Chapter 36

CHAPTER 36

ELENNA

I pulled on my coat and wrapped my red and blue Demons scarf around my neck.

Inside Finley’s office was warm, but I shivered as though I’d already stepped out into the cold night air. I felt like my skin was covered in goosebumps.

Anticipation and fear of what was to come.

Footsteps sounded in the corridor outside. I turned, expecting to see Finley. Instead, Orion stepped into the room.

"You okay?" He’d changed out of his hockey uniform, showered and was now dressed in black jeans over old, black boots, and a faded grey T-shirt. What was the expression? Sex on legs. That was him.

He laced warm fingers into mine.

"Kind of," I admitted. Apart from the flock of birds flying around in my stomach. And the sweat on the palms of my hands.

"It’s not too late to sit this out," he reminded me. "Go home and take a bath and we’ll deal with it. Or go to Hazards and enjoy the celebration. We’ll join you when this is done."

Both of those options sounded wonderful, but I shook my head. "I’m in this. I’m going to see it through to the end."

He took in my stubborn expression and nodded. "However this goes down, my cabin is still yours if I die."

"You’re not going to?—"

He pressed a finger to my lips. "Let me finish."

He lowered his hand to my cheek and inhaled. As he exhaled, he said, "I want you to know how I feel."

He huffed out the rest of his breath, heavy like he’d run a marathon. "I told you, the minute I laid eyes on you, I knew you were mine. Everything about you is incredible. Your heart, your spirit…" His knuckles ghosted down my cheek, to my neck. "Your body. Even your books."

He looked sheepish when I raised my eyebrows in surprise.

"Yes, I read them. How could I not?" He shook his head. "That doesn’t matter now. What matters is that I need you to know I love you."

"I love?—"

My words were interrupted by a boom. It sounded like it came from near the back of the arena. A moment later, it was followed by shouting and what sounded like gunshots.

"Fuck!" Orion pushed me into a crouch beside Finley’s desk and dropped down beside me.

"What the hell?" I whispered.

He glanced at me but didn’t say anything. We both knew the answer.

Geneva, or Nicholas and Celine, had come after us before we could go after any of them.

"I need to get to the equipment room," Orion whispered. "You stay here."

"I’m coming with you," I said quickly. "If they know the truth of what happened to Oscar, they’re not going to stop until they find me. There’s innocent people left in the arena. I won’t let them get killed while they hunt for me."

"I’m not letting you hand yourself over to them." He looked ready to sneak me out another door, regardless of the consequences.

"I have no intention of doing that either," I said. "We need to find Aidan and Finley. And Sinclair and Wren if they’re still tailing Geneva."

My heart squeezed. Had Geneva seen them? Were they…

I couldn’t let myself finish that thought. My friends would be okay, they had to be.

Orion hesitated, verging on insisting I stay here or get out of the arena. I saw all of that on his face, followed by acceptance.

"Stay behind me," he said simply. "Do what I tell you to do and stay as quiet as you can." He rose and moved slowly towards the door.

More gunshots sounded, followed by screams. The silence that came after that was thicker than smoke.

Heavier than storm clouds.

The audience cleared out of the arena an hour ago, but staff and a lot of players remained for the press conference, or to start the cleanup.

Right now, it sounded like we were alone in here. If we were, then what happened to Aidan and Finley? I couldn’t finish that thought either. I wouldn’t accept that they were dead. Not even if I saw it with my own eyes.

We moved silently down the corridor and into the equipment room.

"Looks like the evening just got more interesting." Coast Riggs and Tiger Pennington, along with a couple of other players, were in the process of unlocking a locker in the back of the room and pulling out guns.

Orion grunted. "That’s one way to put it. This anything to do with either of you?"

"Nope," Coast said. He tossed Orion a gun, then threw one to me. "Tiger and I saw about twenty of them swarm in after they blew the doors in. We recognised a couple of them."

"Fiorellis," Tiger said simply.

I checked over the gun in my hands. "Have you seen Aidan or Fin?"

"No, but knowing those two, they won’t be far away." Coast held his gun out in front of him and peered out the doorway.

Tiger grabbed a couple more guns before closing the locker. "You never know if we might need extras." He shoved those into the back of his pants and stepped out behind Coast.

Coast glanced back at him. "Don’t shoot me in the ass," he said to Tiger.

"Don’t give me an excuse to," Tiger growled.

Coast grinned and turned away.

This was the kind of team unity Aidan hoped to see from both of them, but not under these circumstances. No doubt he would have appreciated the irony. He would appreciate it when I told him.

Orion rolled his eyes and followed them both out.

I quickly hurried to keep up with him.

The silence was broken by another couple of gunshots and a shout or two.

Up ahead, someone was running. I couldn’t tell in which direction they were going. Not towards us.

We reached the end of the corridor.

It led out to a wide entry hall, wider now with the glass doors shattered, twisted metal hanging open. Shards littered the carpet, sparkling in the lights from overhead. A couple of bodies lay on the floor, blood pooled around them.

Neither was Aidan or Finley. Both looked to be players from the opposition team. I almost felt bad about the Demons having beaten them. They played so well and now, to end like this…

"I’m guessing they headed to the press area," Coast said. "That’s where the rest of the team was last time we saw them." For the first time since I met him, his expression was grim. He gave both bodies a nod of respect before following Orion through another doorway at the back of the room.

