CHAPTER THREE
ST. AUGUSTINE UNIVERSITY – SEVERAL MONTHS LATER
The puck drops.
I win the face-off because of course I do.
The other player barely has time to react before I’m around him, cutting across the ice toward the offensive zone. The crowd surges to its feet as I drive toward the net. A defenseman on my own team moves to intercept me, but I lower my shoulder and send him stumbling backward.
The hit earns another whistle.
The arena erupts in a bunch of fucking noise, and I don’t know if they’re cheering or booing me anymore.
I don’t really give a shit. People either like that I’m attached to the last name Moretti and all the benefits that come with that, or they hate me because they can’t get close enough to me to reap any of them.
The defenseman I flattened pushes himself off the ice. Oops, it’s Bradford Harris.
Of course, it’s Bradford. When is it not Bradford on my ass about something?
He rips off his helmet long enough to glare at me. "What the hell is wrong with you?"
I laugh because he started it. He tried to take the puck from me, and we’re on the same damn team.
I don’t particularly care about hockey; this team specifically can go chew on rocks as far as I’m concerned, but he certainly does.
Bradford Harris, heir of the Harris legacy, son of the vice president of The Saints of the Black Crown Society, cares about a whole hell of a lot.
And he hates me and my brothers because we’re the sons of the President.
The refs separate us before I can murder him in front of most of the St. Augustine campus.
Bradford lets them push him back a few feet, then skates away with that same smug grin.
“Are you just worked up because your little princess, Blair, is back on campus?”
The words hit me like a body check.
My stomach drops because she’s my one sore spot, the one button literally anyone can push, and I’ll go nuclear.
And judging by the way Bradford’s expression changes, my face gives everything away.
He slows, fake sympathy twisting his features as he says, “Aw. You didn’t know she was back, did you? Whatever happened between you two must have been awful. What did you do to her? Or is it what you wouldn’t do?”
I don’t move, don’t blink, don’t even breathe as the words settle over me. My face feels numb, but my fingers are tingling as they bunch into fists. When did I toss my gloves? I’m pretty sure I’m blacking out with rage right now.
“She didn’t tell you she was leaving, and she didn’t tell you she’s back for the Choosing Ceremony?” He presses a hand dramatically to his chest. “That must hurt since she’s your—” he makes exaggerated air quotes, “’best friend,’ huh?”
Rage floods my veins, but for the first time in my life I’m not impulsively swinging. I feel like I can’t move; my skates feel like they’re buried in quicksand. I want to scream at him, tell him to shut the fuck up, but no words will come out.
“What is it they always say about her?” he asks loudly. “She’s the only bitch who can calm your ass down? No wonder you’re ready to snap.”
Something inside me snaps, and I lunge for him, but my brother, Noah, is there to yank me back. I let out a frustrated grunt because my two brothers are the only ones on this damn ice that are any match for me.
“Okay, killer, we can’t be going down in history as the only Black Crown legacies to get expelled for fucking with a dipshit like Harris.”
I glare at him, and he grins lazily at me, because that’s just how Noah is. Lazy. He points toward the penalty box, then gives me a look as if to ask whether Bradford is worth it.
The answer is fucking yes.
I want to kill the bastard, and I don’t care how many people watch me do it.
My other brother, Ben, skates up with a frown.
He’s about to say some shit I don’t want to hear because that’s all that ever comes out of his mouth.
“Don’t give The Society a reason to punish you and us because we look like you.
” Being an identical triplet has its perks and downfalls, that’s for sure.
Ben doesn’t like dealing with any kind of drama or people in general, and I’m angry enough to want to fight every fucking person who dares to look at me.
I bark out a humorless laugh. Blair is gone, my brothers and I are sitting on the secret of the century, and our kingdom is one gust of wind away from crumbling around us. The Society has plenty of reasons to punish me, and my beating the fuck out of the vice president’s son is the least of them.
Around us, the game continues, but I don’t hear any of it.
Don’t give a fuck about any of this shit.
All I can think about is Blair. If she’s really back.
Where the hell she’s been. Why she hasn’t come to me?
More importantly, what I’m going to do to make sure she never leaves my side again.
I could handcuff her to myself. No, that would cause a spectacle.
