Chapter 10
Ramsey
My phone buzzes with a text just as I'm finishing up my nightly Reese-watching session. It's fucking pathetic how much I look forward to this—my own private peep show starring the one girl I can't have but I am utterly obsessed with. I was at practice earlier when she left so now I watch my recordings for every glimpse and scrap of her I can. I’m not ashamed to admit I’m fucking a cranky bastard if I don’t get to see some version of her when I get home.
I glance down at my screen, expecting it to be some bullshit in the team group chat, but the name that flashes across my display makes me sit up straight.
Copeland
Need a little adventure tonight? I'm bored as fuck.
A slow grin spreads across my face. Copeland's version of "adventure" usually involves blood, violence, or some combination of the two.
The last time he was "bored as fuck," we ended up breaking into the hockey arena at three in the morning to skate while high on molly.
The time before that, we got into a bar fight with some assholes from St. James that left four guys in the hospital.
Fuck yeah, I'm down. What've you got in mind?
I'm already getting up from my desk, my body humming with anticipation. Reese is at Reagan's tonight for some sisterly bonding thing, which means I'm free to do whatever the fuck I want and know she’s safe at my cousin’s house.
My phone buzzes again.
The coordinates ping through, and I pull them up on my map. It's an abandoned warehouse district on the south side of town—the kind of place where you could scream bloody murder and no one would hear you. It’s perfect.
I strip off my t-shirt and joggers, trading them for black jeans, a black thermal, and my black leather jacket. Combat boots, gloves, and a beanie complete the look. I check myself in the mirror and smirk at my reflection.
The garage is cold as I swing my leg over my Aprilia, the engine roaring to life beneath me. The vibrations travel up my spine, a familiar rush of adrenaline flooding my system. I kick the stand up and peel out of the driveway, the cool night air slapping against my face as I accelerate.
The streets are mostly empty, allowing me to push my bike to its limits. I weave through traffic lights, taking corners so sharp my knee almost scrapes the pavement. The speedometer climbs past 100, and I feel fucking invincible.
By the time I reach the south side, my blood is singing in my veins, that familiar itch for violence crawling under my skin. I cut the engine and coast the last few yards, letting the bike's momentum carry me into the shadows of a dilapidated building.
I hear him before I see him—the distinctive sound of a hockey stick slapping against concrete. I round the corner of the warehouse and freeze, taking in the scene before me.
Copeland is hunched over, stick in hand, circling a guy who's tied to a metal chair in the middle of the empty warehouse.
The poor bastard's face is already bruised, blood dripping from his nose onto a St. James University sweatshirt.
His wrists are bound behind him with what looks like hockey tape, ankles secured to the chair legs.
What is it about these SJU guys? They fucking constantly ask to have their ass beat.
A puck slides across the concrete as Cope takes another shot, this one catching the guy's shin. He howls, the sound echoing off the bare walls.
"Seriously?" I call out, stepping into the pool of light cast by the single bulb hanging from the ceiling. "You started without me? That's just fucking rude."
Copeland straightens, a grin spreading across his face as he turns to me. "Blackwood! About fucking time. Was beginning to think you'd stood me up for your little ballerina."
"Dancer," I correct automatically, leaning against a rusty support beam. "And I'm touched you were thinking about me, Cope. If I didn't know better, I'd say you were trying to get me alone in an abandoned warehouse to do absolutely hedonistic things to me. Very romantic."
He snorts, flipping me off. "Yeah, that's my true dream in life—to get you to fall in love with me and steal you away from your dancer. Been planning it for years."
"I knew it," I smirk, pushing off the beam and walking closer. "The jealousy, the late-night texts...it all makes sense now."
The guy in the chair makes a muffled sound, drawing my attention back to him. Now that I'm closer, I recognize him—one of Thompson's buddies from the St. James hockey team. The same assholes who've been targeting our players all season.
"What'd this piece of shit do?" I ask, circling the chair.
Cope taps his stick against the floor, his eyes glinting with malice. "Caught him touching something that doesn't belong to him. Thought I'd teach him a lesson about keeping his fucking hands to himself."
I raise an eyebrow, a smirk tugging at my lips. "How's your sister doing, by the way?"
"Stepsister," Cope corrects automatically, his jaw tightening. "And she's fine. Grabby Gary here, though?" He jerks his chin toward the trembling asshole in the chair. "Not so much."
The guy whimpers through the tape over his mouth, his eyes wide with terror as they dart between us. Blood trickles from his nose, dripping onto his St. James sweatshirt. The dark stain spreads like spilled wine.
"Well, we can't have that, can we?" I say, rolling my shoulders. "Grabby hands need to be taught a lesson."
Cope tosses me his extra stick, and I catch it one-handed, testing its weight. Not my preferred brand, but it'll do the job. I spin it once, twice, getting a feel for the balance.
"Puck's over there," Cope says, nodding to a small black disc on the ground. "I was just warming up before you got here."
I retrieve the puck, dropping it onto the concrete and nudging it with the stick. The sound echoes in the empty warehouse—that familiar tap-tap-tap that usually precedes a shot on goal. Only tonight, our goal is Gary's sorry ass.
"You want first crack?" I ask, sliding the puck toward Cope.
