Chapter 1
Ben
Silence was heavy. It had a weight to it, a physical density that settled over the room like a blanket of lead.
Most people couldn't handle it. They needed noise—the white static of a television, the hum of conversation, the bass-heavy thrum of a locker room speaker—to drown out the sound of their own rotting thoughts.
I didn't just handle the silence. I courted it. I craved it. I built my entire goddamn life around it.
My bedroom, the converted attic suite of the sprawling Victorian disaster the team called "The Ice Box," was the only place in Burlington where the world stopped spinning. Soundproofing panels lined the walls, hidden behind charcoal-gray paint. The blackout curtains were drawn tight enough to choke out the sun, though at ten o’clock on a Tuesday night in February, the sun had been dead and buried for hours.
I sat on the edge of my bed, the mattress firm beneath me, and stared at the clock on the nightstand. The red numbers flickered. 10:00 PM.
Right on schedule.
My routine wasn't a preference; it was a structural necessity. Like the steel beams holding up the roof of the Bruin’s Den arena. Remove one beam, and the whole thing comes crashing down, burying everyone inside.
I rolled my neck, the vertebrae cracking in a sharp staccato rhythm—pop, pop, pop—that echoed in the stillness.
The ache was familiar. A dull, grinding throb at the base of my skull, the phantom weight of a helmet I’d worn for four hours of practice earlier that day.
Coach Sullivan had ridden us hard, screaming until his face was the color of a raw steak, demanding speed, demanding violence.
“You’re the Butcher, Sterling! Start acting like it! Put them in the wall!”
I rubbed a hand over my face, feeling the rough scrape of stubble against my palm. My hand was large, the knuckles scarred and thick, the skin rough from years of gripping a stick, gripping a jersey, gripping the throats of opposing forwards who thought they could skate through my zone.
I looked down at my left arm. The sleeve of blackout ink started at my wrist and disappeared under the hem of my black t-shirt.
It was a solid, void-like mass of darkness, swallowing the skin.
No designs, no skulls, no roses. just black.
A negation of what had been there before.
It was fitting. That was what I did on the ice, too.
I didn't create; I negated. I stopped plays. I stopped momentum. I stopped hope.
I stood up, the floorboards groaning under my two hundred and twenty-five pounds. I moved to the window and peeled back the edge of the curtain.
Burlington was disappearing.
A white curtain of snow was descending on the town, thick and violent.
The weatherman had called it a "historic blizzard," a nor’easter that would bury the campus under three feet of powder.
The wind howled against the glass, a feral, shrieking thing trying to claw its way inside.
The streetlights below were nothing but hazy orange halos in the swirling white dark.
Good. Let it snow. Let it bury the roads. Let it trap us here.
I dropped the curtain. My sanctuary was secure.
Jax and Rook were downstairs, likely passed out or gaming with headsets on, terrified to disturb me.
They knew the rules. When the door to the attic is shut, you don't knock unless the house is on fire. And even then, you’d better bring a bucket of water with you.
I turned toward the bathroom, intending to brush my teeth for exactly two minutes before lying down in the center of the bed to stare at the ceiling until sleep took me.
Then, a sound cut through the house.
It wasn't the wind. It wasn't the settling of the old wood. It was sharper. Insistent.
Ding-dong. Ding-dong. Ding-dong.
The doorbell. Not pressed once, but mashed repeatedly, a frantic, rhythmic assault on my peace.
I froze. My jaw clenched so hard I felt a distinct pop in my temple.
Ding-dong. Ding-dong. Ding-dong.
"Ignore it," I muttered, my voice a low rasp in the empty room. "They’ll go away."
Whoever it was—probably a freshman pledge lost in the storm, or a pizza delivery guy at the wrong address—would realize this was a house of sleeping giants and retreat.
BAM. BAM. BAM.
The polite ringing was replaced by a heavy, desperate pounding. Fist against wood.
"Open the damn door!" A muffled voice screamed from outside. It was high-pitched. Female.
My eyes narrowed. The irritation in my chest flared, hot and sudden, like a match struck in a gas-filled room. This was the one thing I couldn't tolerate. Disruption. Chaos. My cortisol levels spiked, the calm of my routine shattering like glass.
I didn't walk to the door; I stalked.
I moved down the narrow staircase from the attic, my bare feet silent on the wood. The hallway on the second floor was dark. Jax’s door was shut. Rook’s door was shut. Useless, both of them. They’d sleep through the apocalypse if it didn't involve a puck dropping.
I descended the main staircase, the air in the foyer significantly colder than the rest of the house. The pounding hadn't stopped. It was relentless.
