Chapter Thirty-One
LUKE
The rink always grew quieter once practice ended. The echoes faded first—the crack of pucks against boards, the scrape of skates carving lines into the ice. Then the locker room noise thinned until the building gave way to the steady hum of the refrigeration system beneath the floor.
By the time I stepped outside, dusk cast long shadows through the parking lot.
Mila sat on the low concrete wall near the side entrance, one leg folded beneath her as she waited. The arena’s exterior lights cast a soft glow across the pavement, catching the darker strands of her hair where the wind lifted them from her shoulders.
She looked up the moment the door closed behind me. Something in my chest eased immediately.
“Long practice?” she asked.
“Coach kept us late.” I crossed the lot and stopped in front of her. “You should’ve come inside.” I didn’t love the idea of her waiting out here alone.
“I haven’t been here long.” Her eyes narrowed slightly. “So, Coach kept you late, or,” she countered, “you stayed because you didn’t want to leave yet.”
A quiet breath escaped me. She knew me well. “That too.”
She shifted on the wall, making room without my needing to ask. I sat beside her, and our shoulders brushed. The contact steadied me in a way nothing else had managed all day.
For a few minutes, neither of us spoke. The parking lot sat empty except for a few scattered cars and the faint glow from the rink windows behind us.
The air carried the damp scent of the ocean drifting in from a few blocks away.
Mila’s fingers slipped into mine without looking. “Things have been quiet since Lorne was arrested.”
“For the most part.” I ran through what it’d been like at home then decided to loop her in. “I’ve been thinking.”
“That’s dangerous.”
I turned my head toward her. “You’re hilarious.”
Her smile softened before fading into something more thoughtful. “Can I ask you something?”
“Since when do you have to ask?”
She drew a slow breath before continuing. “You’ve mentioned Drew taking control of the company. Stabilizing things. Or at least where Lorne was concerned.” Her gaze dropped briefly to our joined hands. “I assumed you’d be irritated.”
“Why?”
“He stepped in to protect King Enterprises.” Her eyes lifted again. “And because it feels as if he’s keeping a lot of things quiet.”
I took a moment before answering. “I’m not angry at him.”
That clearly wasn’t the response she expected. Her brows drew together slightly. “You’re not?”
“No.”
“Why?”
The question hung between us longer than I expected.
The truth was more complicated than anger.
I rested my shoulders against the concrete behind us.
“Drew spent his whole life trying to survive inside our family,” I began slowly.
“People think power makes you strong, but sometimes it just traps you.”
The wind shifted, lifting a loose strand of her hair across her cheek again. I traced my thumb lightly along the edge of her jaw as she looked up at me.
Her eyes never left mine.
“I hear people talk about justice,” I continued quietly. “As if it’s simple. As if the truth shows up and everything suddenly makes sense.” My jaw ticked slightly. “In our family, it never is.”
She studied my face carefully. “And justice for Darren?” Her voice carried none of the hesitation from earlier. “He was murdered,” she continued quietly. “That still matters.”
“Yes,” I answered immediately. “It does.”
I held her gaze. Before Mila left Blackwood, Darren had been nothing more than another executive at my father’s company. A name attached to meetings and quarterly reports I never paid much attention to.
That changed the night she finally told me what she’d seen.
We had barely begun clawing our way back from months of tearing each other apart when she finally told me.
I could still see the moment clearly. Mila sitting across from me on that blanket, her hands twisting together so tightly her knuckles had turned white.
She’d made me promise first. Not to keep secrets. To stay calm. To protect her and her mother. That alone had told me whatever came next was going to change everything.
When she explained what’d happened the night she’d gone to meet her mom at work over a year ago, the words came slowly, pulled from her one piece at a time until the truth finally landed between us. Darren Langley lying on the pavement. The vice president of my father’s company.
Mila hadn’t seen the shot fired. But her mother had seen Lorne standing over Darren with a gun in his hand.
Even now the memory sat heavy in my chest. That had been the moment the foundation beneath my life cracked open. Not just for my family, but what it meant for Mila, and how it led to her leaving me.
She’d carried that alone for more than a year, believing the people responsible might come after her and her mom next, believing the only way to survive was to disappear without a word. Even from me—the one person she should’ve been able to trust.
And still… she had chosen to tell me what she knew of Darren. Despite everything her mother believed about my family. Despite every reason that she had to run the other direction from me. She’d looked at me that night with fear sitting just beneath the surface and decided to trust me anyway.
