Page 5 of The Sweetest Revenge

The image seared into my retinas, Ariella, water droplets still clinging to her skin, standing in the doorway of Kacie's room like she belonged there.

A year of carefully bottled rage cracked open. A year of restraint shattered in an instant.

It was bad enough that her whore of a mother was sleeping in my mother's bed, but now Ariella was moving into Kacie's room. It was like they were trying to erase her existence.

Over my dead fucking body.

How could she think it was okay to just slide into Kacie's spot like she never existed?

I'd spent a year plotting and planning my revenge. It was the reason I'd stayed in Westbrook to go to college instead of leaving like I'd planned. I knew this was where she'd be. I hadn't anticipated her moving into my house, seeing her in my sister's room, or how my body still responded to her.

Hate her. I needed to hate her. My body hadn't gotten that memo. It remembered something else entirely.

By the time I left the house, Ariella was gone, but I knew she'd be back. She had nowhere else to go, and I'd made sure of that.

"Get your head in the game, Knight!" Coach slammed his clipboard against the wall, his whistle swinging wildly around his neck.

The rage climbed higher, a dark tide rising. I launched from the ice, my shoulder connecting with Hawk's body with a crack that echoed through the arena. He flew forward. The puck was mine. Blood roared in my ears, drowning out the coach's whistle.

I reared back and swung forward, striking the puck and sending it flying past the goalie.

"That's it." Hawk's words cut through the arena noise. I dug my blades into the ice, spinning hard enough to spray frost. My fingers twitched inside my gloves. Finally. A target.

I needed to hit something hard to release some of this pent-up aggression.

"What the fuck is your problem?" He jerked off his gloves, tossing them to the ice as we skated towards each other.

"You," I smirked. I didn't have a problem with Hawk. He was a good player, and we ran in the same crowd, but today, he was going to take the brunt of my rage because he was here. He bumped my chest with his.

"Woah." Sterling materialized between us, gloves up, voice deceptively calm against the storm building in my chest. His eyes told a different story. Caution. Warning.

"What is up with you today, man?" Sterling shoved my chest, putting some space between Hawk and me. Sterling was my boy, and he'd always had my back. Right now, he was trying to save my ass from getting benched in the first game of the season.

"Hit the showers, Knight." Coach's voice bounced off the plexiglass barriers. "You're done for the day."

The bench door creaked as I yanked it open, the sudden change from biting cold to stale, sweat-heavy air hitting me.

Typically, I would argue, but my mind was preoccupied with a pretty little blonde and making her pay for destroying my family.

I stepped off the ice, pulling my gloves off and tossing them to the bench.

Sterling slid to a stop, ice chips spraying up. Sweat plastered his dark hair to his forehead as he yanked off his helmet, his normally easy-going features hardened into something unrecognizable.

"What the fuck is up with you today?" Steam rose from his dark skin in the cold air, curling around overhead lights.

"When I stopped by the house the other night," I said. "Ariella was standing in Kacie's room in a towel."

His eyes widened. "Ari's fucking hot." Sterling, Ariella, Kacie, and I all grew up together.

"What the fuck, man?" My forearm connected with his shoulder. "She killed my sister."

"Ariella didn't kill Kacie." His shoulders sank. "She died in a car accident."

My jaw flexed, and my nostrils flared. "If it weren't for her, Kacie wouldn't have left that night." The words scraped my throat raw. "And now her whore of a mother broke up my family, and Ariella moved into Kacie's room. She threw all of her stuff away."

"That's fucked up." I nodded, staring forward. "What are you going to do?"

My tongue swept across my bottom lip before my gaze shifted to meet his. "Make her pay."

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