Chapter 24
Chase POV
The underground service corridor beneath Kehoe Pavilion smelled of stagnant drainage, road salt, and diesel exhaust.
I walked toward the loading bay with my playbook tablet tucked beneath my left arm, my black team parka unzipped, letting the sub-zero draft cool the sweat sticking to my ribs after four hours of power-play film review.
My boots echoed against the damp concrete, a heavy, rhythmic cadence that usually kept the lower staff out of my way.
Ten yards ahead, near the salt-corroded iron railing of the ice-melt drainage pit, a figure leaned against the wall.
He wore a stained brown leather jacket with cracked sheepskin along the collar, heavy work boots caked with gray Minnesota mud, and a faded Duluth port trucker cap pulled low.
A cigarette burned between his calloused fingers, the sharp, acrid stench of cheap menthol tobacco cutting through the chill.
My boots stopped dead on the concrete.
My vision snapped down to a three-inch circle of gray light.
A cold, leaden weight plunged through my sternum, hitting the base of my stomach like a bucket of frozen slush. The air locked in the middle of my windpipe, tight and dry as lime. Blood surged into my eardrums with a deafening, hollow roar that drowned out the hum of the overhead halogen lamps.
The phantom ache of a fractured jaw from five years ago flared beneath my left ear.
Marcus Guzman pushed himself off the wall.
He was fifty-four years old, but his frame still carried the thick, brutal bulk of an AHL enforcer whose career had ended in minor-league holding cells and blown knee ligaments.
His dark eyes were bloodshot, surrounded by deep, yellowed bags, the skin of his face lined with the bitter mileage of a man who looked at the world like an unpaid debt.
He took a slow drag of his cigarette, letting the gray smoke billow past yellowed teeth.
"You're hard to track down these days, number nineteen," Marcus said, his voice a gravelly, rasping rumble that lived in every nightmare I had ever tried to outskate.
* * *
I didn't take a step back. I forced my spine straight, two hundred and twenty pounds of collegiate bone locking into rigid, defensive alignment.
Inside the pockets of my parka, my hands curled into fists so hard the finger joints popped. My fingernails bit into the calluses of my palms until my knuckles turned bloodless white.
"The athletic complex is restricted property, Marcus," I said, keeping my voice down in a flat, dead register that gave away nothing. "You don't belong down here."
Marcus let out a dry, hacking chuckle that ended in a wet cough. He tossed the cigarette butt into the drainage ditch, stepping into the yellow glare of the utility lamp.
"I belong wherever my investment is skating," he said, tapping a dirty index finger against my chest. The touch was light, but it burned through the nylon of my jacket like an acid splash.
"Carter Ross gave me a call yesterday. Said you were making noise about Denver.
Said you were turning down California and the West Coast."
My molars clicked together with enough pressure to send a sharp, splitting ache straight into my temple. "My draft representation is between me and Hastings."
"Your draft representation is my business, boy," Marcus snarled, his voice rising, bouncing off the damp concrete blocks.
"I spent twelve years hauling you to five-in-the-morning skates across the Iron Range.
I paid for your sticks, your skates, and your clinics while your mother was bleeding the bank account dry.
You think you're going to take an entry-level contract in a mid-market city and shortchange this family? "
The urge to move surged through my forearms.
A single left hook. That was all it would take. One clean, driving strike to the hinge of his jaw, and I could drop him onto the salt-slicked concrete. I could end twenty years of poison with six inches of leverage.
The thought screamed behind my retinas, hot and blinding.
Throw it.
And then the cost slammed into my skull like a blindside check: campus police, an assault charge on an athletic donor property, an emergency NCAA disciplinary hearing, and my captain’s letter stripped from my sweater before morning skate. The Frozen Four gone. My draft card shredded.
Marcus saw the twitch in my shoulder. His mouth twisted into that same venomous, mocking sneer that had watched Declan bleed on the asphalt outside that bar in Marquette.
"Go ahead, Chase," he whispered, leaning his face in until the sour stench of stale whiskey and tobacco washed over my nose. "Take a swing. Give Miller an excuse to pull your scholarship. See how many millions Boston offers you when you're sitting in a St. Louis County holding cell."
My breathing came in short, jagged bursts through my nostrils, my chest expanding against the strain of my ribs.
Marcus stepped back half a pace, satisfied with the silence.
"Declan’s assisted-care facility in Marquette bumped their monthly rate by eight hundred dollars," Marcus said, crossing his arms over his leather jacket.
"The check is due on the first. And I hear you've been spending a lot of time with that little student tech Miller assigned to your shoulder. The Wagner girl."
The concrete beneath my boots seemed to dissolve.
Every drop of blood in my body turned to liquid fire. The skin across my neck pulled tight, a violent, autonomic tremor skittering down my spine.
