Page 39 of Triplets for the Pucking Playboys (Forbidden Fantasies #18)

My hands are shaking so hard I almost rip the paper in half.

Instead, I crumple it, jam it into the pocket of my jacket, and stare out at the empty lot.

The sun is setting, bleeding color from the sky.

I take a breath, then another. I have no idea what happens next, but for the first time in a long time, I know exactly where I stand.

I walk back to the building, head down, and think about Sage. I think about the look on her face when she passed the locker room, the way she never slowed, never flinched, even when the whole world was waiting for her to break.

I think about what it means to fight for something, and how sometimes the only way to win is to keep showing up.

Even when the odds are stacked, and your name is the one in red.

By the time I make it back to the main building, the lights are down in half the facility, which means either a fire drill, a money-saving initiative, or somebody in operations fell asleep at the fuse box again.

I hit the training suite first—empty, just a faint echo of disinfectant and the ghostly imprint of Sage’s shadow on the rubber flooring.

The clipboard is missing from its rack, which means she’s not planning to come back tonight.

I check the recovery room anyway, but it’s just the red glow of the mini-fridge and a pile of unclaimed towels.

In the nutrition station, her assistant is hunched over a spreadsheet, eyes rimmed with exhaustion.

“Have you seen Moretti?” I say, trying to sound casual, but the words come out with a crack.

She looks up, then down at her phone, as if this might be a test. “She left early,” the assistant says.

“Said she had…something.” There’s a question at the end of the sentence, but I don’t answer it.

I’m already walking away, punching my thumb into the screen and texting Grey, then Finn. Call me. Urgent.

It’s five minutes before they both reply, three words each: Where r u?

I drop a pin for my apartment and tell them I’ll be there in fifteen.

The drive is a blur. By the time I hit the elevator I can see Grey’s silhouette through the frosted glass at the end of the hall, already waiting, pacing the corridor like a wolf in quarantine.

He doesn’t say anything when I let him in, just walks straight to the kitchen, grabs two beers from the fridge, and hands me one.

His face is unreadable, but the way his hand shakes when he cracks the bottle says more than he ever will.

Finn shows up four minutes later, eyes wild, like he’s ready to punch the first thing that moves.

We sit around my kitchen table, the time stamp printout in the middle, crumpled but legible.

Nobody touches it at first. I explain what I heard—Talia’s voice, the way she talked about “pattern-building,” the way she said Sage would “never work in a professional league again.” I try to keep my own voice flat, but it’s hard.

Every time I say Sage’s name, something in my chest tightens, like a muscle caught mid-spasm.

Grey is silent for a long time, just picking at the label on his bottle, but I can see the calculation running behind his eyes.

Finn, on the other hand, goes off like a firework: “Fucking hell. This is total bullshit, Beau. They don’t care what’s true—they just want to be rid of her.

” He stabs the table for emphasis, as if the paper might leap up and argue back.

I point to the highlighted line with my name on it. “They’re not just going after her,” I say. “They’re making a list. We’re all on it.”

Finn leans back, runs both hands through his hair, and stares at the ceiling. “So what do we do?” he says. “We just sit here and let them hang her out to dry?”

Grey finally looks up, and his eyes are steel. “We go on the offensive. If they’re watching us, we make sure they see what we want them to see. We don’t run. We don’t hide. We make it impossible for them to spin this.”

I nod. The logic is brutal, but it makes sense. “We can’t let them control the story,” I say. “If we try to lay low, it’ll look like we have something to hide. If we get loud, if we make this public before they can frame it, maybe we have a shot.”

Finn snorts, not unkindly. “You want a fucking press conference?” He’s half serious, half mocking, but I can tell he’s already game-planning the media angles in his head.

“No,” I say, “but we need to talk to Sage. In person, somewhere safe. Somewhere public, but not a circus.” I look at Grey, who is already pulling up his phone and scrolling through a list.

“There’s a place,” he says. “Marcello’s.

