Page 20 of Wyatt

“Iknow!”

Oh, maybe he should just give up the attempt to keep his emotions under wrap. “I know. But like you said, I’m no superhero. I can’t save her—”

“I never said you weren’t a superhero.”

“You know what I mean. I’m getting on the train tomorrow, going to Vladivostok, and heading home with the team.”

Silence. And shoot, but his kid sister might be crying, for the muffled breaths.

He felt like crying too.Happily ever afters don’t exist.He should probably let that truth sink in, take root. Stop trying so hard to believe.

He was such a pitiful romantic, it made him ill. So no, it wasn’t the fish. Or the beer, but his broken heart that turned his body to poison.

“I gotta go. I’ll see you soon.” He hung up. Picked up the USB drive. Looked it over—small, about two inches, but the drive was a 32-gig, so it probably held a fair bit of information.

He dropped it into his shirt pocket, swiped up the check, signed it with his room number, and got up.

Jace glanced up at him. Wyatt nodded to him.

“Guns—you okay?”

Deke and Kalen had turned too, and the last thing he needed was the team thinking he might be falling apart.

Like Jace said, he was a leader. If he didn’t have Coco, the only thing that remained was his team. His career.

Time to get back in the game. “I’m good, Coach.”

Coco’s voice clung to him as he headed to the elevator banks.Our best hope is to survive.

Yeah, well, he was very good at that game.

The elevator arrived and he got in and leaned against the wooden walls as it shuddered up to the second floor. He got off, slowing as he remembered the last part of their conversation.

And, by the way, great game. You deserved to win.

She’d been at his game? Wow, he’d completely forgotten that part.

He shook the thought away. It didn’t matter because hello—She. Didn’t. Want. Him.

He stuck his key in the door. It unlatched and he opened it.

For a second, he thought he might be in the wrong room. The mattress was off the bed, turned over, the bedsheets cast off. A chair at the table had been overturned, every drawer in the bureau pulled out, his clothes thrown across the room.

Ransacked.

Wyatt took a step inside. Stilled. What—?

He took another step, his entire body prickling.Get out.He felt the words more than thought them.

He turned—

Wyatt had been body slammed thousands of times, knew how to take a hit, but this one came sharp and fast, a blow centered in the middle of his spine.

He hit the door, cracked his jaw, but turned fast and got his arm up before the fist found his jaw.

He wasn’t a street fighter—or spec ops, thank you—but he knew how to tussle, on and off the ice.

He sent a punch into the man—about four inches shorter than himself, blond, a wicked scar across his jaw, clubbed ears—but the assailant took it like he’d been grazed and came at Wyatt.

---