That choice had never stopped meaning something. It wasn’t Darren. I finally understood what she’d been carrying alone all that time.
Something about that night had never left me. “If Lorne killed Darren to keep whatever he uncovered quiet,” I continued, “then whoever else was involved won’t stop protecting themselves now.”
We both understood what that meant. Whatever Darren had stumbled onto inside King Enterprises hadn’t disappeared with him. If anything, it was just starting to surface.
“Then why does it sound as if you’re preparing yourself for something else?” she asked.
Mila had always been good at hearing the parts of conversations people didn’t say out loud. I exhaled slowly. “Sometimes the truth doesn’t just expose guilt.”
Her hand squeezed mine.
“Sometimes it destroys people who were already broken long before any of this started.”
The only sound in the parking lot came from the faint hum of the building behind us.
Mila shifted closer, her shoulder pressing gently against mine.
“You’re worried about your brother?”
“I understand him.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“No,” I admitted. “It isn’t.”
She tilted her head slightly. “You’ve always defended him.”
“I never defended him,” I corrected. “I just know what it’s like to be in his head. To feel as if nothing you ever do measures up unless you take it.”
“Is there a difference?”
“Yes.”
I turned toward her fully now. “Defending someone means believing they’re right.”
“And understanding them?”
“Means recognizing how they got where they are.”
Her gaze softened slightly. “You don’t think Drew chose this?”
“I think he learned how to survive inside it.”
A quiet silence followed. The wind carried the faint scent of eucalyptus through the parking lot as it moved down from the hills.
Mila rested her head lightly against my shoulder. Her warmth spread through my chest immediately. “Does it make you angry?”
“What part?”
“That your family built something that complicated.”
I briefly considered that. “Not anymore.”
Her fingers brushed slowly across the back of my hand. “What changed?”
I turned my head slightly until my cheek rested against her hair. “You.”
She shifted just enough to look up at me. “That’s a lot of responsibility.”
“It’s not responsibility.”
“What is it?”
“Clarity.”
The corner of her mouth curved faintly. “You’re getting philosophical.”
“Don’t get used to it.”
She laughed softly. The sound carried across the empty lot before fading into the quiet night. After a moment, I wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer. She came easily, settling against my side as if that spot had always belonged to her.
“Walking away from my family isn’t about avoiding consequences,” I continued after a moment.
“Then what is it?”
“It’s about deciding who I’m going to be without them.”
Her fingers curled lightly around mine.
“And who is that?”
I didn’t hesitate. “The guy sitting here with you.”
Her breath warmed the collar of my shirt. “You make it sound simple.”
“It isn’t.”
“Then why does it feel that way when you say it?”
I tilted my head until our foreheads touched. The answer had already been decided long before tonight. “I know exactly what I’m risking.”
My hand moved up the back of her neck, holding her there gently, my thumb brushing the warm skin beneath her hair. The space between us disappeared the second she pulled me down.
Her mouth met mine with quiet certainty at first. Slow. Intentional. It deepened, her breath catching against mine as if every moment that had tried to pull us apart had only brought us back to this.
My focus narrowed to the warmth of her lips and the steady rhythm of her breath against mine.
Then she leaned closer. Her fingers slipped into my hair, tightening slightly as her body pressed fully against mine. The shift sent heat straight through my chest.
The kiss deepened without either of us deciding it should.
My hand moved instinctively along her side, drawing her closer as the quiet moment between us deepened into something stronger. Her lips parted beneath mine. The quiet sound that escaped her broke the last of my restraint.
Weeks of tension. The pressure of everything surrounding us. All of it poured into the kiss.
She tugged me down harder, as if she refused to leave any space between us. I followed the movement automatically, one hand bracing against her back while the other remained at her neck, keeping her close.
For a moment, nothing else existed. Not the investigation. Not my family. Not the war unfolding around both of us.
Just Mila. The warmth of her mouth. The steady beat of her heart against my chest.
When she finally pulled away, the movement came slowly, our breaths tangled between us.
Her forehead rested against mine, her fingers still threaded through my hair. “We wasted a lot of time fighting each other when I came back to town.”
I brushed a strand of hair from her face. “We’re not doing that again.”
She studied my expression before smiling.
And sitting outside with Mila tucked against my side, the future felt clearer than it had in months.
Whatever truths still waited beneath the surface of my family’s empire would come eventually. The life I was building now had nothing to do with those walls.
It had everything to do with her.