"I saw you two on the concourse yesterday," Marcus continued, his eyes narrowing into slits of pure malice.
"She looks real delicate, Chase. Real soft.
Wonder what the compliance board would say if an anonymous tip came in about a student intern doctoring medical logs to keep a concussed player on the ice?
Wonder where that leaves her little fellowship? "
The red line detonated.
I took half a step forward.
I didn't throw the punch. I closed the distance in a fraction of a second, my broad chest slamming into his with enough deadweight mass to knock Marcus’s head back against the concrete wall.
I leaned down until my mouth was two inches from his ear, my shadow swallowing him whole beneath the flickering yellow light.
"You listen to me, you miserable bastard," I rasped.
The words came out in a low, ruined growl, vibrating with a lethal, terrifying finality that shook the damp air between us.
"You say her name again," I whispered, my teeth grazing the brim of his trucker cap, "you look in her direction, you even think about stepping onto this campus, and I will tear down everything you ever touched. I will buy that care facility in Marquette, I will pay Declan’s tabs myself, and I will hand the state police every piece of financial fraud you ran through the junior leagues until you rot in a cell in Duluth. Do you understand me?"
Marcus went dead still.
The smirk vanished from his face, replaced by a sudden, gray shock as he looked into my eyes and saw that the boy he used to beat in the garage was gone.
"Walk," I growled into his cheekbone. "Before I forget that my career matters more than your life."
Marcus swallowed hard, his throat bobbing. He didn't say another word. He pushed past my shoulder, his boots scuffing the wet floor, and scrambled up the concrete stairs toward the street without looking back once.
* * *
The drive through the freezing rain was a blur of gray asphalt and red brake lights.
My hands shook against the steering wheel of the Silverado—a violent, uncontrollable shudder of suppressed adrenaline that made my knuckles ache where they clamped the leather at ten and two.
The heater was blowing seventy degrees into the cab, but my teeth were chattering, cold sweat dripping from my temples into the dark stubble of my jaw.
She looks real delicate, Chase.
The sentence clawed behind my breastbone, tearing at the lining of my lungs.
The poison had found the perimeter. The rotting, violent world I had spent five years running from had followed me down that tunnel, and now it was breathing on her neck.
I parked the truck in the underground bay, didn't wait for the engine to cool, and hit the elevator button with the heel of my fist.
The ride to the top floor felt like drowning in slow motion.
I stepped out into the foyer, my key trembling in the deadbolt, the lock turning with a sharp, heavy clack.
I pushed the heavy door open and stepped across the threshold.
The loft was an island of light.
The soft, golden glow from the cast-iron floor lamp washed over the dark oak floors, the radiators hissing with steady, dry heat. The air smelled of roasted mint, clean laundry, and the vanilla lotion she rubbed into her hands before bed.
Nola was sitting on the deep leather sofa, curled beneath a gray wool throw, her hair piled in a loose knot on top of her head. Her laptop sat open on her knees, surrounded by her anatomy flashcards.
At the sound of the door, her head turned.
Her hazel-gold eyes lit up, a soft, beautiful smile blooming across her lips that cut straight through the black fog in my skull like an arc of light.
"Chase?" she said, setting her mug on the coffee table. "You're early. Hastings said film would run until—"
I didn't let her finish.
My keys hit the quartz island with a violent metallic clatter.
I crossed the living room in three long, desperate strides, my boots silent on the rug. I didn't take off my coat. I didn't drop my bag.
I reached down, slid my hands under her arms, and hauled her off the leather cushions in one clean, effortless pull.
Nola gasped, the sound muffled against my collar as I pulled her flush against my chest.
I dropped to my knees on the thick wool rug, pulling her down into my lap, locking my arms around her waist with crushing, unyielding force.
I buried my face deep into the warm curve of her neck, my forehead pressing against her collarbone, dragging in the scent of her skin like a dying man pulling air into burned lungs.
My body was heaving.
Heavy, ragged hitches shook my ribs, my breathing ragged against the soft cotton of her hoodie as my arms tightened, squeezing her until her small frame was pressed completely flat against mine.
Nola didn't struggle. She didn't ask questions.
Her small, warm hands came up instantly, her fingers tangling into the dark hair at the back of my neck, her other hand flattening against the tense, spasming muscles between my shoulder blades.
"Chase," she whispered, her voice a soft, steady anchor in the dark. "I've got you. I'm right here."
"Don't leave," I rasped, the words tearing out of my throat, broken and bloody, vibrating against her skin. "Promise me, Nola. Don't ever let go."
She pressed her cheek against my temple, her fingers digging through my hair, holding my shattered bulk against her chest while the rain lashed the windows outside.
The storm was outside our door.
And she was the only reason I was still breathing.