Chapter Twenty
Leo
Sadie’s expression cycles through several emotions in quick succession as she approaches her SUV: shock that parts her lips, confusion that pulls at her brows, and sadness that clouds her eyes. Her breathing grows fast and shallow.
Etched black words—marker, or maybe paint—cover her windshield.
BENCH THE COACH.
Both doors on the driver’s side are scratched, clearly the work of a maniac with a set of keys. The front left tire is slashed. Random obscenities and insults tarnish the paint.
Callum swears loudly, putting voice to what we’re all feeling.
Vivi grasps Sadie by the shoulders, forcing eye contact. “What do you need?”
Sadie shakes her head as if unable or unwilling to speak.
“It’s just some childish idiot, okay?” Vivi keeps her voice quiet, like she’s trying to slip under the walls Sadie is throwing up. “Don’t even give it a second thought.”
“It’s fine,” Sadie whispers. The words barely scrape out.
It’s a lie. Nothing about this is fine.
My entire body is on fire with the need to gather Sadie close. It should be me beside her, holding her, rules and reputation be damned.
Vandalizing her car. How could anyone stoop so low?
Fuck hockey and double fuck the people who are deranged enough to lash out like this over it.
But it’s not just about hockey. Not really. Every game has a losing team, and every losing team has a coach. Did any of them walk outside to slashed tires and targeted profanity today? Or at any point in their careers?
Sadie crouches by the deflated tire and pinches her eyes shut. Her lips form a circle like she’s attempting a very specific kind of exhale.
This is worse than what I saw outside the diner after the soda incident, or in my truck after. This is a full-blown panic attack in the making.
Screw it.
I crouch beside her, letting my hand rest between her shoulder blades. The contact probably comforts me more than it does her. “Breathe.”
She relaxes at the sound of my voice, but not much. Her exhales are still choppy.
Sadie’s been front-page news in our world more often than any coach, forever drawing scrutiny, and I assume she gets an annoying amount of DMs.
But the harassment must be worse than even I thought. And now she’s at her breaking point, otherwise she’d never let her players see her crumble.
“You’re safe. We’ve got you,” I whisper as Callum’s enraged ramblings hold everyone else’s attention.
“Who the fuck got in here?” he cries. “This is a closed lot. How’d they get a key fob? Is the gate broken? I’m going to—who should I call, Jax Biggs?”
Sadie finally speaks. “It’s okay, Callum. Don’t stress yourself.” Her voice holds a quiver that guts me. And of course she’s worrying about Callum’s stress level right now. “I will figure this out. It’s not your problem.”
“The fuck it’s not.” Ivan’s voice is deep and decisive. His arms are firmly crossed, and he looks at Sadie like he’s seeing her for the first time—like she’s a person and not just a roadblock to his season. “An attack on you is an attack on the team.”
“He’s right,” Callum says. “Never thought I’d say that about Czernecki, but it’s true. We need to do something. This cannot stand.”
“Cal, calm down,” Vivi urges quietly. “I know you want to help—”
“Fuckin’ right I do. Whoever did this, they”—Cal’s expression turns murderous—“wait. Vivi. They trashed your sign, too. I didn’t see it before.”
Vivi does a double take toward the Associate Coach sign at the head of her parking space. She and Sadie rode here together, so it’s no surprise there’s no car in Vivi’s spot, but the vandal left their mark on her sign by crossing out most of the word “associate.”
It reads ASS COACH.
“Clever,” Vivi deadpans.
Sadie finally opens her eyes. “No. Fuck that. They can do what they want to me, but they can’t do this to you. I—”
“Don’t you dare try to make this about me right now,” Vivi gently scolds.
Callum is still staring at Vivi’s sign, his brows drawn tight. “They’re fucking dead when I find them.”
“You see this?” Nic bellows from ten feet away, breaking his silence. He’s near the door pointing at the key fob scanner. “It’s also a camera. This top part here. If you get really close, you can see the lens.”
Sadie slumps down onto her ass, giving up on crouching, and hugs her knees. My chest cracks wide open at the sight of her on the ground.
