Page 137 of Brutal Game

Ilana listened, then asked, “Do you have any proof?”

Fuck.

I started to say no, but Aviva spoke up. “I recorded the coach’s confession, and his threats. He destroyed my phone, but it should’ve sent to the cloud.”

Awed, I kissed her again. “My brilliant fucking fury,” I said against her lips.

She melted against me.

Ilana clapped her hands. “None of this. The police are waiting outside. Again, you do not say a word before clearing it with me first. Ready?”

Gripping Aviva’s waist, I nodded.

What felt like hours later,the police were done grilling us. They were sympathetic, concerned, but I still didn’t trust them. We stuck to our stories, and they accessed Joshua Jensen’s confession through Aviva’s cloud account.

One of the police shook his head as he left. “Sounds like a tragic accident, but I’m glad you two are safe. Sometimes the best seeming people hide the worst crimes.”

The other police officer didn’t look quite as sure. “It’s an interesting story, I’ll give you that,” she said.

Neither Aviva nor I said a word.

An hour or so later, we were discharged and on our way back to the hockey house in Marcus’s town car.

“If you’re engaged, then I assume it means you’ll let me buy you a condo,” Marcus said easily as he scrolled through emails.

“I can buy my own condo,” I told him.

He shrugged. “I can buy you a better one.”

Aviva bit her lip, trying to hide her laugh.

“What do you think, princess?” I asked.

She rolled her eyes. “I don’t really want to live in the hockey house,” she grumbled. “But I can’t leave Tovah?—”

“We’ll talk about it later,” I said, not mentioning that Tovah was going to be distracted for a while.

Once I was sure Marcus was ignoring us, I asked, “Do you love me?”

“Of course I do.”

“Then marry me.”

“Fine,” she grumbled. “As if you’re giving me a choice.”

I smiled and bent my head to kiss her hair. “I’m not.”

48

Aviva

“Aviva. Wait.”

I paused on the quad, outside of the building where Deviant Psych took place. It was a month after the fire, and I was on my way to class to give my final presentation—the one I was doing on my own after Jack had swapped partners to piss me off.

Jack was supposed to meet me. He had practice. After Joshua Jensen had died, and the truth about him had come out, campus had been in an uproar. The athletics department put out an urgent call for a new head coach, finally finding someone that they offered a disgusting amount of money to to break their contract and come to Reina. The new coach, Bill Matthewson, was “tough as hell” according to Jack and the rest of the Core Four. Worked them until they were exhausted, sore messes, accepted absolutely no bullshit—and was as respectful as they came. Jack had done his “lie detector” test over Coach Matthewson multipletimes, and even had his brothers look into him, but he seemed clear.

Fortunately, Jack’s hand had healed well, and he was back to playing just fine. And when he wasn’t using his hand to play hockey, he was using it to torture me into orgasm after orgasm, or to bring me presents I didn’t need—books, flowers of all kinds (because I told him I didn’t have a favorite), even a puppy we named Psych—all ways of saying sorry for the past.

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