"Stay in the middle of us." Tiger gestured for me to go ahead of him. He turned and walked backwards, covering the way we’d come.

For so many reasons, I wished Wren and Sinclair could see Tiger and Coast now. For one thing, if they could, I’d know they were alive.

Theyare, I told myself. Theyhavetobe.

The sound of a struggle came from up ahead, like feet scuffling on tiled ground.

Orion glanced back and nodded to Coast before they both broke into a trot.

I hurried along behind, sweat springing up on my forehead and under my arms. My scarf felt like a noose, but I had no time to remove it now. All I could do was keep up and look back every so often to make sure Tiger was still behind me.

He acknowledged me with a wave of his hand to keep going.

Orion and Coast drew to a stop beside the doorway to the press area. The door was open. Sound was coming from inside.

We were hidden from view for now, by little more than a flimsy wall.

My heart raced so hard it hurt.

Aidan and Finley were all right, they had to be. I felt like my whole world was teetering on the edge of an abyss. In the next few minutes, either we’d be dead or the attackers would.

Orion mouthed, "On three." He waited for the rest of us to acknowledge before starting the countdown.

One.

Two.

Three.

That was how many bodies lay dead inside the doorway. I recognised Naomi Higgins, the journalist who was asking Aidan about our relationship. Another was a junior coach. The third was one of the Demons’ wingers.

They were all shot in the chest or stomach.

Beyond them lay a couple of people dressed in black pants and black hoodies. Both looked like they’d been struck hard on the back of the head.

At the rear of the room, near the door that led outside, Aidan, Finley and a couple of other Demons players stood over three people dressed in black. One man and a woman.

Both of my guys were visibly relieved to see me and Orion alive and safe. As relieved as I was to see them.

"There’s our beautiful woman," Finley said with a grin. He waved his gun at one of the men. "Have you met Jamison Fiorelli? He thought he’d pay us a little visit tonight, along with some friends of his."

"I thought he looked familiar," I said more easily than I felt. Two attackers dead and three held at gunpoint still left a lot.

I recognised one of Jamison’s companions from our meeting with Nicholas and Celine. The other I didn’t know at all.

I could come to so many conclusions right now, but we needed to deal with what was in front of us.

"Jamison was just about to explain why they’re here," Aidan said. He pressed the gun to Jamison’s temple. No one in the room was under any illusion that he’d hesitate to pull the trigger.

"We want Oscar’s killer," Jamison growled.

"You found me." Orion stepped towards him.

"We know it wasn’t you." Jamison glared up at him, then turned to me. His expression made my blood turned to ice.

"What do you think you know?" Aidan pressed the gun in harder.

Jamison tried to jerk away, but Finley had his gun on the other side, near his temple.

"We know Aidan Draeger had Oscar caught and taken to the location where he was killed," Jamison said.

He must have known he was fucked anyway, he might as well come clean. If he was incredibly lucky, he might walk away from this alive.

"That’s right, I did," Aidan said. "Someone had to deal with the prick." There wasn’t even a hint of apology in his tone. If he ever had regrets in his life, engineering Oscar’s death wasn’t one of them.

"He was my brother," Jamison snarled.

"Ike was mine," I snapped. I was done with this pretence. It was time I admitted what I did, to myself, and to everyone else. "Oscar killed him, so when Aidan had him brought to me and gave me the choice to kill him myself, I took it. I held the gun to his head and blew his brains out."

Jamison flinched. "You did it."

"You thought it was me," Aidan guessed. "Or you didn’t know, you just decided you’d figure it out as you went along."

"We knew enough," Jamison said to his own chest. "You as good as killed him. It didn’t matter exactly who pulled the trigger."

"Are you here on behalf of Nicholas and Celine, or Geneva?" Finley asked.

"Or all of the above?" Orion added. "They might have pretended they had a divide to distract us from this." He gestured toward Jamison with his gun.

Jamison looked back at him, his lips pressed tight together.

"I’ll take that as a yes," Aidan said. "It looks like open season on anyone named Fiorelli."

"It was Geneva," Jamison said quickly. "I was pretending to work with her until this was dealt with. This has nothing to do with Nicholas, Celine or Kaya." He looked desperate now. Wanting to keep his siblings safe.

Yeah, I knew how that felt.

"Oscar was working with Geneva," he added. "He was still my brother, but…" He shook his head.

"He betrayed all of you," Finley said.

"Yeah. I can prove Geneva is involved. She’s in the building." His eyes begged to be believed.

I glanced towards Coast and Tiger, who stood near the door, acting as guards.

Coast shrugged. "I only got a quick look. One of them could have been her."

"If that’s the case, we need to find her," Finley said. He lowered his gun.

Jamison sagged in relief, but it was premature.

"Shame you now know who killed Oscar," Aidan said. "We might have let you walk out of here, but that knowledge is something we can’t let you leave here with." He nodded towards Coast.

"I swear I’ll never tell—" Jamison’s face froze before he slumped to the side, a bullet hole in the side of his head.

Coast turned the gun on his companions and put a matching one in both of them.

Aidan nodded his approval. "All right, let’s find this bitch."