Page 10 of Wicked Ends (Hellions of Hade Harbor #4)

Marcus

For as long as I could remember, being a Hellion was my dream.

The one thing I’d wanted for myself, separate from my shitty family situation.

If I could be a Hellion, everything else would just fucking work.

Unfortunately, now that I was one, I was getting to see firsthand that nothing was ever that easy in life.

Tomorrow was still going to come, and no amount of college hockey could change my dad and brother’s minds about getting me into the Harbor Hounds.

I was here before I needed to be, like I always was.

I might be the joker of the team, but I was also the workhorse.

I showed up early and stayed late; I helped Coach out when he needed it.

At a young age, I’d learned my value as a person—being useful to others.

If I wasn’t useful, well then, there wasn’t much point in keeping me around.

It had been a hard lesson to learn as I watched my mother leave, and a harder one to stomach when she made her monthly call to ask for money to be sent to her.

Cole didn’t answer the phone, so she called me. The useful one. The fucking clown.

“If you’re of no fucking use to me, Marcus, then why would I need you around?”

My father’s catchphrase would never make it onto a motivational T-shirt, but hey, it was tattooed into my bones for free.

I was suiting up for practice when my phone rang. Cole was calling, and I knew exactly why. I blew out a long breath before picking up.

“Marcus, I need to talk to you about Dad’s parole meeting.”

“Pass. I’m at school.”

“This can’t wait. It’s in a week.”

“Well, good luck with it all. I’ve got to run.”

“Marcus!” My brother’s voice got farther away as I lowered the phone from my ear and disconnected the call.

If there was anything I didn’t want to talk about, it was the prospect of my dad getting out of jail early and being back in town.

My life, as hard as it had been, had only gotten better when he’d gotten locked up for murder.

It was too soon. I was still here; I hadn’t been recruited into the NHL, I hadn’t yet escaped Hade Harbor and his influence.

It was too soon. I hoped the fucker would rot a few more years.

Stepping on the ice felt like home. Not that I was super familiar with that feeling.

We’d lived in a shabby apartment in town back when my mom was still around, then an even shittier one when my father took sole custody.

I’d lived in a group home for a while when my father went down for murder, and then in the cabin on the edge of town that my brother had built, basically from scratch.

Sometimes I slept at The Clutch, or on the sofa of whatever party I was at. Now, I lived in the Hellions’ dorms.

Where I lived had long ago become less about a sense of home and more an idea of where my shit was.

Home, well, that was a concept I was yet to truly understand, but if pressed, I’d say it was here, on the ice.

With white all around and the cool, regulated air of the rink, there was a familiarity and comfort that I could pretend felt like home…

whatever that was supposed to feel like.

The sound of Coach’s whistle blowing had me turning around. My teammates were making their way onto the ice.

“Circle up, now!” Another short blow of the whistle punctuated his command.

I drifted in his direction, skating easily despite my heavy gear and helmet. No one wore as much as the goalie. It was a privileged position, but the loneliest one out there. A useful position.

Coach Williams launched into his plan for the upcoming game in Portland.

He was a great fucking coach. There had been a few times in high school when shit had been happening with my family and I’d considered leaving the team, running the hell away from Hade Harbor and everyone in it, but Coach Williams had had my back.

Honestly, I was jealous of Cade, my buddy and the coach’s daughter’s boyfriend.

Not that I wanted Lily— no, Bug wasn’t my type, too breakable—but because of his relationship with Coach.

Coach called for the start of drills, and we broke.

I took off across the ice toward the middle, where my friends were lining up.

With me being the goalie, my drills were sometimes a little different than those of my best friends, but that didn’t mean I didn’t want to shoot the shit with them.

My friends, for as long as I could recall, had been the highlight of my day.

Between us, we made up the Ice Gods. Gifted at hockey, killer instincts to boot, we worked together like a well-oiled machine and were Hade Harbor’s best chance of winning a trophy.

A couple of figures descended the rows of spectator seats and sank down. I recognized the white-blonde hair of Asher’s new girlfriend. Well, girlfriend, or enemy, which one remained to be seen, but his attention was immediately drawn toward her.

“Keep focused, Ash. Don’t forget, you’re the new guy again,” I teased him.

He shot me a look and pushed off when the puck came toward him, easily guiding it on the ice, taking it exactly where he needed it to go.

It must be nice to have a pretty distraction , I mused as I warmed up.

The memory of Friday night and the woman I’d taken back to my room at The Clutch returned to me.

Arianna. Ari. Birthday girl. I didn’t, as a rule, take anyone back there.

