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“You and Evans getting close?” I kept my voice low, controlled—but lethal.

Chris blinked, caught off guard. Good. His easygoing mask slipped for half a second before he squared his shoulders, recovering fast. “Just looking out for her.”

The words hit like a punch to the gut. Looking out for her. Like I wasn’t already doing that. Like he had some kind of claim.

Something dark and primal surged inside me.

I stepped in, closing the space, letting him feel me there. My presence loomed over him, a silent warning.

“She’s here to work,” I said, my voice even but edged with steel. “Not to get distracted.”

Chris straightened up, rolling his shoulders, trying to act unfazed. “She’s not your problem, Callahan.”

I exhaled sharply, the laugh barely there, more like a slow exhale of frustration. “Everything on this ice is my problem.”

He crossed his arms, squaring up. I caught the faintest tremor in his hands, the way his fingers curled just a little tighter than before.

“Maybe back off a little," he said. “Let her breathe.”

My jaw locked. Muscles wound tight with every word that fell from his mouth.

I leaned in, my voice dropping to something rough and deliberate. “I’ll do what I think is best for my players.”

The air between us crackled, charged and volatile, stretched thin like a tripwire ready to snap.

Chris held my gaze, his back straight, refusing to flinch.

And fuck, I wanted to hit him.

Just once.

Just enough to remind him whose ice he was standing on.

Whose girl he was fucking touching.

But one wrong move would shatter everything.

The team. My career. Maybe even Iris’s future.

I had to keep my fists at my sides, had to wrestle down the urge to grab him by the collar and shake some fucking sense into him. But I wasn’t walking away without making one thing crystal fucking clear.

I dropped my voice lower, each word sharp as a blade. “Stay away from her.”

Chris’s eyes darkened, his stance stubborn. He wasn’t backing down.

And that only made me want to end this even more.

Damn it all—this wasn’t over.

Not now. Not ever.

Chris took a step back, but not before dropping a parting shot that hit harder than a fist to the jaw. “You ever think that maybe she doesn’t need you?”

The words sliced clean through me, sharp and merciless. The tightness in my chest expanded, wrapping around my ribs like a vise. The weight of them pressed into something deeper, something I didn’t want to fucking acknowledge.

I forced myself to hold his gaze, but inside?

The world tilted.