Page 93 of Brutal Game

I’d told him about Asher and the pulp.

I thought. “I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “I don’t even know what type of juice I like, or if I even like juice. It’s been so long since I felt like a kid, and it never occurred to me to figure it out.

He lifted my chin, kissing me.

“Then we’ll figure it out together,” he said.

It sounded like a promise.

He told me he’d see me later—and he did, insisting on driving me to work, staying there the entire night, and then taking me back to the hockey house after his shift, where he proceeded to give me so many orgasms I forgot my name.

He was no less brutal, no less demanding or controlling. If anything, he got worse. He seemed to be everywhere I was, all the time—except when he had practice, which he began dragging me to. I couldn’t prove it, but he had to be stalking me. Otherwise how did he know when I was at my apartment vs. class vs. the library? If he eventhoughtsomeone was checking me out, he’d stare them down until they looked away. And his animosity toward Professor Johnathan grew. I wasn’t sure if we were going to make it through the semester without Jack beating the shit out of him, for nothing more than breathing the same air as me.

Thankfully, the slut shaming had stopped. Instead, I was treated with deference by other Reina students, as if I were Jack’s girlfriend and not the target of his torture. I wasn’t sure what to make of it, or of myself. I felt disloyal to Asher, and I didn’t know what to do about it. I was incapable of resisting Jack, not when he was cruel, and not when he was tender.

My loyalties were shifting, and it made me uneasy. I’d never felt this way before.

I got breaks when Jack was at practice or training at thegym, or at away games. I used them to work on other angles to get the evidence against Joshua Jensen I needed, attacking my mission with renewed vigor and the sense that the walls were closing in on me. Everything I did for my brother ran the risk of hurting Jack. I was being torn in two.

Since Jack had punched hisowngoddamned goalie, getting close to Dave and asking him what he knew was no longer an option. There was no way of talking to Dave without Jack finding out, and the goalie didn’t deserve being punched again—or whatever worse thing Jack decided to do in retaliation. Besides, I doubted Dave evenwantedto talk to me.

No, I needed something else. Tovah had done some recon, and discovered that Coach Jensen lived in a gated community with a code to get in, so breaking into his house was out. I couldn’t figure out how to steal his phone. That left his computer in his real office. Not the one in the locker room, but the sports administration building: Hallister Hall.

Jack was supposed to be at practice late that night: he had a scrimmage. He’d told—not asked,told—me to come, but I lied and said I had a shift that night at The Stacks. I told him I’d meet him back at the hockey house after, and he’d accepted it without a fight, although he’d said something under his breath about me “not needing that fucking job.” Worried that he wanted to turn me into a kept woman, I hadn’t pushed the issue.

If all went as planned, I’d be in and out of Hallister Hall before Jack finished his scrimmage, and waiting for him in his bed before he got home. I didn’t love what that said about me, but it was better than him figuring out what I was actually up to.

When I’d cased the building, I’d discovered that there was a back door on the first floor that led to a little, privatecourtyard—because didn’t the coaches and athletic admin types deserve their very own courtyard, far away from the rest of us? The important thing was that the back door was never locked.

I threw myself over one of the hedges, landing on my ass. Embarrassing, if someone had seen me, but no one had. Standing and dusting myself off, I glanced around to make sure of that before trying the door.

Still unlocked.

My sigh of relief was the loudest thing in the night as I pulled the door open and headed inside the building. Coach Jensen’s office was on the second floor in the east wing, a corner office that must have been a real get for him. I climbed up the old, wooden staircase, marveling at the grandeur of the building: cream colored walls lined with framed photographs of former coaches, players, and newspaper reports of historic wins. Although during the day it must have be a light, airy building, at night it was dark and almost creepy, as if all these former athletes’ eyes were following me as I made my way down the hallway to Joshua Jensen’s office.

When I reached it, I pulled the bobby pins out of my hair, unbent them, and got to work on the door. Jack was wrong when he’d called me liar, but he was right when he’d called me a thief. I’d stolen my fair share of food money out of my aunt’s purse and “borrowed” her credit card when she was too sick or out of it to remember to get groceries. She’d always locked her door, so I’d learned how to jimmy a lock.

It was a good skill to have, and I was grateful for it as I twisted the ends of my bobby pins around, listening for that telltale snick that meant I’d released the locking mechanism.

…And there it was.

Triumphant, I went to turn the knob and open the door?—

—only for someone to slam it shut and push me against the door.

Fuck.

I twisted my head, staring into Jack’s angry eyes.

“You can’t stop lying to me, can you, little fury?” he said in a voice filled with violence.

“And you can’t stop lying to yourself.”

“Maybe,” he acknowledged.

Gripping my hips, he flipped me around, pushing me back against the door and wrapping a hand around my neck. The position was so similar to the first time he’d caught me breaking in somewhere, I had to take a beat to remember where I was.

Jack must have noticed, too. His smile was almost…sad. “Feels familiar, doesn’t it? You couldn’t leave it alone, could you? I told you, I’d take care of you and your brother. Is revenge for him losing his spot on the team really this important? Why can’t you let this go?”

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