Page 123 of Triple Pucked
I wince. “I lied.”
“Why? Don’t you trust me?”
When hurt flashes across D’Angelo’s face, before he can hide it, my guts twist.
Something else that’s my fault.
“I don’t trust Blythe,” I insist. “She?—”
D’Angelo’s fingers tighten around my phone, cracking the screen. “According to this,shemade you write degrading insults on yourself, which I know breaks your hard limits. It’s clear nowwhy you’ve struggled to play hockey. How could I be a good captain to you after that?”
Robyn pulls back from me in shock. “Is that the ink that was smudged on your inner thigh that time?”
Miserably, I nod. “Sorry, love.”
“I knew that something was wrong,” D’Angelo says, “and I didn’t want to push you because I thought that moving in with me may be part of it. Or possibly, that I introduced you to On the RACK too soon. This is a big adjustment for all of us. I wasn’t sure if you were having second thoughts and I was too scared to examine that in case I was right.”
I stare at him in shock.
How can this legend of a man think that? This is a bloody mansion. He’s invited Eden and me to share his glamorous life, including his decadent nighttime world.
Yet he’s now anxiously leaning on the top of the piano and tapping rhythms of three on the gleaming top.
He runs his fingers through his curls. “But that was my mistake and my responsibility. I was at fault for not realizing that Blythe could have found a way to hold power over you even from a different country. I should have remembered that your safety comes first over everything else.”
I gape at him.
Is he serious?
How far do I have to push this man to find his limit? Smash that Steinway behind him? Steal the keys to his beloved Alfa Romeo and drive it off a bloody cliff?
Isn’t he ever going to break and beat me?
Suddenly, Eden growls, snatching the phone from D’Angelo. He hurls it to the marble floor, smashing it. Then he grinds it under his heel.
We all freeze.
Eden is breathing hard.
“Well,” D’Angelo arches his brow, “that will make retrieving the information harder to make a case against Blythe. But Garcia is up to a challenge. Your brother has made it clear that you’ll be receiving a new phone, Shay, which security will be making damn sure Blythe and her aliases can’t get the number for. We are playing and winning these next three games to make the playoffs, then we’ll work out a solution together that puts that bitch behind bars.”
I stare at him. “She hasn’t broken any laws.”
D’Angelo’s expression becomes feral. “She’s actually broken multiple state and federal laws. I have the best fucking lawyers, and if Blythe thinks that she is going to walk away from this, then she is fucking naïve.”
Desperate, I scramble to my knees. “Wait, we can’t do anything before we win these games.”
D’Angelo tilts up his chin. “We are winning them.”
Doesn’t he understand the stakes? How truly dangerous Blythe is?
She isn’t Heine.
And Heine still poisoned Robyn and me and locked up D’Angelo in his own playroom. The difference is that Heine was motivated by a toxic love, whereas Blythe is much more dangerous because she never loved me.
She only wants to possess me.
Now, she’s motivated by nothing more than a toxic hate.
