Page 20 of Break the Ice

“It’s been your favorite since I’ve known you! Every time you’ve ever come to Seattle you’ve insisted we go,” she says, eyeing me like I’ve sprouted a second head. “You’ve been acting off since you were hired by the Wolves. The pressure’s not getting to you, is it?”

“Jhene, trust me. There’s no pressure.”

“Because if it’s too much, you know what I always say—fuck them!”

Jhene means well, though her pep talk falls on deaf ears. As she’s trying to cheer me up, I’m falling down the dark pit I’ve been trapped in for days.

Jasper Hawk’s big party at the Onyx Hotel returns in a rush of memories.

My arrival to the broad grin of Mr. Hawk and the peaked brow of his business associate, Mr. Blackman himself. I’d navigated the party like the professional networker I am, weaving between guests, making connections, with Mr. Hawk’s meeting looming over my head.

I’d had things under control… at first.

Enter Rafe Golding and his gratuitous behavior. He was in the bathroom getting a blowjob from Phil Morasca’s wife. By the time I stumbled my way up to Mr. Hawk’s penthouse suite, I was already frazzled.

The memory of our meeting no longer feels real. He’d lavished me with compliments and praise, his words and leer inappropriate and uncomfortable. I’d done my best to be professional and bear it.

Something I was sadly used to as a woman in a male-dominated field from the time I was a teenager.

And then everything inside my head goes blank. My memory simply doesn’t recall what happened next.

I checked myself for injuries or signs of assault as soon as I got home that night. There was no indication I’d been hurt in any way. I’d just… tuned out of the moment.

“Mari? Mari? Helloooo!”

Jhene’s clapping her hands to force my attention. I return to the present moment having missed the last four to five minutes of the conversation. Concern crawls onto her face by way of a frown.

“If there really was something, you’d tell me, right?”

I’m able to get rid of her by promising she’d be the first person I’d call.

But, in reality, I plan on doing no such thing.

How can I when my mind’s polluted with thoughts about what really happened that night?

I can’t involve Jhene. She’s a reporter for the Sentinel who frequently writes about the city’s most shocking news developments. Not that I believe she’d turn what happened to me into some salacious news story, but how can I put her in such a compromising position?

How can I go to Jhene for help when I’m still not clear on what happened myself?

The night’s beyond a blur. So surreal it might as well be a dream.

Pain throbs inside my skull, warning of a migraine. I massage my temples and pray for it to go away. When that doesn’t work fast enough, I’m darting for the curtains, dragging them across the iron rod fixed along the top of the window.

I tug them all the way closed until I’m sitting and sulking in the dark. My surroundings mirror the inside of my throbbing head as I close my eyes and try to sort out my thoughts.

Rafe had shown up and then… then he told me he’d take care of everything.

In that moment, he was definitive and composed. Gone was his chaotic, bad boy, anarchist energy and replacing it was a dark, authoritative vibe that saw him seizing control and taking the lead.

I’d listened. I’d done everything he said in a borderline catatonic state.

The next time I’m snapping out of my deep-dive thoughts of that night, I’m pulling into a parking space outside the Wolves’ training facility. Even the mood in the concrete parking garage feels off as I press my remote and my car alarm beeps.

The air’s somber. Far from the upbeat, optimistic environment I walked into my first few days with the team.

The entire hockey world has been in a frenzy over Mr. Hawk. As far as the greater public’s aware, he’s been missing for a week now. His whereabouts are completely unknown, and a full-scale Seattle PD missing persons investigation has been launched. Both of his ex-wives have been on every news network sobbing into handkerchiefs to let the viewers at home know how missed he is.

Their acting would be impressive if not for their obvious ulterior motive—Mr. Hawk’s fortune the moment it’s discovered he’s dead.