Page 3 of These Wicked Games (Wicked Sins #1)

“Oli, I thought you were better than this.” I swallow hard, trying to make sense of this. The label. That’s Andre’s cup, but the label. That’s not right. My name is written across the label. “If you need help, you should have come to us—”

“No!” I shout, standing up. I can’t fucking breathe. “There’s a mistake, that’s not mine, I—”

“Oli,” Tripp barks. “If you need help, we’ll get you help.”

“No, no wait, I know that’s not mine, the hearts, it’s Andre’s, that’s Andre’s cup, he—”

Tripp silences me with a hand. “If you need help, I get it. You’ve been going through a lot with your mother—”

“No, no wait, what?”

“But blaming my son, your friend . . . I’m really disappointed.”

I can’t think straight. This isn’t right, this doesn’t make fucking sense. My cup, it’s . . . that’s not. “We’ll get you started in a program,” the doctor says. “Until you complete your program, though, we’ll have to suspend you.”

“What?!” I stand. “This isn’t fucking right! That’s not my fucking cup!”

“One more word and I’ll kick you off this team!” Tripp barks.

My mouth snaps shut. There’s no fucking way. Then I remember . . . my mother’s phone call. Andre. He took my cup. He . . . He . . .

No.

He wasn’t worried at all about the test. In fact he was calm.

He switched my fucking cup. He took the labels and switched them.

Rage pools inside me, filling my veins, my nerves, my goddamn bloodstream. I feel like I’m bleeding out, the blade of betrayal slicing my jugular. I can’t believe this. I can’t fucking believe this! “I need you to come to the arena on Monday—”

“Retest me. Right now. Right fucking now!”

“Oli—”

“No. This is bullshit—”

“We’ll help you. These things happen.” Dr. Wexel looks at Tripp, my coach. This doesn’t make sense . “Monday, come to the arena and we’ll go over the next steps. ”

I can’t be suspended. I can’t afford to miss games! I can’t fucking believe this.

“Coach, please, there’s been a mistake. You don’t understand, I need—”

“That’s enough, Oli,” he says, and I know he won’t budge. The hurt shines in his eyes. I’ve let him down, or he thinks I have. “We’ll figure this out Monday.” We have four upcoming games. I can’t afford to lose that income. Fuck. This doesn’t make sense.

I feel like I’m shaking, and my eyes sting.

I can’t fucking believe this. I can’t! Slowly I get up.

I feel like I’m vibrating, like all of my atoms are getting shaken up, but also so fucking numb at the same time.

I’m freezing, my blood turns to ice. The Viper scouts will be there tomorrow night.

They . . . My mother. No, this is . . . I look back at them and I know they won’t help me.

With shaky fingers I open the door, and swallowing hard I head back to the locker room to grab my bag. I can’t begin to wrap my mind around this. Walking toward my locker, I faintly hear the locker room door open, and I think—I hope—it’s Tripp or Dr. Wexel telling me they did make a mistake.

Instead, red smokes my vision as Andre walks into the room. “Hey are you ready—whoa, whats going on?”

I lunge.

Gripping Andre by the collar of his shirt I slam him into the wall. A grunt forces it’s way out of his lips. “What the fuck!”

“You fucking prick! You backstabbing motherfucker!” I swing, but he’s not expecting it and my fist collides with a crack. “You fucking snake! ”

“What the fuck, Oli!” He grips my fists, now bunched in his shirt. I feel manic. Blood pours down his face. I think I broke his nose. “What are you doing?!”

“The fucking cups! The labels!” I swing again but he dodges. My fist connects with the hard wall. Pain ricochets through my hand.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” he screams, blocking my punches. I’m too mad. Adrenaline coats every single hit and move I make.

“You switched the fucking labels!” I lunge again, tackling him to the ground. I swing, and I don’t stop. I think I black out. I’m just punching and punching.

I faintly register being pulled off him. Security hauling me away. Andre’s face covered in blood. I definitely broke his nose. I’m heaving. He ruined everything!

My best friend betrayed me. It took an army of security officers to peel me off him. I’m kicked out of the arena, but thankfully, I guess, Andre and Tripp don’t press charges. My career, as I saw it, is over.

That year I don’t make it onto the Vipers’ team.

In fact I don’t make it to the NHL for another five years until the Otters—sixth in the western conference—sign me during my time on their AHL team, the Washington Redwoods.

Washington signed me despite my “drug history,” and I guess I should be grateful.

No, I am. I am grateful, because after I beat the absolute shit out of Andre I was kicked off the Titans.

I finished that bullshit substance abuse program and the Redwood’s signed me nearly a year later, and while the Titans dropping me set me back, it didn’t matter—I didn’t want to be on the same team as him.

Not that I would have had to play with him for long anyway, because Andre got signed by the end of that season.

To the fucking Vipers.

My dream team.

Everything I worked for vanished into smoke because of him. Even though I did eventually get signed, the dreams for my mother died right alongside her nearly five months after I got kicked off the Titans.

I like to believe she didn’t think it was me. I want to believe she believed me when I told her it was Andre who switched our cups. She told me she did, but there was always this doubt in her eye.

“It’s okay to be stressed, zvezdochka”

Despite how much I protested, she’d give me this pitying smile.

The team I grew up watching, and idolized, now has my enemy on their roster.

I can’t even watch their games anymore. Everything got fucked up—my plans, my mother’s life, and the dreams I made for myself and her.

I get tested more frequently than other players.

Even ten years later, with consistent negative tests.

It’s a fucking joke. I don’t understand any of it.

For a while I was angry, and I let that anger consume me.

Then I started to bottle and collect it.

It fueled me to be the best.

And I did.

I am.

After I was picked up by the Washington Redwoods, I got paid peanuts, but I still worked three times as hard as any other player.

Then I got a multimillion-dollar contract with Oregon, and re-signed last year on a hundred-million-dollar contract for eight years.

My mother passed away in a hospital with me by her side, and when I bought a home in Oregon I brought my mother’s ashes home with me.

She always wanted a big bay window in a kitchen and that’s the first renovation I made. It’s where her ashes sit now.

Andre ruined my life. I don’t even mourn the friend I lost because it was all bullshit.

He used me. Thankfully I don’t have to see him much, only when we play the Vipers, and that’s when I take all that rage and spill it on the ice.

They haven’t won a game against us since I was signed. I refuse to let him beat me again.

I hate him more than anything, and some days it’s only that hate that fuels me.