Actually... after all the nights I’ve spent roaming the streets looking for her, a spectacle sounds exactly right.
Bradford better hope he’s not fucking with me. Actually, I’m going to hurt him either way.
Ben shakes his head in mock disappointment. “We would have already won this game if you weren’t so worried about what Blair Winthrop is doing.”
I’m going to beat my own brother’s skull against the ice, and I’m sure that’s not the legacy my father envisioned me leaving behind.
Noah slaps Ben on the shoulder. “That’s rich coming from you, bud. I came in at three last night, and you scared the shit out of me pacing back and forth in front of Paris’s door.”
Benjamin’s jaw tightens. Ah yes, he has one button too, and it just so happens to be our stepsister. “Shut up.”
Noah grins. “Just saying. What were you doing outside her bedroom in the wee hours of the morning?”
Ben stares at him, completely deadpan, indicating that he won’t be elaborating on anything he does with Paris. He skates off, only breaking eye contact with Noah when a player from the other team bumps into him.
Noah cackles for exactly three seconds before pushing off and skating toward Ben, probably to heckle him a little more.
Good. I hope they get into it so badly that Coach kicks all three of us off the ice.
It won’t be the first or last time, but that’s one thing about the Moretti triplets.
We might fight each other from time to time, but no matter what, we’re always going to have each other’s backs.
Ben never shows attachment to anyone, not even Noah and me.
He acknowledges us more than anyone else, but there’s something not right, something switched off in his brain.
We get it, and it doesn’t hurt our feelings because we know the exact moment it happened.
He found our mother dead when he was a kid.
Something in him went cold that day and never thawed.
He’s callous, detached, completely indifferent to the world around him.
People don’t matter. Feelings don’t matter. Nothing matters.
Until Paris Hastings click-clacked into our life with those stupid pink Barbie heels she wears all the damn time.
I hear her fucking shoes on the hardwood in my dreams sometimes, and I wake up wanting to snap her ankles.
But I never would, because she’s the only thing that seems to put a spark in Ben’s eyes.
She’s the biggest fucking brat on the planet.
Spoiled rotten, dramatic, and fully convinced the universe revolves around her.
She torments Noah and me like it’s her full-time job, the annoying little sister she was always meant to be, I suppose.
I don’t know what our father sees in her mother, but if I could travel back in time and drop-kick him away from their first meeting, it would definitely be high on my list.
But I will say that with Ben, Paris is different.
She’s softer, more careful. Like, even she understands there’s something broken in him that nobody else could fix.
She’s protective of him in a way that doesn’t make any sense to me because of the side of her I see.
I’d even go as far as to say she’s nurturing.
She’s more mature around him than she is with anyone else, like maybe the vapid act she puts on isn’t soul-deep.
I don’t care, because I take every chance I get to make sure she knows that to me, she’ll always be a bratty little sister.
I’m skating, holding my stick like I have every intention of trying to get the puck and score, but my eyes are on Bradford, who is glaring at me from across the rink.
I don’t know what crawled in his ear and died, but he’s fucking asking me to beat him in front of all of his friends.
We’re supposed to be on the same team in multiple ways.
Hockey and legacies of the Black Crown society, but I’ve always hated him.
The feeling is mutual, I’m sure, because he’s had a thing for Blair for as long as I can remember.
Even if she didn’t return the crush, it didn’t matter to me.
She’s my best friend… my only friend if you don’t count my two brothers and the blonde spawn of Satan who lives with us now.
That’s why when Blair left so abruptly… especially after what happened this summer… it felt like she was ripping my heart out of my chest. We all agreed to never speak of that night again, but when I found out she left, I felt abandoned by the only person who has ever truly mattered to me.
But Ben is right, I need to fucking watch my temper.
The Choosing Ceremony for the Black Crown Society is coming up, and I’ve got the fucking Elders watching me like hawks, waiting for any excuse to decide to fuck me over because of my attitude.
My last name is the only thing that’s prevented that so far.
As I skate toward center ice, the puck rims hard around the boards and dies near the blue line. Instinct takes over. I angle my stick, ready to intercept, but Noah beats me to it, collecting the puck cleanly before sending a crisp pass across the neutral zone.