Page 33 of Sinful Mafia Santa

If, if, if… A fraction of a second here, a quarter of an inch there, anything would have made a difference. There were a million ways I could have saved him. One fucking path that let him die.

I stumble against a shelf of gloves, new ones, stiff. I throw one against the wall with all my strength, feeling the tendons torque in my elbow. A professional athlete would take care not to wreck his arm. I’m no athlete anymore. I’m just an owner.

I throw three more gloves, then knock down a rack of helmets.

Ican’tgo on that ice. I can’t skate with Aeryn like some lovesick kid. I can’t pretend that Logan’s blood hasn’t seeped into the fucking foundation of Aces Arena.

He’s the reason I bought the team, instead of playing until I was too old to lace up skates. He’s the reason I run Kynk, instead of a sports bar where all our friends could hang around and shoot the shit. He’s the reason I should have walked away from Aeryn at the Great Room bar, and he’s the reason I took her home, and he’s the reason I’ll never get to have her again.

I roar like a bull and head back to destroy the Aces’ skates on their goddamn, fucking shelves.

13

AERYN

For the first time since I met Gage Rider fifteen years ago, I don’t know who the hell he is.

When Logan called us from the draft to say he’d been chosen by the Aces, he put Gage on the phone, saying, “They’re taking Rider too! Say hello to Gage!” I said, “Hello, Gage,” and that felt right.

When Logan bought out the first row at center ice for their debut game in the NHL—both rookies called up on the same day—he dragged Gage over to the glass before the game and shouted, “Wish us luck!” I wished them luck, and that was right too.

When Logan and Gage moved into the Beach Avenue house, Da ordered me to come down from New York, telling me to set up a kitchen for “the boys” and make them their first meal. I asked Gage his favorite, and I made lasagna instead of Granny’s lamb stew, which is what Logan would have named—another thing so right I never thought to question my decision.

I flirted with Gage every time I came to visit.

I took him up on his offer, when he caught me with my hand down my pants.

I stayed in Atlantic City for all of winter break, instead of heading back to my apartment and my classmates and my life in New York.

I let him tie me up. Gag me. Blindfold me. Break me and put me back together and leave me begging for more, more, more.

All those things wereright.They were what I wanted. What I needed. How I fit Gage Rider into my life.

But I don’t know what to do with the man who just raged into the locker room now. I don’t know how to reach him. How to keep him.

It seems like such a simple thing: Skate with me to the center of the ice. He put on his first skates when he was three. There’s a room filled with equipment back there; there must be forty pairs just his size. He’s fit. He’s capable. God knows he has the stamina of a firefighter.

But he won’t do it.

Can’tdo it?

It doesn’t matter anymore.

I turn my back on the rink and make my way down the tunnel.

The locker room looks like a tornado swept through. Three benches stand on end, leaning against walls where someone—Gage—threw them. A floor-to-ceiling mirror is destroyed, a star of shattered glass bursting from the center, slammed by Gage’s fist or his head or one of the benches he tossed. The announcements on the team bulletin board are shredded into confetti.

None of that matters.

What matters is the locker in the middle of the wall. The trampled sweater with the number 23. The broken shelf, hanging by one bent nail. The skates collapsed like burst balloons, blades buried in the floor.

The photos look like they’ve been thrown against the wall. Both frames are shattered. The team pic is bent almost in half.

It’s juststuff. Nothing that matters. Logan isn’t buried here. His memory will live on, even without the locker-room shrine.

But his ruined locker tells me what I need to do. It’s time to go back to Chicago. To forget about Atlantic City, about New York, about Gallagher Samson and restaurants and Kynk. That part of my life is over now. Forever.

I’m Aeryn Reardon. It’s time for me to go home.