58. Griffin #2
My fist slams into his jaw with a sickening crunch that echoes through the room.
The snap of his tendons as his head whips to the side is music to my fucking ears.
Lucas stumbles, barely catching himself before I slam into him again, this time with a gut punch that doubles him over.
He gasps, but I’m not done. Not even close.
Fury bleeds through my veins, only fueled by his pained grunts and labored breathing.
I grab his jacket, yank him upright, and deliver another blow to his temple. He swings back, manages to graze my chin, but then Finn’s there, a blur of rage, cracking his knuckles against Lucas’s ribs.
Jax joins in next, grabbing Lucas by the collar and slamming him against the wall before driving a punch into his stomach so hard Lucas wheezes.
Even Ethan, ever the voice of reason, lands a solid hit to Lucas’s jaw before stepping back, eyes hard.
It was only a matter of time until he joined in on the action.
He might like to pretend he’s ‘above it’, but he’s a red-blooded hockey player just like the rest of us.
The need for violence burns through him.
That aggression. That need to punch. To bleed. To win.
Together, we dismantle the asshole who was dumb enough to go after our girl. Four furious storms descending on a single, cocky bastard who’s finally realizing he picked the wrong person to fuck with.
On his knees, blood dribbling down his chin, breath coming in ragged heaves. His face is swelling by the minute, one eye already closed over and purpling.
With effort, he lifts his head, meeting our enraged gazes with his one good eye. He sneers through bloodied lips. “You came all the way to NSU…for her?” He laughs, a wet, broken sound that means we’ve broken a couple of his ribs. It makes me smile. “You’re more pussy-whipped than I imagined.”
He spits blood onto the ground. “I don’t get the appeal. Whole NSU team had her. Every guy said the same thing—forgettable. Mediocre fuck.”
My vision tunnels. Fucking idiot has a death wish.
One I have no qualms about delivering.
I’ll readily watch the light leave his dead fucking eyes.
Except Ethan blocks my path. I snarl at him.
“Don’t,” he says low. Then, to Lucas, “We know the video was bullshit.”
Lucas chuckles, the sound cold and deranged. “Is that what she said? And you dumbasses believed her?”
Jax grabs him by the hair, yanking his head back so violently I’m surprised it doesn’t snap. “The lengths you’ll go to because you’re jealous of her? Pathetic.”
Lucas scoffs, wrestling against Jax’s unrelinquishing hold. “Jealous?” he spits. “Of what?”
“Her innate talent,” Finn growls.
“Her drive to succeed,” Ethan adds, as though we’re ticking qualities off our fingers.
“Her ambition,” Jax snarls.
“Her determination,” I finish, stepping closer. “Dylan is the light, and you? You are a fucking cockroach scurrying around in the dark.”
He makes another noise of disagreement, but I’m fucking done listening to him.
“Finn. Get me his phone.” I extend my hand .
Lucas immediately starts thrashing. “Don’t touch my fucking phone!”
But Jax and Ethan have him restrained, and Finn fishes the phone out of his pocket before holding it up to Lucas’s swollen face. Given the damage, I’m surprised it actually recognizes enough of him to unlock, but it must as Finn tosses it over to me.
Lucas struggles harder, shouting obscenities, but I tune him out as I dig through the device.
Texts. Dozens of messages between him and Kyle going back to the start of the season. To the first game after Dylan became a Steelhawk.
I start to read through the first few.
Kyle
She won’t back off. Thinks she’s untouchable now.
Lucas
She was the same here. Arrogant little bitch.
I scroll past more of the same. Kyle spewing hatred and Lucas fanning the flames, until I come across an exchange not long before Dylan was attacked.
Lucas
You want her out of the games? A few broken bones should do it. Ribs, maybe. Wrist .
Kyle’s response several days later is a video. I know if I look at it now, I’m going to explode, and I want to see what the fuck else these two have been conspiring about.
There are more messages about the jumbotron. Lucas saying he’ll send over files, which must be the videos that were played. Kyle bragging about how well it went down. Lucas wishing he could have seen the look on Dylan’s face.
Fuck, I can’t wait to see the look on his face when I beat him fucking unconscious.
However, it’s the most recent exchanges that leave me cold. As if what little warmth Dylan has breathed into me is suddenly sucked dry from my body.
Kyle
None of this shit is working. I need something else. Something more permanent.
Lucas
Do it then. You know what needs to be done. She’s like a bug that refuses to just die. It’s the only way.
Kyle
…
Lucas
Do the same as you did before. Or make it look like an accident. You could catch her when she’s soaking in the rehab tub. It’s not that deep. She’s small. She’d go under fast, and everyone would think she just drowned.
The bile climbs my throat. The rage is threatening to boil over .
Before I crush the phone in my iron grip and decide to give Lucas a slow and agonizing death, I scroll back to the video, knowing it’s going to send me careening right over the fucking edge and into blood-soaked darkness.
With red-tinged vision, I hit play.
The video comes to life. It’s dark out, and the recording is shaky as the person carrying the phone moves.
Then Dylan comes into view, curled up on her side on the ground, arms up to shield her face.
The only sound is her pained grunts, her stifled sobs as three sick, twisted fucks take turns kicking her.
The camera shakes with their silent laughter.
“Is that—” Finn’s words are cut off when we hear his voice on the recording, calling out.
There’s a hushed “Shit,” too low for me to determine which asshole it came from, before the three of them hightail it out of there.
