Chapter 3
Ezra
The thaw was always messier than the freeze.
For three days, the world had been simple.
It had been reduced to the four thousand square feet of my penthouse, the howling white void beyond the glass, and the girl.
The blizzard had acted as a suspension of reality, a pocket universe where the laws of physics—and the laws of my life—didn’t apply.
Inside the storm, Amara Vane wasn’t the spoiled sister of my arch-rival.
She wasn’t the campus socialite with a reputation for breaking hearts and maxing out credit cards.
She was just… mine.
She was a variable I had isolated, analyzed, and begun to control.
I had watched her hunch over my kitchen island for hours, chewing on the end of a stylus, her brow furrowed as she wrestled with contract law.
I had watched her eat the grilled chicken and spinach I prepared without complaint, her hunger overriding her bratty preference for sushi and champagne.
I had watched her sleep—strictly via the security monitors, strictly for safety—curled into a ball in the center of my guest bed, looking smaller and softer than she ever allowed the world to see.
But now, the plows were scraping the asphalt of Blackwood Avenue. The sun was out, a blinding, mocking glare bouncing off the snowdrifts. The grid was back up.
The bubble had popped.
“Do I look like a refugees?” Amara asked.
I turned away from the window to look at her. She was standing in the foyer, checking her reflection in the full-length mirror. The transformation was jarring. The soft, compliant girl in the oversized grey sweatpants—my sweatpants—was gone. In her place stood Amara Vane, the weapon.
She was wearing a black skirt so short it should have been illegal in three states, black tights, and a cream-colored sweater that looked innocent until you noticed it was cut to expose one shoulder entirely.
Her hair was blown out into a platinum curtain of perfection.
Her lips were painted a dark, bruised berry color.
She looked expensive. She looked dangerous. She looked like trouble.
“You look like you’re going hunting,” I said, leaning against the wall, crossing my arms. I kept my face impassive, masking the sudden, sharp spike of irritation in my chest. I didn't like the skirt. I didn't like that other people were going to see her in it.
“I am hunting,” she corrected, applying a final coat of mascara.
“For normalcy. For rumors. If I don’t show my face at the ‘We Survived the Snow-pocalypse’ party at the Hive tonight, people will start talking.
They’ll think I’m in rehab. Or Europe. And since I can’t afford Europe right now, rehab is the more likely rumor. ”
She turned to face me, flashing a bright, brittle smile. It was fake. I hated it.
“How do I look? Rich? Carefree? Like my father didn’t just cut off my financial limbs?”
“You look like a liar,” I said calmly.
Her smile faltered for a fraction of a second, then hardened. “Good. That’s the aesthetic I’m going for.”
She grabbed her purse—the one I knew contained nothing but a lip gloss and an ID, because I still had her phone in my pocket.
“Can I have it back now?” she asked, holding out her hand. “I need to call an Uber. I can’t walk to the Hive in these boots.”
I didn't move. I enjoyed the stillness. I enjoyed the way her eyes tracked me, wary and waiting.
“Review the protocol, Amara.”
She groaned, dropping her hand. She rolled her eyes toward the ceiling, a gesture of pure, unadulterated bratty defiance that made my fingers itch to correct her.
“We are in public mode,” she recited, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Rule One: No one knows I’m living here. Rule Two: We are not friends; we are barely acquaintances who tolerate each other for the sake of the team dynamic. Rule Three: I don’t speak to you unless necessary.”
“And regarding the living arrangement?” I prompted.
She sighed. “I keep my space clean. I attend my classes tomorrow. And I… I submit my phone for inspection at 2200 hours.”
“Good girl.”
The words slipped out before I could filter them. They were quiet, intimate, a leftover habit from the last seventy-two hours of isolation.
The effect was instantaneous.
Amara’s breath hitched. Her pupils blew wide, swallowing the brown of her irises.
A flush crept up her neck, staining her skin pink against the cream wool of her sweater.
She looked at me, her lips parting slightly, and for a heartbeat, the "Rich Bitch" armor dissolved. She wasn’t the campus queen; she was the submissive who had spent three days learning to crave my approval.
The air in the foyer crackled, heavy and electric. My body reacted viscerally—blood rushing south, muscles tightening. I wanted to cross the distance. I wanted to wrap my hand around her throat and remind her that underneath that designer skirt, she belonged to the protocol. She belonged to me.
But the elevator chimed.
Reality crashed back in.
