Page 37 of Heartless Game

“It is a major issue,” Levi argued.

“Doesn’t mean we can’t call his motivation into question,” Judah argued back.

Coach blew his whistle for laps. Jack skated over to me and helped me up.

“She’s really done a number on you, hasn’t she. Talk to me about what she knows.”

As we skated, I walked him through everything that had happened since stalking her to Sebastian’s apartment. Jack listened without interrupting, his blades moving on the ice.

When I was done and we’d moved onto drills, he said, “What’s the plan?”

I shook my head as we practiced some stick handling. “I need the team to take turns watching her, escorting her to class and newspaper meetings when I’m unavailable. I don’t trust her.” I passed him the puck.

Jack nodded, but he didn’t pass the puck back. “As a heads up: The more time you spend with her? The more you’re going to want her and the harder it’s going to be to let her go.”

He finally passed the puck back to me and I caught it, turning in a circle and shooting the puck toward the net, where Asher stood, waiting.

“That’s what I’m worried about,” I admitted. “But I don’t see a way around it.”

As we set up to scrimmage, I didn’t add that it was probably already too late.

* * *

After practiceand I showered and changed, I headed back to my house in my car. On impulse though, I made a left and not a right, headed to the sleazy sex shop in town. If I was going to have Tovah underfoot, and always on my mind, I needed a way to get some of my control back.

As I drove, my infotainment system alerted me that I had an incoming call from my father.

Fuck.

There was only so many times I could ignore the man I hated so completely. Memories appeared: Being forced to learn how to shoot a gun, watching my siblings kill our enemies at young ages. My father having his men beat them for speaking out, talking out of turn, fighting back. Starving me for days when I refused to pick up a gun; hurting my siblings in front of my eyes when I was helpless to stop them. Liza crying in the bathroom as she administered to our cuts and burns and bruises, saying fiercely, “One day, I’ll be in charge. One day, I’ll change everything,” and the rest of us being in too much pain and having too much doubt to even respond to her wild fantasies.

Refusing to kill the son of the man who’d murdered my mother and being punished for it—in ways that left no physical scars, just internal wounds that would never heal.

I refused to be like my father. But that didn’t mean I could avoid him forever.

I finally answered. “Hello, Dad.”

“A real man does not shirk his responsibilities,” my father said immediately.

Guess we weren’t exchanging any pleasantries.

“We made a deal,” I reminded him.

“Yes, and you’ve reneged on your end of it. Refusing to distribute Vice and Vixen is a real issue for the family business. Do I have to remind you what the consequences are?”

“What else can you take from me?” I asked him angrily. “I already have to give up hockey. What else is there?”

He laughed darkly, and I could hear a hint of wild mania in it. My father had never been completely sane. “You might think right now that losing hockey is the worst thing that could ever happen to you. But there are such bigger, more important things and people to grieve.”

Tovah’s pink hair, nose stud, and the strength in her eyes when she refused to bend all flashed in my mind. Was he threatening her? Did he know about her? I swallowed.

“Heard.” I said. “But Vice and Vixen?—”

He interrupted. “I’ll let that go. But there are other things you can do for this family, now. Perhaps it’s time to start considering marriage—the kind of business merger that will fortify our family and its legacy.”

Tovah’s face flashed in my mind again.

“I won’t fucking go along with an arranged marriage,” I told him point blank. “That’s absurd.”

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