Upscale, but not too upscale. Players bring their families there.

It’s not on the team radar, but the booths are private.

Nobody will look twice if we’re there.” He meets my gaze, and for the first time tonight, I see a glint of optimism.

“We do it tomorrow. Early dinner. If Sage is on the outs, they’ll want to spin it before the weekend.

We get her there, and we plan the next move. ”

Finn grins, all teeth. “I like it. Old-school mob shit.”

I finish my beer, crumple the empty in my fist, and toss it at the bin. It misses, but nobody laughs. I grab my phone and text Sage, fingers flying. Dinner tomorrow? Just us. Need to talk.

The typing bubbles pop up, then disappear. I wait, breath held, heart stuttering in my chest. I can picture her in her apartment, pacing the floor, deciding whether or not to trust me. After what feels like an hour, the response comes: Okay. Where?

Marcello’s. 7 p.m.

She doesn’t reply for a long time. When she does, it’s just one word: Yes.

I look at Grey, then Finn. “She’s in,” I say.

Grey nods, slow and deliberate. Finn just grins wider.

Marcello’s is one of those old city Italian joints that thinks it’s above the tourist traffic—dim track lighting, tables so far apart you could run a covert op between booths, black napkins rolled with surgical precision.

The main floor hums with a low-level static of polite conversation and the kind of laughter you only hear when money isn’t a variable.

They know us here, or at least they know Grey, who shows up a half hour early and secures a table in the corner, partly screened by a three-tier wine rack and a potted olive tree that looks older than the city itself.

Finn and I arrive together, me in a clean button-down and Finn in what looks like a brand-new crewneck, tags still scratching the back of his neck.

We banter at the bar for a while—Finn orders two gin and tonics, nurses his until the ice is gone, and tells me stories about how in Sweden, this would all be happening over a backyard barbecue with everyone’s grandmothers in attendance.

“Here, is more…how you say, cold? Like we are all at someone’s funeral, but everyone is too polite to mention the coffin. ”

I laugh, but it’s brittle. My eyes keep flicking to the entrance, waiting for Sage, and every time the door opens and it’s not her, my chest does this microcollapse, a warning sign that even the best plans can’t stave off disaster.

She arrives at exactly 7:03, just late enough to be noticed, just early enough not to be strategic.

She’s in a simple dress, hair styled loose.

Her eyes are bright, but there are violet bruises underneath—two days’ worth of sleep lost in one week.

She clocks all three of us in one glance, nods to the hostess, and heads straight over, skipping the usual preamble.

The moment she sits, Finn launches in with a toast. “To four people, one table, and nobody else’s bullshit.” He raises his glass, makes us all clink, then downs half the gin in one go.

Grey laughs, then flags the sommelier and orders a bottle of something none of us can pronounce. “It’s not on the menu,” he tells Sage. “But it should be.”

She smiles. “That’s dangerous, coming from you.”

We order food—antipasti, two plates of pasta, one steak for Finn (“rare, or I walk”), and a side of roasted broccoli because Sage claims it “makes her feel human.” Nobody mentions the time stamp sheet.

Nobody says “Talia” or “Ryland” or even “team.” Instead, we talk about the worst locker room pranks in Storm history, about how Beau once convinced a rookie to eat a Carolina Reaper on camera, about the time Finn got locked out of his hotel room naked except for a towel and made three new friends in the process.

Grey tells a story about a high school playoff game in Helsinki, the time his team lost by fifteen goals, but he still ended up in the local paper because he rescued the Zamboni driver’s daughter’s cat from the arena rafters.

Each story is a shield, a way to build a wall around the table so that nothing from the outside can get in.

I watch Sage through all of it. At first her shoulders are up around her ears, eyes darting every time a server walks by.

But after the second glass of whatever shiny mocktail she’s drinking because she’s not in the mood for alcohol, and after Finn makes her choke-laugh by doing a pitch-perfect impression of our equipment manager’s Canadian accent, she finally leans back and lets herself smile.

