44. Weston

Deacon Carrington is a slimy little weasel. It bleeds into everything about him. From those beady little eyes that home in on Renee possessively, to that angry sweat that stains the pits of his suit jacket. The blazing expression on his face tells me he knows the jig is up.

He knows Renee is nowhere near being his.

I”ll give him one thing, though: he has the balls—or maybe just the sheer stupidity—to push my buttons further.

”You”re not laying a fucking finger on me if you know what”s good for you,” he spits. ”My lawyers will have your ass tied up in depositions until the day you die. Tell me, though: what is it about her, eh? She”s not that pretty and she”s not that bright—yet somehow, you keep slithering back in where you don”t belong.”

When he tries to sidestep me again, I place myself firmly between him and Renee. There”s no way he”s getting close to her.

Not while I’m around.

”Funny: if she”s not pretty enough for you and not smart enough for you, I don”t see any reason for you to be here. So get fucking lost, bro. I”m not gonna say it again.”

Deacon smirks. Smarmy bastard. I’d like nothing more than to knock out each and every one of those fake ass teeth.

”We have an arrangement. So maybe you and I need something similar. How much to get you to back off?” The fucker actually reaches into his jacket to pull out a checkbook and a fountain pen. ”We”ll say, what? Ten grand? It”s nothing for me, but maybe you could put a down payment on a new vehicle for yourself.”

I snatch the checkbook from his hands. Looking him dead in the eyes, daring him to do something about it, I rip the thing in half and drop the shreds onto the ground like paper snowflakes.

”I don”t want your money, Carrington. I told you what I wanted—for you to get the fuck out of my face. You”re not getting another warning.”

Deacon laughs and juts his chin out high. ”Fair enough. I suppose you’re smart enough to recognize she”s not worth the ink printed on those checks. Used goods and all?—”

I see red—and my fist sees Deacon”s face.

He takes the hit better than I expect him to. He stumbles but he doesn”t fall. His head rocks back, spit and blood flying from between his lips. When he straightens up, blood smearing his chin and leaking from his busted mouth, those beady little weasel eyes fixate on me.

And then he lunges.

I let him get one hit in, just for shits and giggles—and plausible deniability. It’s a chin check that knocks my teeth together in my mouth. I would be impressed if he managed to get me to taste blood.

Instead, he”s just pissed me off, tipping me over into full fucking savagery.

Welcome to hell, motherfucker.

Grabbing the smug fuck by the front of his shirt, I slam him against the wall. I”ve spent my whole career going against men who weigh twice what he does, so it”s nothing to pick Deacon up and fling him around however I damn well please.

”You had your chance,” I sneer, butting him hard in the head. He lets out a violent grunt, his teeth bared and bloody, and clocks me in the cheek with his elbow, forcing me back.

”Fuck you!” he snaps. “I’ll fucking…”

Laughing, I plant a hand on his throat and hold him at arm’s length. ”That the best you can do? You’ll fucking what? Sue me? I see why you can”t keep a woman—you aren’t much of a man. Can’t even handle your own dirty work. Gotta pay the suits to do it for you.”

That riles him up. ”I hardly need to be a meathead thug like you to keep a woman—but perhaps I would need to be one to keep a whore.”

”Say that one more time and you won”t be breathing.”

”Stop! Both of you!” It”s the first time Renee has spoken up. She shoves herself between us, but it”s me she looks at. Her eyes are pleading. ”Let”s get out of here, Weston,” she begs. ”I”ll figure this out later?—”

“‘You”ll figure this out later’?” Deacon scoffs incredulously. ”You”re not going anywhere with him, Renee. Don”t be so silly.”

”I”m not being silly, Deacon; I’m telling you what I’m?—”

Before Renee can finish, Deacon grabs her by the upper arm. She winces, crying out in pain.

That”s when I flip.

”Hell no!” I grab him. I”m going to rip him apart. He put his hands on her—unacceptable.

As I jerk him away from her, she tugs her arm out of his hold. I”m ready to suplex him into the ground and pummel him into a fucking bloodstain on the tile… when a startled yelp sounds behind us, followed by a loud, concerning thump.

When I look over my shoulder, my blood runs cold.

Renee is laid out on the floor. Her limbs splay around her, awkward and unnatural, and her eyes are rolling uselessly in their sockets.

Deacon immediately becomes the least of my concerns. I throw him away from me like forgotten garbage and lunge toward her. She must’ve tripped when he grabbed her and hit her head against the sink, if the angle of her body is any indication. I slip my fingers beneath her head, feeling to make sure she”s not bleeding.

