Page 91 of Second Sin

CHAPTER 35

SEBASTIAN

The crowd’s thinner than usual. Away game. Mostly home fans. Scattered boos when our lineup gets called.

I don’t hear them.

Not really.

The second my skates touch the ice, I’m somewhere else. Somewhere meaner.

I play hard. Sharp. Faster than usual, and maybe too much contact. One hit crosses the line, and I know it the second my shoulder connects. Gloves drop before I even think. I take a punch to the jaw and land one in return. Two minutes in the box, blood on my tongue, and adrenaline still flooding my veins.

I should’ve let it go.

But I didn’t want to.

By the time the final buzzer sounds and we’ve pulled off a win, my body’s humming with leftover adrenaline and something darker. My gloves come off. Helmet too. I drag a hand through my sweat-soaked hair, jaw clenched so tight it hurts.

I should feel good. I played like I meant it.

But all I feel is twisted up.

Because all I can think about isthe fucking car.

The wreckage didn’t surprise me. Not the shattered glass. Not the paint slashed across the hood like a signature carved in rage. But the words—they stuck.

Asshole. Snake. Die.

Whoever it was, they wanted it personal.

Could’ve been Elise’s husband. Wouldn’t be the first time he came at me.

But after all these years?

It doesn’t track. Doesn’t feel like him.

And yet...it still hit.

Still shook something loose.

Maybe because part of me still feels like I deserve it. The beatdown. The destruction. The message spelled in spray paint like a fucking billboard of my past. Maybe because it dragged me right back to who I was back then—the man who didn’t care who he hurt. Who fucked a married woman and didn’t stop even when he knew better.

I hate that version of myself.

Hate how close he still is to the surface.

The hallway outside the locker room feels too loud, too bright. Kane falls into step beside me.

“You still sulking about your car,” he says, “or you down to grab a drink?”

I should say no.

Usually do. Nights like this, I’d rather sit in the dark with a bottle and nothing but static in my head. But tonight…the thought of being alone makes my skin crawl.

Maybe it’s the fight still pounding in my veins.

Maybe it’s Olivia. The way I left her. Snapped at her. Like a fucking asshole.

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