1. Hayden

"You"re Hayden fucking Vaughn,"I mutter as sweat drips into my eyes. "Get your shit together."

Seems like I need the goddamn reminder today after missing another shot. My teammates are looking at me like I"ve been body snatched by some asshole who's not the number one scoring defenseman in the league. Maybe I have.

It"s not like I haven"t tried to get the damn thing into the net.

Being off my game is starting to make me violent.

I"ve been working my ass off at this since I was five years old and I"ve been chasing the puck ever since.

I"m good. No, scratch that—I"m great. One of the best defensemen in the NHL, with a reputation for being ruthless on the ice. They call me The Hitman for a reason. I"m not afraid to take out anyone who gets in my way, and it"s earned me respect from my teammates and fear from every team we face.

So why can"t I get my head in the game today?

"Watch out!" one of my teammates shouts as the star forward for the Aces, Kovalenko, comes charging toward me, stick raised high and ready to fire off a one-timer.

Everything slows down. The sound of skates cutting through the ice fades away, the crowd noise quiets to nothing, and all I can hear is my heartbeat pounding in my ears. I know what I need to do—what I always do when a player from the other team is coming at me like this.

Hit him. Hard.

All the frustration that"s been building since the start of the game boils over. I chase him down, checking him from behind right into the boards. He hits with a satisfying crunch and I spit out my mouth guard, grinning over his twisted and still body.

"Next time don't even fucking try," I growl at him as whistles blow and a fight erupts around me. Both benches clear and it's chaos.

Someone punches me in the face, but I barely feel the pain as my teeth slice into my cheek and my head snaps to the side. My mouth fills with blood that I spit onto the ice, staining it red. I whirl around, ready to take on whoever else wants a piece of me, giving one of the Aces players a bloody grin that's all menace.

I dare him to come at me.

This is what I need—what I live for. These moments when I can drop gloves and purge the bad shit out through my fists.

Eventually, the refs and a couple of my cooler-headed teammates break up the fight. I let them lead me away, knowing that we"ve got the game in the bag now. The Aces are pissed and their star forward can"t even skate himself off the ice, but I"m still buzzing with adrenaline as I head to the penalty box. Halfway there, the refs tell me I"m done.

Fucking misconduct penalty.

Eh, it"s not the first time I've been tossed out of a game, probably won't be the last.

One of the trainers hands me a bottle of water and I take it before heading back toward the locker room, feeling a little better. But as I pass by the tunnel, a group of Atlanta fans press against the glass. They"re taunting me for my hit and I stop to flip them off. Fuck them and what they think about me. They have no idea the pressure I'm under or the expectations weighing me down.

Eventually, the game ends, and my blood's boiling. I did everything I could to hand my team this win and they still let the Aces take the W. The monitors in the locker room play the aftermath, and I watch, still pissed about being ejected as they silently skate toward the tunnel to a packed arena throwing shit at them and yelling things that make me want to launch myself into the crowd skates first.

When they make their way into the locker room, I"m waiting for them with a scowl on my face and the need for violence raging in my veins. "What the fuck was that?"

"We lost," O"Sullivan says with a flat voice, shaking his head as he strips off his gear, chucking his helmet into his locker with a loud-ass bang.

I scoff. "Yeah, no shit. But why didn"t you guys fight back? We had a lead and you let them take it away."

"You were ejected," Petrov points out.

"And?" I ask. "I took Kovalenko out. He's their strongest winger. You should"ve pressed the goddamn advantage."

Abrams glares at me. "That"s not how the rest of us want to win."

I open my mouth to bitch at him for being a pussy, but then Coach storms into the locker room and starts tearing into all of us. He doesn"t mention me specifically, but I can see it in his eyes that he"s pissed about what happened on the ice.

As we head out to the bus, I"m still fuming about the loss. It shouldn"t have happened. We"re the best damn team in the league and we should"ve been able to hold on to that lead without me on the ice.

I drop myself into a seat, ignoring the looks from my teammates as I shove earbuds into my ears so I don't have to talk to anyone. Then I pull out my phone and log into my Instagram.

It's not unusual for me to have thousands of notifications and messages, and tonight's no different.

I don"t know what makes me do it. Usually I ignore that shit, especially after a game like this one. But I click into my messages anyway, knowing I shouldn"t. Knowing it's probably a bunch of assholes talking shit like they could ever do what I do, but feeling compelled to check anyway.

I roll my eyes. I don't know why I let these assholes get to me.

Right there at the top is a new message from someone with the username iceprincessxo.

I open it and am drawn immediately to the little icon with her picture in it—long brown hair and bright green eyes, pretty lips curved up in a smile that's equal parts wicked and sweet. My dick's a big fan of this girl's tiny profile pic. She"s stunning, even if she looks like a good girl who wouldn"t know what to do with a guy like me.

But then I read the message attached to the picture and my blood burns.

iceprincessxo: How's it feel knowing you can't win unless you cheat, asshole?

iceprincessxo: If you actually had any skills, you wouldn"t have play dirty.

I stare at those words for a long time, my fingers tightening around my phone as anger surges through me. Who the fuck does this chick think she is? She doesn"t know me or anything about me. She"s just some fan who thinks she can say whatever the hell she wants without consequences.

Well, she"s wrong.

My fingers are flying across the screen before I can stop myself.

hayv29: You don"t know shit about me, princess. And if you don"t want to see dirty hockey, don"t fucking watch the game.

But I pause before I hit send, my thumb hovering over the button.

What the hell am I doing?

It"s not like her opinion matters. She"s just a hockey fan, and obviously not a fan of mine. Still, I can"t seem to let it go. What she said keeps replaying in my head—about how I have to cheat to win—and I can"t shake the feeling that maybe she"s right.

But also... who cares? I am who I am and you can't argue with results.

Instead of sending the message, I click into her profile and scroll through her posts. She doesn"t have many pictures of herself. Most of them are lifestyle shots of what she"s eating or where she"s going. Girl shit no one really cares about.

But there are enough of her that show she"s got tight curves in all the right places. Despite every instinct telling me to look away, I can't.

She doesn"t like me, and she's probably bat shit, considering her message. Still, I can"t stop staring at her photos. One of the Space Needle catches my eye and I realize she lives in Seattle, on the other side of the country, while I"m heading back to Philly.

But as I stare out the window of the bus, watching the lights of Atlanta pass by on our way to the airport, I can"t stop thinking about her. About how much I want the chance to show this woman exactly how much I can really make her hate me.