Page 80 of Penalty to the Heart

Piper is never nervous.

Which is fucking impossible since the woman has ice in her veins.

“Piper, just come out with it, already? You’re kind of freaking me out right now.”

“They found a replacement for Jack,” she blurts out, tilting my world on its axis.

“What? What did you just say?” I spring up to my feet.

“It’s true, Caleb. They’ve found a replacement for your brother.”

“ They ?!” I snarl, feeling my nostrils flare up. “Don’t you mean your boyfriend and that rich douchebag who bought the team?! That’s who you mean about ‘they,’ right?”

She doesn’t say anything, preferring to nod in confirmation instead.

I frantically pace back and forth, trying to make sense of what she’s telling me.

I fucking knew everyone was keeping something from me. I just never expected this shit.

Though, to be fair, Jack’s current replacement, Mitchell, just wasn’t hacking it.

If the Guardians are winning left and right, it’s because we have one hell of a defense team. It pisses me off that I should have been a part of that defense, but that’s neither here nor there now.

“Okay, let me just wrap my head around this shit for a second,” I grumble, sitting back down again, trying to come to terms with this bomb she just landed on my feet.

Logic tells me that I shouldn’t be so surprised that management felt the need to bring someone from the outside since Mitchell wasn’t cutting it. We’re too close to the playoffs to lose now just because our forward center can’t keep up with the pace of the rest of the team.

Even Jack would understand that shit.

“Okay. Mind wrapped. So lay it on me. Who did they manage to rope in?”

“You’re not going to like it,” she warns with caution.

“Believe me, I’m not going to like anyone who’s about to fill my brother’s shoes,” I retort with a sardonic tone.

“No, Caleb. I mean, you’re really not going to like what I’m about to say.”

My forehead creases at the look of worry on her face.

At first, she was nervous, but now, she looks afraid.

Who the fuck could it be?

“Piper,” I insist, getting restless. “Just tell me who they got already.”

“It’s Bellamy. They signed in Bellamy last night.”

“You have got to be shitting me!” I shout, flying to my feet. “Bellamy Van Rhyne?! As in the New York Mavericks’ Bellamy?!”

“The one and the same, I’m afraid.”

“Who the fuck set up that clusterfuck of a deal?!” I yell in outrage.

When her face reddens in guilt, it’s when I really lose my shit and start shouting, “No! Tell me you didn’t?! Piper, tell me you didn’t help that motherfucker switch sides at the last minute? Tell me you didn’t have a hand in tainting all the hard work my brother did for this team by signing his biggest rival? Please tell me you didn’t?!”

“I did,” she says, squaring her shoulders defiantly as if remembering herself. “He’s the obvious choice. Bellamy was born and bred in New England. It was the Guardians’ lapse of judgment for letting the Mavericks get their claws in him in the first place.”

“Why would they have when they already had my brother?!” I shout.

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