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15

Isaac

“Y ou don’t call, you don’t text. No one’s posted on social media lately about you saving old ladies or helping puppies cross the street. Where the hell have you been?” Judah asked me as we sat on the bench, lacing up our skates.

I tugged them extra tight in frustration. “I can’t be a hero every day,” I said, but winced at the strain in my voice.

Levi joined us, dropping down on the bench to put on his skates, too. “You know, my brother likes to give you shit for girl trouble, but there’s girl trouble and there’s girl crisis.”

I sighed, rubbing my temples. “Sometimes I wish you weren’t fucking psychic.”

“What fun would that be?” Judah asked.

I hesitated. I tended to be a closed book around most of my friends, because it was safer that way. But I could tell them what was going on without telling them who I was. So I cleared my throat. “Tovah Kaufman is living with me.”

Levi raised an eyebrow like he was impressed. “That was fast.”

Judah laughed. “He’s been hyperfocused on her for over a year now. Doesn’t seem that fast to me. How’s the sex? I’ve heard she’s?—”

My hand fisted. “Don’t talk about her that way.”

Judah raised his own. “No harm meant. Girl has a reputation, that’s all.”

I forced myself to relax my fingers. Fuck. Why was I defending her this way? Had the little snoop gotten under my skin that quickly? But then Judah was right; she’d crept her way under there long before she tried to blackmail me.

Speaking of which, I needed to talk to the team about that. Give them a heads up and get their help.

“Gentlemen, what’s with the dawdling? Practice started five minutes ago,” Coach said, blowing his whistle. Jack stood beside him, eyes trained on me.

Ah damn. Lowering my voice, I said, “the crisis applies to all of us.”

“Let’s talk on the ice,” Levi said, and rising, we entered the rink. The four of us found each other, doing hip and quad stretches.

“What’s going on?” Jack asked.

“Tovah knows about Vice and Vixen.”

Judah and Levi glanced at each other. Jack looked pissed.

“We’re out of that game,” he said. “I thought we’d agreed on this already.”

“We did,” I said, continuing to stretch. “But Tovah got evidence of it and was planning on writing an article about it. So I uh, kind of kidnapped her and blackmailed her into living with me so I can keep an eye on her.”

It was almost comical, the way all three of my friends’ mouths dropped open. Judah had frozen in a lying quad stretch, like a statue of a hockey player mid hump.

“I’m sorry,” Jack said in a choked voice. “You ‘kind of’ kidnapped her? How do you ‘kind of’ kidnap someone?”

“You kind of chase them down on the street, throw them in the trunk of your car, drive them home, lock them in your house, and handcuff them to you at night so they can’t get away from you,” I mumbled under my breath, but given the acoustics of the arena, all three heard me.

After another frozen moment, my friends started stretching again.

“Well, I guess that’s one way to court someone,” Judah said.

“She was going to write an article exposing all of us. It’s less of an issue for those of you who were already drafted, but for the younger guys…well, it could fuck up everything for them. Not to mention for the Kings going forward,” I said, somewhat defensively. “I did it for the team.”

“Sure, for the team,” Judah repeated, raising an eyebrow.

“It is a major issue,” Levi argued.

“Doesn’t mean we can’t call his motivation into question,” Judah argued back.

Coach blew his whistle for laps. Jack skated over to me and helped me up.

“She’s really done a number on you, hasn’t she. Talk to me about what she knows.”

As we skated, I walked him through everything that had happened since stalking her to Sebastian’s apartment. Jack listened without interrupting, his blades moving on the ice.

When I was done and we’d moved onto drills, he said, “What’s the plan?”

I shook my head as we practiced some stick handling. “I need the team to take turns watching her, escorting her to class and newspaper meetings when I’m unavailable. I don’t trust her.” I passed him the puck.

Jack nodded, but he didn’t pass the puck back. “As a heads up: The more time you spend with her? The more you’re going to want her and the harder it’s going to be to let her go.”

He finally passed the puck back to me and I caught it, turning in a circle and shooting the puck toward the net, where Asher stood, waiting.

“That’s what I’m worried about,” I admitted. “But I don’t see a way around it.”

As we set up to scrimmage, I didn’t add that it was probably already too late.

* * *

After practice and I showered and changed, I headed back to my house in my car. On impulse though, I made a left and not a right, headed to the sleazy sex shop in town. If I was going to have Tovah underfoot, and always on my mind, I needed a way to get some of my control back.

As I drove, my infotainment system alerted me that I had an incoming call from my father.

Fuck.

There was only so many times I could ignore the man I hated so completely. Memories appeared: Being forced to learn how to shoot a gun, watching my siblings kill our enemies at young ages. My father having his men beat them for speaking out, talking out of turn, fighting back. Starving me for days when I refused to pick up a gun; hurting my siblings in front of my eyes when I was helpless to stop them. Liza crying in the bathroom as she administered to our cuts and burns and bruises, saying fiercely, “One day, I’ll be in charge. One day, I’ll change everything,” and the rest of us being in too much pain and having too much doubt to even respond to her wild fantasies.

Refusing to kill the son of the man who’d murdered my mother and being punished for it—in ways that left no physical scars, just internal wounds that would never heal.

I refused to be like my father. But that didn’t mean I could avoid him forever.

I finally answered. “Hello, Dad.”

“A real man does not shirk his responsibilities,” my father said immediately.

Guess we weren’t exchanging any pleasantries.

“We made a deal,” I reminded him.

“Yes, and you’ve reneged on your end of it. Refusing to distribute Vice and Vixen is a real issue for the family business. Do I have to remind you what the consequences are?”

“What else can you take from me?” I asked him angrily. “I already have to give up hockey. What else is there?”

He laughed darkly, and I could hear a hint of wild mania in it. My father had never been completely sane. “You might think right now that losing hockey is the worst thing that could ever happen to you. But there are such bigger, more important things and people to grieve.”

Tovah’s pink hair, nose stud, and the strength in her eyes when she refused to bend all flashed in my mind. Was he threatening her? Did he know about her? I swallowed.

“Heard.” I said. “But Vice and Vixen?—”

He interrupted. “I’ll let that go. But there are other things you can do for this family, now. Perhaps it’s time to start considering marriage—the kind of business merger that will fortify our family and its legacy.”

Tovah’s face flashed in my mind again.

“I won’t fucking go along with an arranged marriage,” I told him point blank. “That’s absurd.”

I wasn’t marrying anyone. He knew that. There was only one woman I wanted, and even though she was currently locked away safely in my house, I’d promised myself it was only temporary.

Abe sighed. “Believe this, son. I will do everything and anything, no matter how extreme, to make sure you take your place in this family. You don’t want to push me.”

“Oh, I know,” I said bitterly. “You’ve taught me how little you care about who you hurt to get what you want.”

My father chuckled. “One day, you’ll understand why. I’ll be seeing you for dinner soon, son.”

I hung up without replying.

Damn it.

Pulling into the sex shop, I parked my car, turned it off, and knocked my head against the wheel. The pain helped mitigate some of the frustration.

No, I might not have control in my life outside Reina.

But here, I was king. And I’d make sure to keep it that way.

Starting with Tovah.