Page 100 of My Pucking Crush

I breathe in relief, despite the fucked-up reunion. My trust and assumptions that Ivan wouldn’t hurt her are holding true. For now. Plus, he always thought of Samara as his little sister, too.

“Gladthat’scleared up.” GM Reid motions for all of us to sit. “Our lawyers reached out to Richmond’s general counsel with the alleged wire payment details to Max’s attacker. Ivan is here to personally give a report on the incident.”

“Why didn’t we have this meeting weeks ago at our last game?” Bronwin folds his arms.

“We had nothing to report,” Ivan answers smugly.

“And now?” I turn his way, smiling, looking forward to what he comes up with to get out of what he did.

“We hired an investigator to do an internal audit,”Ivan says, his accent thicker than usual to throw people off. “A rogue element in the coaching staff hired the perpetrators who attacked Mr. Ryan. We handed him over to the Richmond authorities and have notified the league.”

Rogue element is code in the bratva for a ghost who doesn’t really exist. Poor Reid. He’s a decent man who plays by the rules, and thinks others do, too. Thinks owners like Ian Flacco, whose family has owned the Crushers since the expansion made the team pro, have the same love of sport.

Reid’s just the general manager. He doesn’t see the rot taking hold of this league and others with greedy owners. Ivan Belova is a ruthless bratva boss who kills people in Chicago.

I smile, though. Ivan’s passive-aggressive audit report is meant to relax our security. I’m not buying it for a minute, but I know Ivan needed to face Reid now that something is really at stake.

“Thank you for your report,” Reid says, sliding a glance my way.

“My pleasure.” Ivan straightens his tie and steers my sister to the door.

Outside, when no one’s around, I mutter, “Touch a hair on my sister’s head and you’re dead.”

“I’ll slit his throat before you,” Samara talks back.

“Just like old times.” Ivan laughs. “Don’t you miss this, Daniil?”

For a split second I consider the question. How simple my life would be to just go home. But nothing feels like home if it’s without Max.

“Good luck tonight, Mr. Belova,” I say with a salute as I walk away.

You’re gonna need it when my boyfriend hits the ice tonight.

FIFTY-TWO

Max

To my teammates, this is another game. An important one, but still just Game One in Round Two of the playoffs. Seven more chances to get one step closer to glory.

I highly doubt any of the players know our investigators connected my attack to Richmond. They might get on the ice and try to slit throats with their skates.

The pregame routine unfolds as usual.

Gear.

Equipment.

Hydration.

Coach Beck makes a speech about strategy based on how Richmond decimated Cape May. His assistant coaches watch games to notice patterns. He uses the white board to illustrate a unique passing sequence that goes against everything we learned since holding a stick twice the size of our little bodies.

I look down at myself. With all this gear, no one can hurt me unless they play dirty. The game suspension raised the stakes. We lost when I wasn’t playing. Of course, we lost plenty when I had. But the opposition got fed some chum and now, they’re ravenous for more blood.

My blood.

“I’m sorry this information is late.” Coach clicks the marker. “The defense team just isolated this. Now we know these weren’t random events. Go out there and get a feel for what this looks like on the ice in real time. We’ll go through tapes of the game tomorrow.”

Movement shifts by the door.

---