Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

ELENNA

I scoured my hands. Once. Twice. The blood wouldn’t wash away.

I scrubbed at them until they were pink, rinsed off the soap and turned off the water.

Finger by finger, I dried them on the thick grey hand towel that hung beside the sink.

Hands raised in front of my face, I looked them over, scrutinising every centimetre of red, raw skin. Here and there, they’d started to peel from frequent washing.

Weeks had passed, but they still didn’t feel clean. Weeks since I put a gun to a man’s head and pulled the trigger. Weeks since Oscar Fiorelli’s brains and blood were blown apart, flecks of both splattered on my fingers, my palms, my wrists.

He’d struggled, fought, tried to scream. Bound to a chair as he was, gagged with duct tape, he didn’t stand a chance. He’d given up the right to one the moment he killed my brother, Ike.

Revenge. An eye for an eye. He deserved what he got, fear and death, but it was me who lived that moment over and over. It occupied my thoughts, my dreams.

Regrets? If I hadn’t killed him, Aidan would have. Oscar’s fate was decided the moment he put a gun to my brother’s head and pulled the trigger. It didn’t matter if he did it under orders, or for shits and giggles. The fact was, he did it and that couldn’t, didn’t go unpunished.

I stepped out of the relative quiet of the bathroom and into the chaos of the hockey arena. Arms wrapped around myself, I followed the sound of shouting and the clash of sticks, back to the rink. Eyes on the ice, I stepped through the open glass doors and back into my chair.

"What the fuck do you think you’re doing?" Aidan roared. "You’re supposed to be playing hockey, not tiddlywinks."

I scanned the rink, but wasn’t sure which of the players he was yelling at. Possibly all of them.

Coast Riggs, the Dusk Bay Demons’ first line centre, skated to a stop and turned around to grin. "Sorry, Coach. Javey is having a hard time telling the difference." He pointed a gloved hand at one of the other players.

Javey spluttered, but flipped him off, his thick glove thickening and accentuating his finger. "I have no idea what tiddlywinks is."

Coast’s grin undiminished, he skated backward toward the goal. He offered Phoenix DiMarco, the team’s goalie, a fist bump.

Phoenix shook his head, but tapped his glove against Coast’s before his attention was back on practice. He looked straight ahead, kneeling on his knee pads, legs apart, face focused.

Chuckling, Coast glided back to the centre circle, ready to face off against the second line centre.

Aidan glared at them and muttered something about fucking idiots.

I scooped up my laptop and opened it onto my current work in progress.

"Doing more research?" Finley Howard, equipment manager for the Demons, slipped into a chair beside me.

I glanced over at the redhead and smiled briefly. "Aidan wouldn’t appreciate it if I put him in a book."

"You can put me in a book." Finley sat back and crossed his legs at his knees. "Don’t forget to mention how handsome I am." The smile he gave me was warm, brilliant blue eyes shining. "Especially the part about abs a person could do all their washing on."

My eyes dipped.

His smile widened. "I’m glad you noticed."

I looked back up quickly. "Who says I’m writing a hockey romance anyway? I might be writing gridiron, or rugby. Or a book about a hot doctor who seduces his gorgeous patient."

"If you want hot, you’ve come to the right place." He rested his hands in his lap, but his gaze lingered on me. Blue eyes seemed to see right into my soul, warming me from the inside until my face heated too.

I swallowed, but I couldn’t resist the tease. I gestured towards the rink. "Exactly."

He chuckled, knowing he walked right into that. "I guess some of them are okay. They’d do better if they won a game or two."

"You see that?" Aidan shouted. "That’s called a puck. That thing in your hand, the stick, you’re supposed to hit the puck with it."

I winced, but Finley snorted softly.

"Aidan is in a right mood today." His voice was brushed with a faint Irish lilt that both lulled me and made my skin tingle.

"When is he not in a right mood?" I asked.

"When the team wins?" Finley suggested. "Given they lost their last four games, not recently."

"They’ll turn things around." Right now, the Dusk Bay Demons were the worst team in the AIHL, the Australian Hockey League. A fact none of them forgot, especially their head coach.

According to Aidan, the team’s owner recently threw a bunch of money at them. Outwardly, to recruit new, better players and replace old, worn equipment. Given the owner’s last name was Brantley, the injection of funds was likely aimed at better covering up some kind of criminal activity. Whether the team would see a cent was anyone’s guess.

I tried to keep my nose out of Brantley business, having grown up in that lifestyle, but even I thought the team deserved better. The guys worked hard and Aidan was busting his ass, and their asses, to push them to succeed. Losing constantly as they were, that got the whole team noticed. Scrutiny wasn’t ideal for smuggling guns and whatever other shit the Brantley family was into.

"That would make for a good book," Finley remarked. "The worst team in hockey, turning everything around and winning against all odds."

"With a smoking hot head coach and equipment manager?" I asked.

"And a stunning brunette who never misses a game or a practice." He looked me up and down meaningfully. "Just for research, of course."

We both knew why I was here so much. Sooner or later, the Fiorelli family would want revenge for me killing Oscar. The safest place for me was amongst people who worked for the Brantley family. People with the skills to help protect me if I wasn’t able to protect myself.

I’d like to think I could. That if—when—they came after me, I’d be fine. Capable. Deadly.

The lingering feeling of blood on my hands suggested differently.

If I had to kill again, I might freeze. That moment of indecision might be all it took. My enemies wouldn’t hesitate. They would kill me.

That thought sent shivers of fear up and down my spine. I wanted to run, to hide, but I’d done enough of that. Now all I could do was wait.