“Your phone,” I said, pulling it from my pocket and sliding it across the entry table. “Don’t make me regret giving it back.”
She snatched it up, her fingers trembling slightly. She didn't look at me. She couldn't.
“I’ll… I’ll see you there,” she whispered.
“No,” I said coldly. “You won’t.”
She flinched, then nodded, steeling herself. She turned and walked into the elevator, the metal doors sliding shut, severing the connection between us.
I stood in the silence of the penthouse for a long time, staring at the closed doors.
I should have felt relieved. The chaos was leaving. My sanctuary was returning to its sterile, orderly state.
Instead, I felt a low, burning rage.
I went to my room and changed. Black jeans. A black t-shirt. My leather jacket. I checked the mirror. My eyes were too intense, too predatory. I forced my expression into the mask of the Captain. The Iceman.
I wasn't going to the party to drink. I wasn't going to celebrate.
I was going to watch.
The Hive was a biological hazard zone disguised as a Victorian mansion.
It was the off-campus house where the majority of the offensive line lived, which meant it smelled permanently of stale beer, testosterone, and damp carpet.
Tonight, the smell was amplified by three hundred bodies packed into the main floor, generating enough heat to melt the remaining snow on the roof.
The bass from the speakers was vibrating in my sternum before I even walked through the front door. Thump. Thump. Thump. It was the heartbeat of a headache waiting to happen.
I walked in, and the crowd parted.
It wasn't because I was liked. It was because I was Ezra Sterling. I was the Captain who benched people for being two minutes late. I was the guy who didn't laugh at jokes unless they were actually funny, which they rarely were. I was respected, and I was feared.
“Cap!” Someone slapped my shoulder. It was Miller, a sophomore winger who looked like he’d been drinking since noon. “You made it! Thought you were hibernating in the ivory tower.”
“Roads were closed,” I said, my voice flat. I shrugged his hand off. “Where’s the keg?”
“Kitchen. But it’s floating,” Miller yelled over the music. “Hey, is it true Leo is back? Heard he caught a flight soon as the runway opened.”
I stiffened. “I haven’t seen him.”
I pushed past Miller, scanning the room.
The sensory input was overwhelming. Flashing lights.
Screaming laughter. The sticky suction of cheap beer on the floorboards under my boots.
I hated parties. I hated the lack of control.
I hated the way alcohol turned disciplined athletes into sloppy children.
But I needed to find her.
I told myself it was for security. I needed to make sure she wasn't telling anyone about her living situation. I needed to ensure the secret was safe.
It took me less than ten seconds to locate Amara Vane.
She was in the center of the living room, standing on the raised hearth of the fireplace (which was thankfully unlit), holding court. She was a beacon. The platinum hair caught the strobe lights, turning her into a haloed angel of destruction.
She was laughing—head thrown back, hand on the shoulder of the guy standing next to her.
My jaw clenched so hard I thought a tooth might crack.
The guy was Mads.
Mads, my left winger. Mads, who had a new girl every Friday and forgot their names by Sunday. Mads, who was currently leaning in close to Amara, whispering something in her ear that made her giggle and swat his chest playfully.
The monster inside my chest woke up and roared. It wasn't a logical anger. Mads was a teammate. Amara was single. They were allowed to flirt.
But looking at his hand resting on the small of her back—on the cream wool of her sweater, just inches from skin—I didn't care about logic. I wanted to break his wrist.
She is mine.
The thought was intrusive, irrational, and terrifyingly clear.
I forced myself to look away. I walked to the kitchen, grabbed a red solo cup, and filled it with water from the tap. I leaned against the counter, surveying the room, forcing my heart rate to slow down.
Control, Sterling. Control.
“You look like you’re planning a murder,” a voice said beside me.
I glanced down. It was Jules, Amara’s friend. The artsy one with the purple hair and the paint-stained fingernails. She was drinking a beer straight from the bottle, eyeing me with suspicion.
“Just observing,” I said.
“Observing Amara?” Jules asked, following my gaze. “She’s on fire tonight. I haven’t seen her this manic in months. It’s like she’s trying to prove she’s the happiest girl on earth.”
“She likes attention,” I said dismissively.
“She likes validation,” Jules corrected. She took a swig of beer. “There’s a difference. And right now, she’s terrified because Leo isn’t here yet and she thinks her dad’s credit card decline at Le Blanc is already common knowledge.”
I looked at Jules sharply. “She told you?”