Page 4 of Die for You (Diamond Devils #4)

Damien

From the driver’s seat, I strangle the steering wheel like it killed my mother.

Next to me, Knox scrolls through his phone to find his post-game playlist to break the tense silence.

In the backseat, Finn’s head lies against the headrest, eyes up to the ceiling and shut since the moment he took off his mask and closed the door behind him.

He’s been checked out since we walked into that party.

Sleet pours from the night sky as fast as rain, pinging off the windshield and striking the metallic roof above our heads.

Only sound is the dull swish of the wipers back and forth over the windshield, sleet glowing in the high beams and illuminating the road ahead of us, dark and slick. Shitty end to a shitty day.

My first game as captain and I barely got to enjoy it.

Why the fuck can’t my mother stay single for five goddamn seconds? I swear she’s gotta hop from one guy to the next, and they’re always the biggest pieces of shit she could possibly bring home. My father made her a magnet for assholes like him.

If I have to bruise my knuckles across this new guy’s face, I’ll do what I’ve gotta do, but I wish she’d be more like me.

Say fuck it to relationships and get it through her head that it’s better to be single than with someone who only thinks of you as a pretty face.

That’s how men see her and how women see me.

She knows it too, but for some reason, she hasn’t given up.

She still thinks Prince Charming is out there, even when she’s met nothing but toads.

“Watch out for ice,” Knox warns.

My grip on the wheel tightens, knuckles turning white. “I know how to drive.”

Knox shifts in his seat. He’s the only one who can never sit in silence. He’s always gotta try to break the tension, slap a bandage on the problem and pretend it’s not there. Finn’s the opposite—sometimes, we don’t hear a word out of him for days.

“Finn knows sign language,” Knox blurts. “And he has a sister . Did you know that?”

I shake my head. Not exactly surprising. Finn barely talks, let alone reveals anything about himself. Keeping his sister away from the Devils was smart. Wish I’d done that with my mom. I’ve had to hear way too many jokes from half the team about how much they want to fuck her.

“Was that your mom’s new boyfriend?” Knox asks.

“Not talking about it.”

The guy with salt-and-pepper hair and a trimmed beard kept his palm on my mother’s lower back even when she introduced him to me and he held out his hand.

He didn’t flinch when I squeezed too hard, his smile too wide whenever he looked at my mom.

He couldn’t take his eyes off her, but that doesn’t mean shit.

Men never can. Most women too. People can never take their eyes off me either, but that doesn’t mean any of them want me for anything more than the pleasure they fantasize about me giving them.

Mom told me his name, but I’ve already forgotten it. He’ll be gone by next week.

On the other side of the road, a girl hurries down the sidewalk.

Thin jacket doing nothing to protect her from the onslaught of the sleet, hood pulled up and long, blonde hair spilling out.

She keeps her arms clutched to her chest, but she’s walking into the sleet and it’s not showing any signs of letting up.

What the fuck is she doing out here? The weather’s shitty and it’s after eleven. She must be heading back to campus from the Sigma Chi party, but she should’ve at least gotten a ride.

If I offer her one, she’ll spot three giant hockey players in the car and run screaming in the other direction.

I grit my teeth. No one can make things fucking easy for me tonight, can they?

“You know your mom’s a grown woman, right? She can take care of herself.” Knox hits Play on his phone, the first few notes instantly recognizable, and I clench my jaw. A song about a guy who wants to fuck his friend’s mom. “If she wants to get laid, she’ll get laid.”

I punch the stereo off. “Shut the fuck up, Rockefeller.”

He grins. “I’ll be your new stepdad if you want.”

From the backseat, Finn chuckles. I’m torn between punching Knox in the face and laughing, biting back the smile threatening to sneak across my lips.

He’s the only person who can get away with talking shit to my face.

The only person who talks shit to make you laugh, not laugh at you. “You’re an asshole.”

Too late, I spot the near-transparent patch of ice on the side of the road. Just before our tire hits it.

My throat constricts, brain going numb and mind emptying as the tires slide, the steering wheel unresponsive in my iron grip.

Shit, shit, shit ? —

The car spins, rear tires kicking out and squealing. Sending us hurdling off the road into the darkness.

Every muscle in my body stiffens, bracing for impact.

Knox murmurs some useless prayers, and the last thing I hear before the deafening, metallic crunch is the word Finn mutters. “ Fuck .”

Dead .

I have to be dead. No other explanation for the unforgiving, frigid ice coating my back.

A honey scent wafts up my nose, a soft tickle tracing gently over my cheek.

Something warm wraps around my hand. Gentle and small.

“ Please .” A frantic whisper. “Please wake up.”

When I finally manage to wrench my eyes open, a girl with round, brown eyes peers down at me, terrified. Her pale blonde hair sticks to her head, wet from the sleet that’s stopped falling, and whispers over my skin. Her tiny hand squeezes mine like she can bring me back to life.

But I’m not dead. The ice at my back isn’t the cold of death—it’s the frozen pavement. The silent, abandoned road we took on the way back to the hockey house. Not a single pair of headlights approaches at this time of night.

The girl from the sidewalk. She must’ve seen the accident and run over to help.

If she wasn’t out here, if all three of us stayed unconscious in that car, who knows what could’ve happened to us.

A few blinks and I can finally make out her features in the dim light.

My heart damn near stops.

The girl we saw on campus last semester from the quad. Who we saw in the dining hall when Sienna and Juliet transferred to Diamond. The girl who captured our attention, who engraved herself in our minds without a single word or glance in our direction.

She’s nearly unrecognizable with her hair soaked and sticking to her face, most of her features cloaked in shadow. I didn’t think we’d ever see her again, but here she is. Here when we need her most.

Our angel. In the hands of her Devils. “Finally.”

“What?” Confusion is adorable on her, scrunching up her nose and squinting those mesmerizing amber eyes.

“We found you.”

This is the part where she should turn into putty in my hands. Where she should smile and whisper that she’s been searching for us too.

Instead, she straightens her shoulders. “Listen, I think you must’ve hit your head in that accident. Do you know what day it is?”

“The day I finally get to meet you.”

Her eyes narrow. “Yeah, you definitely have some sort of brain injury. Can you get up? I sure as hell can’t lift you.”

“What happened?”

“Your car slid on ice and hit the barricade.”

Behind her, smoke wafts up to the night sky. Gasoline clogs my nostrils, overpowering the sweet honey smell of her. The engine is smoking.

My heart nearly bursts out of my chest as I jerk upright. “Finn, Knox?—”

“They’re okay.”

From the passenger seat, Finn helps Knox out of the car. She must’ve woken Finn first and he pulled me out. Knox is conscious, but he’s limping and leaning his weight on Finn. Is that from the game earlier or the accident?

Fuck . I nearly killed my teammates. My buddies. My brothers.

I grit my teeth. If anyone should be hurt right now, it should be me. But a quick examination tells me I don’t have a scratch on me.

Sirens wail, and our angel nods at me like she can read my thoughts. “I called 911.”

Before I can ask for her name or thank her, Finn races to me, grabbing my arm and tugging me to my feet.

She straightens, and I tower over her. Someone like me should be protecting her, but she’s the one who saved my ass.

Our angel saved me. All of us.

“We need to get the fuck away from the car before the engine explodes,” she warns.

Dark, thick smoke billows from the engine now. Oil must’ve caught fire. She’s right—if the engine blows, we’ll be caught in the shrapnel.

I grab her hand to pull her with me to the sidewalk, to safety. This time, I’m not letting her out of my sight.