"Research, of course." I toyed with the ring on my right hand. It was a gift from my parents when I turned twenty-five a couple of years ago. A simple band of white gold, a pale sapphire embedded in the top. I rarely took it off. It reminded me how close we were, even though I didn’t see them so much these days.

It also felt bloodstained.

"All right, take a break," Aidan shouted.

The guys skated to the edge of the rink and stepped off the ice, chatting and teasing each other.

Aidan stomped over to where Finley and I sat and stood with his back against the boards.

"Hard day?" Finley asked.

"It always is with these clowns," Aidan growled. "If they want to come together as a team, they need to smarten the fuck up. They have the talent, but they need to leave it all on the ice."

I closed my laptop. "I’m sure they’re trying?—"

"Not hard enough," Aidan snarled. He closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger.

"At least we know it’s not their equipment," Finley remarked.

"I think half the problem is that they’re too busy thinking with the equipment in their pants and not what’s in their hands or on their feet," Aidan said without opening his eyes.

"You say they’re thinking with their cocks like it’s a bad thing, that you don’t do," Finley said.

Aidan turned and opened his eyes just enough to glare at Finley.

Finley grinned unapologetically. No one else got away with speaking to Aidan like that. If any of the team did, they might only be found if the ice on the rink melted.

"I know how to keep mine under control," Aidan said. "My cock defers to the brain in my head when I tell it to."

Finley turned to me. "That’s another way of saying he’s getting so old, his cock doesn’t work as well as it used to."

"Fuck off," Aidan told him. "Forty-two is not old." He scowled at Finley like he might dispose of him under the ice after all.

"Maybe the team should do one of those team building camps," I suggested, before any blood was shed. I wrung my hands, the sensation that they were coated in it renewed.

Aidan leaned over and grabbed my wrists, his grip warm and solid. "Don’t. That little shit got what he deserved. You need to stop torturing yourself, Elenna. Do you think he would have thought twice about killing you?" His hazel eyes were intent on my face. "He murdered Ike. He probably laughed when he did it. He wore the blood on his hands like a badge of honour. Ike’s blood." He frowned at my still-pink hands.

I looked back at him, contained a flinch, but I said, "I can’t?—"

"Yes, you can." His tone was firm, unyielding. He didn’t give me any more slack than he did one of his players. "You’re stronger than that, Elenna. Smart, beautiful and tough."

I dropped my gaze.

Just for me, Aidan’s people found Oscar, so I could get my revenge. I never asked who, but I wouldn’t have to look too far. Coast and Phoenix, in particular, did jobs for Aidan. They would have gotten a kick out of tying and gagging a Fiorelli.

And now… Now I heard that gunshot in my nightmares. That and the last sounds Oscar made before he died.

My stomach twisted. I should have left the room and let Aidan finish him. He would have done it without blinking and never afforded it another thought. Oscar who? No dark, pleading eyes would feature in his darkest dreams, both awake and asleep.

"It’s easier to hide from someone else than it is to hide from yourself," I said softly.

Finley’s response was immediate: "Don’t hide from yourself." There were few secrets between him and Aidan. They trusted each other as much as they trusted themselves.

"Elenna Christakos is a badass, from a family of badasses. Destined to continue the tradition of badasses. Own what you did. It wasn’t a bad thing. Oscar was a shit who would have killed countless other people. Innocent and otherwise. It was a matter of time before he got a bullet in the head. You did the world a favour. You should be congratulating yourself, not condemning yourself."

"I hate to say Fin is right about anything, but he’s right about this," Aidan said. He tightened his grip on my wrists. He’d leave bruises and he knew it. One of his favourite things was leaving bruises on me. He wasn’t fucking me right if he didn’t. One of the things I loved about him was that he never held back.

"Fin is right about a lot of things, including this," Finley said with a grin. "Aidan should listen to me more often."

"Not if you’re going to refer to yourself in third person." Aidan grimaced. He turned back to me. "Put it behind you, Elenna. Do you think I dwell on every person I’ve killed?"

His voice was low, so only the three of us could hear. Not everyone on the team, or who worked at the arena, knew what he was like. Many saw him as the alphahole head coach and wondered what the fuck I was doing with him.

"To be fair, it gets easier every time," Finley said. "After a while, they start blending together. But you never forget your first. It’s like losing your virginity, you know?"

"I suppose so." I hadn’t forgotten, although now I cringed, remembering who I lost it to. "If you’re suggesting I go out and kill a bunch more people to numb myself…"

"We would one hundred percent support you," Finley said.

Aidan groaned. "He’s right again. Can you stop fucking doing that?" He glanced over at Finley who chuckled in response.

"I can stop being right as easily as you can stop being an asshole."

"I’m not an asshole, I just don’t tolerate dickheads," Aidan said. "With the exception of you."

Finley laughed louder now. "Ouch, burn. You tolerate me because we’re more alike than you want to admit. And I know all your deepest, darkest secrets. You know what they say."

"Keep your friends close and your enemies closer?" Aidan asked.

"Something like that." Finley grinned. "Especially when they have more blackmail material on you than most people."

"Never forget the opposite is true." Aidan turned away from him, back to me. "I’ll do whatever you need to help you get past this. Hell, you can kill half the team if it would make you feel better."

"That would be good for team morale," Finley said sarcastically.

"Yeah, but we could replace them with competent players." Aidan sighed. "Which they will be, once I lick them into shape."

"Go lick them," I said. "I’ll be right here." I rubbed my wrists when he let them go and moved away.