Page 140 of Twisted Obsession

And Henry. After all, I expect him to make a sudden and devastating appearance. A snatch-and-grab sort of thing.

“Everything bad to ever happen, does during a game,” Steele mumbles. “It’s bad luck.”

I wave my hand. It’s not like I can back out. This is my career, my livelihood—and I trust my friends to keep Melody safe.

They have to, or I’m going to fucking kill them all.

52

STEELE

Ifeel like I’m in the CIA. Or running an undercover sting operation for the FBI. All we’re missing are those invisible earbuds to chat with each other.

As it is, we have cell phones. And constant texts.

The group chat is blowing up, but it’s mostly Knox. He’s with Melody, having apparently had breakfast with her this morning. Which is one of the stranger things to have happened.

Weirder than Knox carrying on a bet for almost a year.

Weirder than snow in July.

Weirder than—

“O’Brien.” Greyson stops beside me. “You had a look on your face.”

I shrug. We don’t have anything to go on, really. We don’t know what Henry looks like, and neither does Melody. She sits in the section below us, near the glass, in a dark-blue dress. It goes well with the Colorado Titans colors, although I’m sure the stylist had no idea when she picked it out.

Sarcasm.

Knox texts that he and Melody are going to check out the upper levels, and I frown at my phone. He shouldn’t be moving her in general.

Greyson frowns, too. “What’s he up to?”

I shake my head. We move out of sight as Melody and Knox come up the aisle and head toward the stairs to the second level. Then we follow.

Miles raises his hands in a,what the fuck?expression.

Can’t say I blame him.

Knox and Melody go past where we’re standing, and the crowd erupts into cheers. Greyson and I both look toward the ice as the LA players break out in celebration.

Goal scored.

Greyson sighs. “Just gives them something to fight for, right?”

“Yeah.”

Miles finally catches up to us. People are flooding out of their rows and into the hallway, the break after a goal almost always a good time to rush to get a drink or have a piss.

“Well?”

“They’re only a few minutes ahead of us,” Greyson murmurs. “Let’s go.”

Except this place is a little bigger than we thought, and it takes us another five minutes to find the way to get to the second level. It’s all well and good until we enter the stairwell and find Knox’s broken phone on the stairs. And no sign of our chatty friend or the woman we’re supposed to be protecting.

“Well, fuck,” I breathe. I exchange a look with Greyson and Miles. “Jacob is actually going to murder us.”

53

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