three are banned, and I’m done for the night.”
I hear a few cries of dismay as he blocks the three who made comments and then ends the stream. He turns and says, “What a bunch of dicks.”
“They sound like their balls have barely dropped, or frontal lobes not fully developed,” I say. “I’m a big boy; I can handle it. I did play like shit tonight, so they weren’t wrong.”
“They can’t act like that. People need to call them out every single time they act like ugly little bullies. Otherwise, the culture’s never gonna change.”
I walk over and ruffle his hair. "My little social justice warrior."
The little shit flips me off without looking away from his screen.
"No, seriously," I say. “You’re a good human. Stay that way.”
His character unloads half a magazine into somebody.
"Debatable."
I snort and drop into one of his oversized bean bag chairs.
For a few minutes, I let myself relax.
This is the only place where I can let my guard down.
The only room in this house where I don't have to watch my back.
Lucian sees me as a person, not a weapon. He’s the last part of my life that still feels normal.
Which is exactly why I worry this place will eventually get its hands on him.
“Maybe it’s time for you to retire,” Lucian says, leaning back in his ultra-expensive gaming chair.
“At the ripe old age of thirty,” I quip. “Better call the nursing home.”
“I’m just saying.”
“You’re just saying what? That I’m too fucking old and slow to stop pucks anymore, so I should get put out to pasture like cattle?”
“No,” he says. “I’m saying that you’ve played hockey for, like, more than half your life and you’re a fuckin’ millionaire who spends literally no money. Take it and live on a beach somewhere. Get away from all of this. Live your life.”
This is not the first time we’ve had this exact conversation. It won’t be the last.
"Yeah, and you can take your little trust fund and put that giant brain to work. Go to college. Get a degree."
"In what?"
I shrug.
"I don't know. Rocket science."
Lucian stares at me.
"Rocket science?"
"Sure. Isn't that what all the smart nerds do?"
"Jesus Christ."
He shakes his head like I’ve just insulted him.
"NASA, Hudson. You're thinking of aerospace engineering."
"See? That's exactly the kind of shit I'm talking about."
Lucian groans.
Then he changes the subject.
“You staying in tonight?”
I shake my head.
"No."
"What've you got?"
"Martin needs a few things handled."
Lucian winces.
"Translation?"
I stand.
"We're going out to ask people questions politely.”
“Sounds fun,” he says, sarcasm dripping in his tone.
“Well, I’m in a shitty mood, so maybe it will help.”
“In a shitty mood because of the game?”
I nod.
He lifts a shoulder. “It’s just one game.”
I blow out a long breath. “Yeah.”
We’re quiet for a long time. Then I figure I’d better go get this shit over with, so I haul myself out of the chair.
“Let’s do something boring together soon,” I say. “Just you and me.”
“Boring like what?”
“A movie? Bowling? I don’t know, something mundane and normal.”
“Right,” he says. “I’ll think about that.”
I shake my head and flick him in the ear. He yelps and kicks at me. I put my hands up in surrender before a tussle can begin.
“Gotta go.”
“Yup,” he says, turning back to his game. “Go bash those heads.”
Something tight twists low in my gut.
For half a second, I almost tell him to lock his door tonight.
Instead, I just stand there like a fucking idiot, staring at the back of his head.
Then I leave.