She’d been an exception, but then everything about that night had felt different.

Including the fact that despite my plan to fuck her again in the morning, she’d been gone when I’d opened my eyes.

I left the rink and headed for my motorcycle after practice. The air was cool at night. Regardless, my body felt hot and restless, like it had ever since I’d woken up in the back room of The Clutch on Saturday morning—alone.

I’d planned to roll over and press back inside Arianna first thing. She’d still be wet inside, full of me, slick and warm. I’d fuck her a few times, then drive her home.

But she’d messed up those pleasant plans by tiptoeing out the door at some point. It had pissed me off, and I was even more pissed off when I’d asked around about her and come up blank. No one knew her.

As a rule, I didn’t do relationships, or even repeat performances. There was no point in letting some poor girl think I was interested in her beyond a single night of fun. But Ari had done something no one else had ever managed.

She’d lost interest first… and it was infuriating, honestly.

It really got on my nerves.

My phone vibrated with an incoming call, and I knew it was Cole. He wasn’t going to drop this parole meeting idea. He would make me talk to him at some point, and really, who was I to deny him anything? I owed him everything, and I always would.

Fuck, I needed a distraction. I needed a game to play, to take away my worries and strife.

First, I’d find the girl from the bar. That was a game in itself. Then, we’d play together, or I’d play with her… Either way, a new game could begin. It was the distraction I needed.

The weekend that my mother had walked out on us for good, Frank ad taken us hunting. He preferred to be called Frank over Dad. It was the name he was known and respected by as the president of the Harbor Hounds Motorcycle Club.

He’d always cared more about those guys than his actual family, so it made sense.

He was out all night and came home smelling like motor oil and cheap liquor. He dragged me and Cole out of our beds before dawn and into his truck, driving us deep into the countryside.

He’d been drunk by the time we’d gotten to the campsite. Cole had been nearly silent the entire time, brooding, furious, wanting to be anywhere but here.

I’d still been young enough to care what Frank thought of me. Looking back, I had no idea why. I guess I’d wanted one parent to give a shit about me; it didn’t matter which one.

That was the hunting trip where my sweaty grip had cost me my aim, and my father had taken the gun from me and pronounced me useless.

Then he’d had me go and stand over by the cans we’d been shooting.

“Dad,” Cole had said sharply. “That’s enough.”

“We’re just playing a game. Don’t get worked up about it,” Frank had called to his elder son, while instructing me to put an empty beer can on my head.

“Hold still, Marcus, if you don’t want to get any more holes in that Swiss-cheese brain of yours.”

I’d been so scared, I could have wet my pants if I hadn’t been sure my father never would have let me live it down.

He’d swayed, and Cole had marched over and grabbed the end of his rifle.

“That’s enough,” he’d said through gritted teeth. “You’re too wasted to take the shot. I won’t let you.”

Frank hadn’t liked that one bit. “Oh, won’t you? You think you’re tough shit now that you’re bigger than me? Being bad is about more than feet and inches, boy.”

Frank had pressed the rifle into Cole’s chest.

“If you’re so worried about it, you do it.”

“No way,” my brother had said immediately.

Relief hit me. Cole wouldn’t let this happen. He wouldn’t.

“You do it, or I do it. It’s a game, Cole, and Marcus wants to play. For once, he actually wants to play something interesting and fun. He’s being useful. Don’t ruin it for him.”

“No one is taking that shot.”

Frank had looked over at me and jerked his head toward Cole. “Tell your brother you want to play. Go on.”

Nerves had hit me in the gut. I was already terrified standing there, but now, some insidious need to please Frank had welled up inside me. I couldn’t be the one to back down. I couldn’t be the party pooper. Maybe if I did a good job, my father would finally love me.

God, I was weak, and Frank knew it.

“It’s okay,” I’d told Cole. “I trust you.”

Cole had glared at me with a hint of disgust. “I’m not doing it, Marcus.”

“Then I’ll do it,” Frank had said and jerked the gun back from Cole.

“No, I want Cole to do it,” I’d called out, terrified that my father might get the gun again.

I’d wet my lips and stared my brother in the eye.

“I trust you,” I’d murmured.

Cole had looked like he was being torn in half. And I supposed he was. But he’d picked up the rifle and steadied himself. Then he’d raised it toward me. He’d seemed to don a mantle then, a heavy weight settling across his features.

The pressure and responsibility of keeping me safe had been on his shoulders from that moment on. I owed my brother an unpayable debt, and I could never forget it.