My fingers come back tinged red.

Fuck.

I can”t tell if I want to murder him or take care of her more.

But she needs me to help her more than Deacon needs me to beat a lesson in respect into his thick fucking skull.

”Where are you going with?—”

”The hospital, obviously,” I snarl, picking her up carefully. I don”t want to jostle her too much, and I sure as shit don”t want to give Deacon the chance to try to handle this himself.

She”s not his responsibility anymore.

She never will be again.

”She doesn”t need the hospital. She can come back to my?—”

”She”s not going anywhere with you, motherfucker. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever.” I glare down at him. He looks so small and quivering and weak from here. ”She”s coming with me to the hospital, she”s getting treatment, and if you try to stop me, they’ll need a goddamn vacuum to pick up the pieces of your body. Do you understand?”

The corner of Deacon”s upper lip twitches, like he”s ready to keep fighting. But in the end, he says nothing, stepping aside to let me through.

That”s what the fuck I thought.

The one good thing about Deacon buying out a private box is that I don”t have to take the high-traffic routes through the venue to get the hell outta there. The people who see me aren”t the types to flock around and gossip. But even if they did stare, I wouldn’t give a shit.

They don’t matter.

Only Renee does.

Coach won”t let me near the ice for the rest of the night anyway. And yeah, I”ll be in for an earful when I don”t show for the post-match debrief, but I”ve dealt with worse. So I pile Renee into my car and book it.

The hospital I go to knows how to handle celebrities. There won”t be questions and there won”t be paparazzi and there won’t be any conversations about prices or insurance, because they’ll know from the sheer look in my eyes that there’s nothing I wouldn’t pay to make sure Renee is okay.

A valet parking attendant meets me in the front of the hospital roundabout, with a nurse beside him and a wheelchair in her hold. My keys go into the valet”s hands and I sprint around the side of the car to help ease Renee into the chair.

”Mr. Scott, I can handle this.” The nurse is firm with me, but gentle in the way she maneuvers Renee around. I hate the sounds coming out of Renee’s mouth. Low whimpers, pained groans. Every single one tears out a fresh chunk of my heart.

”She—”

”Will get a full work-up inside, sir. Please let me do my job.”

I keep close as Renee gets wheeled into the place. In a matter of what feels like seconds, we”re in a private room. It”s got the vibe of a very sterile hotel suite. Massive window, huge bed, plush and adjustable. If it weren”t for the medical equipment beeping in the corners, I could pretend this is just Renee and me on vacation.

If only.

”Alright. Tell me what happened, Mr. Scott.” The nurse is standing in front of me with a clipboard in hand.

”We were… attacked. I was handling it. She ended up falling and hitting her head.”

The nurse pauses from scribbling notes to look up at me. Her brow is raised in disbelief. ”Should I alert the authorities?”

That”s the last thing I need to have happen. ”No. I”ll finish handling it when we”re done here. She”s the priority.”

”Mmm.”

Whatever disapproval the nurse has, she doesn”t voice it past that. Fine by me. She”s not paid to pry and she sure as shit isn”t paid to stir up trouble.

”Alright. Please stay here while we run some tests and get bloodwork done.”

It takes everything in me not to hound these people every step of the way. I want to ask questions—what”s this machine for, why are they taking blood samples, when is she going to wake up? All the experience with hockey injuries in the world hasn”t prepared me for the unpreparable.

The love of my life being on the chopping block isn”t exactly something I ever anticipated. Not after her.

I keep my shit together. Mom would be proud knowing I”m not being a helicopter boyfriend, hovering and scrutinizing everything. She”d probably tell me to take a hike if she was here. Renee”s a trooper, after all. Even when she shouldn”t have to be.

I can be the same for her.

So I sit and wait. I just keep my eyes on Renee while I breathe. In with her inhales; out with her exhales. Do that again and again and again, even while my chest feels like it’s going to burst and my leg won’t stop bouncing up and down.

Finally, after what feels like forever, the nurse comes back. ”In general, her health is fine,” she reports. “We”re going to take her for a scan of her brain in a little bit so we know exactly what”s going on up there.” She knocks on her temple. ”As for the baby, it shouldn”t affect that?—”

”The what?”

The nurse blinks at me. ”The baby? Ms. Dubois is pregnant.” She reviews papers on her chart. ”She”s been coming here for several weeks for checkups. You brought her in, so I assumed you knew…”

Before she”s even finished with her sentence, I”m on my feet.