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But I was already moving, yanking on my sweats, pulse slamming against my ribs like a war drum. Something about this felt wrong—not just a late-night mistake or some drunk asshole at the wrong door. It felt like a warning. A threat.

“Stay here.” My voice was low, firm. A command. But I already knew she wouldn’t listen.

The pounding came again, harder this time, relentless and furious. Whoever was on the other side wasn’t stopping until they got what they wanted. And something told me that what they wanted was me.

I stalked toward the door, pressing my ear against the wood. My heartbeat thundered in my ears, drowning out everything else. I couldn’t hear voices. No drunken slurs, no joking threats—just silence in between the violent knocks.

Bad. This was bad.

Another hit, so hard it shook the frame. I exhaled sharply, jaw tight, forcing my pulse to slow. Focus. Don’t react. Plan.

I reached for the handle.

Whoever was on the other side?

They were about to regret knocking on this door.

I ripped the door open, every muscle in my body coiled tight, ready to lay into whoever thought they could come pounding on my door in the middle of the night.

But when I saw him standing there—my father, his expression carved from stone—something in my chest lurched.

“Tell me it’s not true.”

The words landed like a fist to the gut. No preamble. No wasted breath. Just straight to the kill shot.

My pulse thundered in my ears as the weight of it crashed down. I didn’t need to ask what he meant. Chris fucking talked. Or maybe it wasn’t just him—maybe the whispers had already spread, morphing into something bigger, something neither Iris nor I could outrun.

The silence stretched, thick and suffocating. My father didn’t move. His gaze pinned me in place, sharp and unyielding, demanding the truth like he could tear it straight out of my ribs if I didn’t spit it out myself.

“Knox.” His voice was controlled, too controlled, like he was fighting to keep it from breaking loose. “You can’t be serious.”

My jaw locked, tension winding through every inch of me. The truth was a noose tightening around my throat. I could barely breathe under the weight of it. “It’s not what you think.” The words felt weak, hollow, even as they left my mouth.

His expression didn’t shift. If anything, it hardened. “Then tell me what it is.”

I exhaled sharply, the sound harsh in the dead silence between us. My father, the man who had shaped my entire career, was staring at me like I was one bad decision away from becoming a complete disappointment.

“Iris is…” Her name caught in my throat, jagged and painful, because saying it out loud made this too fucking real. “She’s important to me.”

His jaw ticked. A slow shake of his head. A small, bitter laugh—humorless and sharp. “Important,” he echoed, like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Like I had completely lost my mind. Then his voice dropped, quiet and razor-sharp. “This isn’t just a fling?”

And I knew then—he’d been hoping it was. Hoping that this was nothing more than a reckless mistake he could yank me out of before it burned everything down around us.

But it wasn’t.

And we both knew it.

“She’s not just a girl,” I snapped, the words slamming into the space between us, fueled by something deeper than anger—something territorial. Protective. The undeniable truth that I wasn’t walking away from this, not now, not ever.

He crossed his arms, his gaze narrowing into something colder, something more dangerous. “You think Chambers is just going to let this slide? You think you’re going to walk away from this clean?”

And that was when it hit me—this wasn’t just about Iris anymore.

It was about everything.

And it was already coming down around us.

He stepped inside; the air shifting the second the door clicked shut behind him. The room felt smaller, heavier—like the walls had closed in, locking me inside with something far worse than an opponent on the ice. His presence was a weight pressing down on me, suffocating, demanding.