He grins, all teeth and predatory intent. "Ladies first."
"Fuck you," I laugh, but I line up my shot, anyway.
The puck sails across the concrete and smashes into Gary's knee with a sickening thud. He screams behind the tape, the sound muffled but still satisfying. His body jerks against the restraints, but Cope did a good job with that hockey tape. Fucker's not going anywhere.
"Nice shot," Cope nods appreciatively.
He lines up, eyes narrowing in concentration, then sends the puck flying. It catches Gary in the ribs, and I swear I hear something crack. Gary's scream is higher this time, more desperate.
We fall into a rhythm after that, taking turns launching the puck at different parts of Gary's body. His thigh. His shoulder. His stomach. Each hit draws another scream, another jerk against the restraints, another dark bruise no doubt blooming beneath his clothes.
After about twenty minutes, I notice Cope getting restless. He's shifting his weight from foot to foot, a familiar look in his eyes that says he's ready for more. I feel it too—that itch under my skin that says the warm-up is over.
"Time to level up," Cope says, tossing his stick aside. He reaches into his jacket and pulls out brass knuckles, sliding them over his fingers with practiced ease. The metal glints under the harsh light as he flexes his hand, testing the weight.
I drop my stick too, cracking my knuckles as I approach Gary. His eyes widen even further, tears streaming down his face and mixing with the blood from his nose.
"You know what I fucking love about nights like this?" I say, circling behind the chair. "No consequences. No rules. Just pure fucking release."
And it's true. This is what I need—what I've always needed.
Some people are born with demons, and mine have always been hungry for violence.
Penn's got his reasons for being fucked up—Uncle Robert made sure of that—but me?
I just came out of the womb wired wrong.
Dad saw it early, kept me away from Robert's influence, but he couldn't change what was already there.
The first time I made someone bleed, I was seven.
Some kid on the playground called my mom a whore, so I smashed his face into the monkey bars until his front teeth came out.
Dad had to pay the family off to keep it quiet.
I remember how he looked at me after—not disappointed or angry.
Just knowing. Like he'd been waiting for it to happen.
I grab Gary by the hair, yanking his head back so he's looking up at me. "You touched something that wasn't yours," I say, my voice eerily calm even to my own ears. "And now we're going to make sure you never forget what happens when you do that."
Cope throws the first punch, brass knuckles connecting with his jaw with a sickening crack. Blood sprays from his mouth, spattering across the concrete. I follow with a hit to his ribs, feeling something give beneath my fist.
We fall into another rhythm—Cope hits, I hit, Cope hits, I hit. Gary's muffled screams eventually fade to whimpers, then to nothing at all as he slips in and out of consciousness.
"Wake up, fucker," Cope growls, slapping Gary's face. "We're just getting started."
I pull out my phone, scrolling through my music until I find what I'm looking for. The opening notes of "Bodies" by Drowning Pool blast through the warehouse as I set my phone on a nearby crate.
"Perfect soundtrack," Cope grins, wiping blood from his brass knuckles onto Gary's shirt.
The music pumps through me, feeding that dark thing inside that's always hungry for more. I throw another punch, feeling Gary's nose break under my fist. The crack and the spray of blood sends a surge of satisfaction through me that's almost sexual.
This is my fucking therapy. My release valve. The thing that keeps me from completely losing my shit around Reese. Because if I didn't have this—if I didn't have these moments I’d think I’d have snapped a long time ago.
By the time we're done with the frat boy, he's barely recognizable as human. Blood pools beneath the chair, his face a mess of split skin and broken bone. I'm breathing hard, my knuckles raw and bleeding.
"You good?" Cope asks, eyeing me as he removes his brass knuckles. "You went pretty fucking hard there at the end."
I roll my shoulders, feeling the pleasant ache of muscles used well. "Yeah. Just needed to get some shit out of my system."
"Reese shit?" He smirks, knowing exactly which buttons to push.
"Fuck off," I mutter, but there's no heat behind it. He's not wrong.
This is why I can't have her. This darkness that lives inside me, this violence that feels as natural as breathing—it would consume her.
Reese is everything I'm not—light to my shadow, warmth to my cold, stars to my black hole.
She fucking dances through life while I'm down here in the dirt, blood on my hands, violence in my veins.
Every day, every hour, it gets harder to keep my distance. To pretend I'm just her friend when every cell in my body screams that she's mine. But I can't drag her down into this pit with me. I won't.
I look at Cope, wiping blood from my knuckles onto my jeans. "C'mon, let's load his ass up and take him to Weston."
Cope's eyebrows shoot up. "Oh? Is he done being mad at us and gonna let us use his fucking junkyard again?"
I laugh, the sound echoing off the concrete walls. "He was never mad. He just said everyone needed to chill for a while after Penn got rid of four bodies in as many days for looking at my nephews the 'wrong way'."
We untie Gary from the chair, his body flopping like a rag doll. He groans as we lift him, blood bubbling from his split lips. Between the two of us, we manage to carry him to Cope's truck, dumping him unceremoniously in the bed and covering him with a tarp.
We didn’t kill him here, but being crushed in the trunk of a car at the junkyard should be terrifying as long as he gains consciousness beforehand.
Shit, that’s a fucked up thought.