Before the footage cuts, Kyle flips the camera, smirking down at it like an actual fucking psychopath.
On either side of him, just visible in the light of passing streetlights, are the faces of Fletcher and Monroe.
All. Fucking. Dead. Men.
Ethan wrenches the phone from my iron-clad grip, gaping at the footage before doing something. I’m too antsy to focus on whatever it is he’s doing. The need to kill every single one of these motherfuckers burns through me with such ferocity that it’s painful to ignore it.
Stalking forward, I grab Lucas by the collar and drag him to his feet.
Face to face, I snarl at him. My free hand grabs the switchblade in my pocket, brandishing it like a sword.
The sharp edge glints as I press it against his throat, just hard enough to have a bead of blood welling. It’s not nearly enough.
Panic flashes in his eyes. For the first time tonight, he looks truly afraid.
It makes my blood fucking sing .
Kill him , a voice urges in my head. He deserves it.
“I’m going to fucking end you.”
He trembles, stammering, but I’m not listening. All I hear is the roar of fury in my head.
“I will carve you up so slowly, you’ll beg me to finish the job. I’ll make you bleed for every bruise on her body. For every scar on her soul.”
He whimpers, eyes blown wide.
“You want to know what real pain is?” I lean in, voice a razor’s edge as I twist the tip of the blade at his throat. That bead becomes a trickle that races over the white flesh of his throat. Electricity sizzles along my nerves like a lightning bolt.
Do it , that voice hisses in dark, delightful pleasure.
I’m on the precipice, perched on the knife’s edge and ready to slide it through the thin barrier of his skin and into his artery until blood pumps out of him like a waterfall.
My hands shake with the effort to hold myself back, and the blade’s tip slips, cutting deeper into his skin. He hisses, flinching in my grip, but all I can see is the blood. I can feel his lifeline pulsing between my fingers. So fragile. So… temporary.
And then a hand clamps heavily around my shoulder and snaps me out of it.
“Dylan,” Ethan murmurs low in my ear, for only us to hear.
A reminder, as if that’s not precisely who I’m thinking of.
“She needs you—here,” he says, as though reading my mind. “You made her a promise.”
Fuck. He’s right.
I stare at the tip of the blade embedded in the fucker’s neck for another moment before I wrench it free.
Flipping it closed, I return it to my pocket.
Then, because he fucking deserves the agony, I lift my leg and slam it into his knee.
I hear the popping. The tearing of ligaments.
I force his kneecap so far out of position that there’s no fucking way it’s going back into position without surgery.
The pussy screams, falling to the ground and clutching at his leg.
“Try finishing out the season now, you fucker.”
“My leg,” he cries, tears and snot mingling with the blood on his face. “My leg.”
“I’d be worried that this could end your hockey career,” I taunt, face a mask of faux sympathy. “But we both know you never had a hope of playing after college.” With a wicked smirk, I finish, “Have fun finishing out your last year on the bench.”
Still sniveling, he shakes his head.
That’s when Ethan steps forward. I can tell by the stiffness in his shoulders that he doesn’t agree with what I did. What the fuck ever. However, as a true captain, a true team member, he has my back.
Stepping in front of Lucas, he crouches in front of him, holding the asshole’s phone up.
“Just in case you get any ideas about telling people what happened here tonight, we’re going to keep this.
I’ve already changed your password and disconnected it from your cloud account.
If anyone comes asking questions about what happened to you, you’ll find yourself answering questions about how you have video footage of a girl being beat up and you didn’t take it to the police.
Obvious taunts to not only hurt that girl, but get her fucking killed.
So I suggest you come up with a story real quick. ”
“Fell down the stairs,” Jax supplies.
“While trying to take a heroic selfie,” Finn adds. “Lost his balance mid-duck face.
“Tripped over his own ego,” Jax says. “You know it’s got a wide berth.”
“Nah.” Finn shakes his head. “Tore his ACL trying to impress a puck bunny with a cartwheel. ”
“Or maybe he was doing squats in the mirror and tried to wink at himself.” Jax gestures toward Lucas’s sobbing mess of a face. “Dropped the weight on himself.”
“Ohhh.” Jax cringes while flashing an evil smile. “That would get a laugh from the team.
Apparently not done with their theorizing, he claps his hands as another idea comes to mind. “Tell them you were chased by a squirrel and tripped over your feet,” Jax says, deadpan. “I mean, sure, you screamed like a five-year-old girl, but you lived.”
Finn smirks.
“Oh!” Jax snaps his fingers. “Freak pogo stick accident.”
Finn throws his hands up. “You can’t just say that and not explain it.”
“Exactly.” Jax grins. “No one’s gonna ask follow-ups to that shit. Like, what is a grown-ass man doing with a pogo stick? No one wants that answer!”
“Guys,” Ethan interjects with a droll expression. “Are you done or can we go now?”
Scoffing, Finn shakes his head. “We could go on for days.”
“Please don’t,” I groan. I’d far rather get the fuck out of here.
My chest heaves. My knuckles are bloodied. My rage is still an untamable storm. But at least there’s one less threat against my little Steelhawk.
And he’ll never play his beloved hockey again.
Since he’s spent the last two-plus years trying to take that from Dylan, it seems fitting that he’s the one who will be sitting out his final year, and any hope he had of being picked up by some farm team or playing abroad—because let’s face it, we all know he didn’t have the skill to make it in the NHL—has just been brutally shattered… exactly like his knee.