Page 5 of Brutal Game

Mine. The word echoed in my head. I didn’t fight it.

I felt her shiver, heard her interrupted gasp as she tried to control herself. I couldn’t help the smile the sound brought to my lips.

She tugged on her hand. I didn’t release it.

“I’m Jack,” I informed her.

She practically spat at me. “I know. It’s hardnotto know that.”

“Aviva,” Tovah interjected. “Maybe we should?—”

I rubbed my thumb over her rapidly beating pulse. “Oh, and what else do you know?”

“About you?” She pretended to think. “Only that everyone here thinks you walk on water.”

The mockery in her voice rubbed me the wrong way.

“And what about you, princess?”

“Verdict pending.”

This was not going as easily as I’d assumed it would. Part of me was annoyed. Part of me was impressed that shewasn’timpressed. I wasn’t used to girls not falling at my feet. I kind of liked it.

“Have a problem with hockey players?”

“Not with individual players—usually. Have a problem with the institution at large.” She watched me as she said the last, like she was looking for some…hint of something.

The back of my neck went hot. I resisted the urge to rub it. Hockey had given me everything: a way out from under my father’s thumb and the stiflingly insular community I’d been raised in. Friends and a makeshift family. A purpose. And the closest thing to a father figure I’d ever had in Coach. Someone shitting on it was like someone shitting on me and everything that mattered.

I wanted this girl. Badly. But now I wanted her on her knees in front of me, mascara running down her face as she put that bratty mouth to good use.

“If you have a problem with hockey, why are you at a hockey party?” I countered.

Aviva hesitated.

“I dragged her here,” Tovah said quickly, moving between us, likely to get her friend out of the line of fire.

Lie.

I could usually tell if people were lying. It was like an alarm that went off in my head.

And I hated liars. They were weak, cowardly, and would always betray you.

Was Aviva lying, too? Why couldn’t I get a real sense of her the way I could everyone else? Why did she feel like such a mystery?

I moved around Tovah to Aviva’s side. The beautiful brunette turned, keeping her gaze on me the way prey tracked their predators.

Smart. Shewasprey. My prey. I hadn’t decided how I would devour her yet.

“Why are you here, princess?”

She looked past me. “Wanted to see how the other half lives.”

I glanced at her sharply, looking her over again. Before, I’d been so caught up in her face and body, I hadn’t truly taken her clothes into account. Now I saw it: pilling on her sleeveless turtleneck, a loose thread on the seam of her black skirt, rubber sole splitting from the canvas of her left sneaker.

Unlike most of the students at Reina, Aviva clearly did not come from money. Neither had I, technically. It was not inexpensive to raise six children on a single salary in Teaneck, New Jersey. My father was a “man of the book,” and focused on religious studies. My mother worked as the receptionist at a doctor’s office, and the rest of our income came from wealthier people in the community who would throw us a bone every once in a while.

I’d made my own future—first through my hockeyscholarship, and then via various sponsorships. That, with the likelihood of being drafted first, meant I didn’t have to worry about me. But then my half-brother Marcus entered stage right. He was a billionaire on some sort of apology tour, and even though I refused to move out of the hockey house, he’d started a trust fund for me and my other siblings. It meant I’d never have to work again, but I didn’t care—hockey was my life.

---