She catches me watching, and for a second, neither of us looks away.

There’s a gravity to it, like the world narrows to just the four of us and the empty space between our knees under the table.

I want to tell her that none of the shit outside this booth matters, not if we don’t let it.

I want to tell her that I’ll burn the whole program down before I let them take her apart.

Instead, I say, “How’s the broccoli?”

She raises an eyebrow, spears a floret, and takes the tiniest possible bite. “Life-affirming,” she deadpans. “Better than the IV nutrition shakes, but only barely.”

Finn groans. “Those things are war crimes. We should make a documentary just on the taste.”

“We’d have to get clearance,” says Grey. “But I know a guy.”

We laugh, and for a minute, it almost feels normal. The food arrives, the wine (and mocktails) keep flowing, and every time I look at Sage, she seems a little less brittle, a little more like herself.

Halfway through the meal, Finn leans in and lowers his voice, like he’s telling a secret.

“You know, in Sweden, there’s a word for this.

Not the food, not even the drinking. Just…

this.” He gestures at the four of us, at the table, at the way the booth curves around like a fortress.

“It’s called gemenskap . It means you belong, but more.

You are not alone. Even if you fuck up, or you lose, or somebody wants to ruin your life, you still have this. You still have us.”

The table goes quiet. Sage looks down at her plate, and for a moment, I think she might cry. But then she wipes her mouth, sets down her fork, and says, “Is there a word for ‘I might get fired and take all my friends with me’?”

Grey chuckles. “Not in Swedish,” he says, “but I think that’s called being a legend.”

We toast again, this time with more laughter and less fear.

When the dessert menu comes, we order tiramisu for the table.

I watch Sage eat, small precise bites, and think about everything she’s done for us—the treatments, the late-night rehabs, the times she’s taped our ankles or stitched up a gash without so much as a wince.

I think about how the world only ever sees the results, not the effort.

How easy it is for someone like Talia to erase a person just by writing enough emails.

I think about Finn, who’s been playing on a shredded rotator cuff for two months and hasn’t told anyone except Sage.

I think about Grey, who’s never once missed a practice but has a stack of unopened medical bills in his locker, and how Sage floats them past Ryland’s desk every week to keep them from going to collections.

I think about myself, and the way I can barely string together two decent shifts without her there to reset my head.

I think about how maybe, in another world, the four of us could have had this without the threat of disaster hanging overhead. Maybe it would have just been dinner, and nobody would be counting the hours until they had to go back to war.

The check comes, and Grey grabs it before anyone else can. “Team unity,” he says, not quite smiling.

As we get up to leave, I sense the crack in the armor, the reminder that outside Marcello’s, the world is still waiting. The others file out ahead, but I lag behind, clearing the last of the espresso from the cup with my finger, stalling for a few extra seconds in the glow of the table.

That’s when I notice the movement at the far end of the restaurant.

Talia, in a dark suit, seated at a table with two men I recognize from the board meetings.

She’s not eating, not even pretending. She’s just watching, eyes fixed on our group, a faint curl of satisfaction at the edge of her mouth.

The moment our eyes meet, she lifts her glass in a slow, mocking toast, then turns her attention back to her companions.

The air in my lungs goes cold. I shove my hands into my pockets, clench until the pain grounds me, and follow the others out into the night. Grey is standing by the curb, arms crossed, scanning the street for threats. Finn is texting someone. Sage is standing a little apart, eyes on the sidewalk.

I walk over, bump her shoulder with mine. “You okay?” I say, and this time I mean it in a way that goes beyond the question.

She nods. “Yeah,” she says. “For now.”

I want to tell her about Talia. I want to tell her that we’re being hunted, that it’s already started, but I know she already knows. So I just stand there, next to her, and wait for the others to fall in line.

When we walk back to our cars, we go together. Four across, shoulders touching, eyes forward, daring anyone to try and take us apart.