BAM. BAM. BAM.
"I know you’re in there! I can see the light!"
I reached the heavy oak door. I didn't check the peephole. I didn't ask who it was. I unlocked the deadbolt with a savage twist of my wrist and yanked the door open, ready to unleash the full force of The Butcher on whoever was stupid enough to disturb me.
The wind hit me first. A blast of ice and snow slapped against my bare chest, stealing the breath from my lungs.
Then, I looked down.
Way down.
Standing on the porch, ankle-deep in a rapidly forming drift, was a girl.
She looked like a hallucination. Or a joke.
She was tiny, barely coming up to the center of my chest. She was drowning in a white faux-fur coat that looked like it cost more than my tuition, splattered with mud and slush.
A bright pink beanie was pulled low over platinum blonde hair, and she was clutching the handle of a massive Louis Vuitton suitcase with both hands, her knuckles white.
She was shivering so violently her teeth were actually chattering.
We stared at each other for a heartbeat. The wind screamed around us, whipping snow into the foyer, wetting the hardwood.
She looked up at me, her eyes wide. They were hazel, flecked with gold, and currently filled with a mixture of terror and entitlement that made my blood boil.
"You took... long enough," she stuttered, her voice shaking. She tried to push past me.
I didn't move. I planted my hand on the doorframe, blocking the entrance with my body. The cold was biting into my skin, nipping at my tattoos, but I didn't flinch.
"No," I said. One word. Simple. Final.
She blinked, snowflakes catching on her impossibly long lashes. "Ex-excuse me?"
"No," I repeated. "Wrong house. Go away."
Her mouth dropped open. Her lips were pale, tinged with blue. "Are you insane? It’s a blizzard! I can’t go away! My Uber already left!"
"Not my problem."
I started to close the door.
She gasped, jamming her expensive leather boot into the gap. "Wait! I’m looking for the hockey house! This is the Ice Box, right? Tell me this is the Ice Box."
"It is," I growled, looking down at her boot. If she didn't move it, I was going to crush it. "And we’re full. No puck bunnies allowed during the season. Read the bylaws."
Her face flushed, a splotch of red on her pale, frozen cheeks. "I am not a—I am not a bunny! I’m Ivy! Ivy St. James! My cousin said—"
"I don't care who you are," I cut her off. My patience was gone. The snow was blowing into my house. My routine was ruined. "Move your foot, or lose it."
"You wouldn't dare," she hissed, trying to summon some authority, though she looked like a wet kitten trying to intimidate a Rottweiler.
I leaned down, bringing my face inches from hers. I let her see the scar running down my neck. I let her see the flat, dead look in my eyes that made linebackers step out of my way.
"Try me, Princess."
She flinched. The fear flashed in her eyes, raw and honest. She pulled her foot back.
"Good girl," I sneered.
Then I slammed the door in her face and locked the deadbolt.
Ivy
He slammed the door.
He actually, physically, slammed the door in my face.
I stood there on the porch, the sound of the lock sliding home echoing like a gunshot in the frozen air. The wind howled, whipping my hair across my face, stinging my eyes. The cold wasn't just around me anymore; it was inside me, a sharp, metallic ache in my bones.
"You absolute... neanderthal!" I screamed at the wood, kicking the door.
Pain shot up my toe, radiating through my frozen foot. I let out a strangled sob, dropping my forehead against the rough wood of the doorframe.
This wasn't happening. This couldn't be happening.
I was Ivy St. James. I didn't get locked out. I didn't get stranded in blizzards. I didn't have to drag seventy pounds of luggage three blocks through slush because my father had cancelled my credit cards and my apartment had turned into an indoor swimming pool.
A tear leaked out, hot against my freezing cheek.
“You want to play grown-up, Ivy? Then go be a grown-up. Figure it out.”
My father’s voice echoed in my head, cold and dismissive as he hung up the phone three hours ago. He’d cut me off. Completely. No cards. No allowance. And then the pipes had burst. Karma, apparently, was a bitch with a sense of humor.
I shivered, a violent convulsion that rattled my teeth. I couldn't feel my fingers anymore. If I stayed out here, I would literally die. I would freeze to death on the porch of a frat house, and the headline would read: Media Mogul’s Daughter Found as Popsicle in Designer Fur.
I looked at the house. It was a fortress. Dark, imposing, unwelcoming. Just like the giant who had opened the door.
God, he was huge. I’d seen hockey players before—I went to Blackstone, you couldn't avoid them—but he was different. He was... dense. Just a wall of muscle and ink and hate. His eyes had been the color of a frozen lake, and just as hard.