She spent the last half of practice bartering with a team full of grown men—who make good fucking money to be here—to try and make us happy. Not even happy, but less insufferable. That’s all she wanted. Basic cooperation and decency out of her team.
She shoulders so much—more behind-the-scenes abuse than even I realized—and still tries to prioritize our well-being.
All that to walk outside and see this.
And what have I, her captain, done to make her job easier?
Not enough, that’s what.
I need to be the captain and leader she chose me to be, even when shitty losses and shame and pain sour my mood. Leaders step up to lessen the load for their team, even when they don’t feel like it. Even when it hurts.
I want to guide her face toward mine so I can try and figure out what she’s feeling, but even just looking at her profile, I can tell she’s frozen in thought, just like that night in my truck after the diner when she didn’t say a word. Panicking, too.
“I’m going to give you some options, okay?” I ask firmly.
She dodges my gaze. “You don’t have to do this. You guys can go.”
“Or,” I drop to my ass so we’re both sitting on the ground now, “we can drop you off at the Fury Dome so you can meet with Jax immediately and figure out what your next steps are. I’ll make sure Dane and Blake are alerted to meet you two over there, and I’m sure Jax will agree that you are not to be alone at any point until the second you leave the parking lot.
“Or, if you don’t want to ride over there, I’ll call Jax and have him meet you here. We’ll escort you inside and wait until he arrives, then you all can take it from there. He’ll want to watch the tapes—”
“I want to go home.” Sadie’s voice is strained. “Please.”
Of course my girl would choose a secret third option.
Too bad she has zero security at home, which we will be having a long conversation about next time we’re alone. So, for now, I will take her and Vivi home and stay with them.
And if Vivi asks questions about why I refuse to leave until I finish installing a Ring camera on every exterior door, I’ll call it my duty as captain to make sure they’re taken care of.
“How do we know you’re safe at home?” Callum asks, stealing the worries directly from my brain.
“We have a strong locked door and access to a phone. We’ll be okay,” Vivi says. “For now, we need to take pictures of Sadie’s vehicle and inform Jax of what’s going on. He’ll check the footage so we can file a police report.”
“I can’t believe this happened in broad daylight and no one noticed,” Ivan huffs. “Probably one of the assholes from those tours.”
Nic nods. “You’re not wrong. Anyone can sign up for them. Remember your stalker last season, Czernecki?”
His gaze hardens. “It’s hard to forget something like that.”
Callum circles the car, studying it. “It’s not a stretch that these ‘fans’ would sneak out the side door while on a ‘bathroom break’ or something. Security needs to be staffed beyond just special events, and not just for players. The coaches need just as much protection, clearly.”
My gaze locks with Sadie’s, tuning out the rest of their back-and-forth. “So, you don’t want to meet with Jax before you go home?”
“I’m so fucking tired.” Her head tips forward like it’s too heavy to hold. She presses the heels of her hands into her eyes.
God, she looks like me with a migraine. The need to take her in my arms, to tell her it will all be okay, is a bone-deep ache.
But not in front of the guys. For now, I’ve got a job to do.
“I know.” I extend my hand palm-up. “Let’s get you home.”
Vivi examines my handiwork: a freshly installed security cam above their front door. “I gotta say, I’ve missed having a man to drill things in.”
Sadie laughs her first real laugh in hours as I roll my eyes. “I can’t keep defending you, Starling. Your constant innuendos are why the guys think you’re single and dateable.”
“They can think all they want.” She pats my head. “Those boys wouldn’t survive me.”
“It’s true,” Sadie confirms, tossing her friend a knowing look. “She’s a weapon when she’s on the prowl. And even worse when she’s in love.”
I wrinkle my nose. “That is entirely too much information. And a little scary, honestly.”
Vivi winks. “Tell your friends. Now shall I order us some pizza, gang?”
Sadie’s gaze slides to me. “I’m not sure Leo wants to—”
“I’ll order it, and then I’ll be on my way as soon as you’ve successfully logged in to your accounts on the camera app so you can monitor your property from your phones,” I decide.
“Bossy, much?” Vivi peers between the two of us and lifts her brows. “I’m ordering it, and you can at least stay long enough to enjoy dinner, McLaren. It’s far more suspicious if you don’t.”
“Vivi,” Sadie says in warning. “Don’t give him a hard time.”
The blonde, who is quickly becoming my second-biggest fear after the death of my loved ones, unclips her hair and shakes it out. “C’mon, fellow adults. You really expect me to believe you two aren’t—”
“Vivi,” Sadie repeats more sternly. “Stop.”
Not for nothing, that tone makes my dick twitch. Maybe I’m just that happy to see her on the other side of the panic.
“Okay, okay. I’m just going to go hide in my room and listen to my favorite song until the pizza arrives.” Vivi presses a few buttons on her phone.
“Denial is a River” blasts through the speaker.
Sadie opens the door for her, and then all but shoves her through it.
We both exhale in tandem when Vivi closes it behind her.
I cock my head to the side. “What did you tell her?”
“Nothing.” Sadie’s big blue eyes pin mine. “I swear. But she’s known me a while and has her suspicions. Obviously. It doesn’t help that you sat in our driveway that night. She saw that as an act of chivalry.”
My hands have a mind of their own, smoothing up her hips. I gather her in for the hug I’ve been dying for. “And what did you see it as?”
She buries her face in my chest. “A kind gesture from my captain?”
“Sure. We’ll go with that. How are you, really?”
“I’m fine. Embarrassed I lost my shit back there.”
“Don’t be,” I growl.
She exhales slowly. “It’s humiliating falling apart like that.”
“Please, Sadie. Anyone would’ve been completely thrown by what we just witnessed.”
“I don’t want the guys to look at me differently.” She pauses, nuzzling her nose against my soft shirt. “Especially you.”
My hand drifts up her back. We’re all but slow dancing, swaying gently back and forth.
Dangerous thoughts cruise through my mind.
What would it be like to do this anytime I want?
Hold her like this. Kiss her neck, and then her jaw, teasing all the way to her lips.
Run my hands up and down her body, drink in the feel of her soft skin.
In this fantasy, she’s mine to touch freely.
I think about how I’d cheer her up, if we were together. I wonder idly if she has a Christmas tree, or if she’d like help getting one home from the lot.
Christ, I’m losing it. I need to reel this in.
“There’s not much that could change the way I see you,” I admit. “And it sure as hell wouldn’t be seeing you act like a human and not the superstar you feel like you have to be.”
She peers up. “But the other guys?”
I smooth her hair back. “I think they needed to see it, too. They have no idea what you put up with. But they should. It might make them think twice about doubting you—though there’s not as much of that these days.”
Her hand slips inside the back of my shirt and rests on my lower back. “It’ll never change, though. So long as I do this job, I’ll have to tolerate this.”
“The hell you will. We’ll have a press conference and show the world the pictures so they can see.”
“And people will use it as an excuse to call for my resignation, somehow. I will always be talked about, Leo. All I can do is try not to give them more fuel.”
Discomfort balloons in my chest as her words hover in the air between us.
“And I’m fuel,” I finally say.
She presses her forehead against my chest. “That’s not what I meant.”
“But it’s the truth.”
The length of her pause says everything she can’t.
It’s like a cool sheet of ice slips down my back. I stiffen. “We don’t have to do this, Sadie.”
“No,” she blurts, curling my shirt in her fist as if to keep me close. “I’m not saying that. Please don’t do this right now.”
Right now. That does nothing to assuage my growing dread.
But after the day she’s had, I will do anything she wants. Follow her lead.
Even if ignoring the issue feels an awful lot like kicking the can down the road.
My fingers cup her chin, tilting her face up. I brush my knuckles back and forth across her soft cheek as my gaze drinks her in, searching like I might find solutions swimming in the blue of her eyes.
I fall deeper and deeper every time she lets me look.
A faint mechanical buzz fills the air.
“Oops, sorry!” Vivi’s voice pipes out of the apparatus above our head. “I swear I’m not spying, I just downloaded the app like you wanted me to. Carry on.”
Sadie startles and steps back.
I take that as my cue to go. Even if it’s the last thing I want to do.