Wearing Rhett Kane

Jonah pov

My phone vibrated like a warning shot at 2:17 a.m., dragging me out of a dead sleep in my freezing off-campus shithole. The kind of call that only comes when everything’s about to go to hell. Unknown number. I almost ignored it, but something in my gut made me answer.

“Jonah.” Eleanor Kane’s voice was pure frost, polished and sharp enough to cut. “You need to come to the estate. Immediately.”

I sat up on the lumpy mattress, rubbing the scar on my jaw from a street-hockey fight years ago. “You’ve got the wrong bastard, lady. I don’t do family reunions.”

“You will this time.” She didn’t waste breath. “Rhett is in the hospital. Critical condition. Hard hit during a late practice, then a car accident on the way to the ER. He’s in a medically induced coma. The season opens in days. Sponsors. Draft buzz. The entire program hinges on him. If this leaks, it collapses.”

I laughed, low and ugly everything about this situation was hilarious. The water stain on my ceiling. Of course. The golden child finally breaks, and the Kane machine comes looking for its spare parts.

“And I’m supposed to give a shit because…?”

“Because you’re identical, Jonah. Uncanny. Same build, same face, same blood. With the right clothes and coaching on his habits, no one will tell the difference. You step in. Play as Rhett. Live as Rhett. Until he wakes up.”

My blood turned to ice. I’d hated that name my whole life—the legitimate son, the captain, the one who got the mansion, the scouts, the glory while I scraped by on frozen ponds and my mom’s exhausted paycheck. The DNA test years ago had been a cruel joke. Same father. Different worlds.

“Or else?” I asked, already knowing.

“Or else we make your life—and your mother’s—a living hell. The medical payments we’ve quietly covered? They stop. Her settlement vanishes. We expose every ugly detail about your existence and make sure you never get another break. Don’t test us.”

The call ended. No goodbye. Just the threat hanging in the air like bad exhaust. They couldn't even be nice about it.

Two hours later, the black SUV they sent dumped me at the estate gates. Same place I’d sworn I’d never crawl back to. The foyer lights were dim, but the tension crackled. Eleanor waited like a queen in exile, flanked by Rhett’s father—cold-eyed prick in a silk robe—and some slick lawyer who wouldn’t look me in the face.

They didn’t offer coffee. Just straight to the business at hand.

Rhett’s scans. The championship pressure. The massive sponsorship deal that would evaporate without their star captain. My “obligation” to the family name I’d never been given.

I leaned against the wall, arms crossed, wearing the same scowl I’d perfected on the wrong side of town. “You want me to wear his skin. Smile like him. Skate like him. Fuck his girlfriend if it comes to it. All so your perfect image doesn’t crack.”

Mr. Kane’s voice was flat. “You do this, or everything your mother clawed for disappears. Simple transaction.”

I wanted to tell them to burn. I wanted to walk out and let their empire rot. But Mom’s tired face flashed behind my eyes—the bills, the silence they’d bought from her for years. Blood money to keep the bastard son quiet.

“Fine,” I spat. “But I’m not doing it for you. I’ll take what I can from this lie and use it against you later.”

They moved fast. Dragged me into Rhett’s room—pristine, full of trophies and jerseys that should’ve been mine. New clothes from his closet. Same size, down to the damn socks. A barber showed up at dawn to match the haircut exactly. Hours of drilling: how Rhett walks with that entitled swagger, how he barks orders in the locker room, the exact way he holds his stick, the fake charm he turns on for boosters.

Every time I caught my reflection, it hit like a slapshot to the chest. It was him. Same sharp jaw. Same ice-blue eyes. Same broad shoulders built for dominating the ice. The only differences were the scars I carried from real life—mine from alleys and cheap rinks, his from private coaches and padded practices. Uncanny didn’t cover it. It was fucking eerie.

We were in the formal sitting room when the front door opened again. Eleanor’s posture stiffened. Voices carried down the hall—hers, calm and welcoming.

Then she walked in.

Wren Matthews.

The scholarship girl. The one Rhett had apparently been funding in secret like some twisted long-game project. She looked smaller in this house, out of place in her plain sweater and neat braid, eyes guarded but steady. Real. Nothing like the glossy booster princesses Rhett usually paraded around.

Her gaze landed on me—on the version of Rhett they’d forced me into—and she paused, clearly trying to place the moment.

Eleanor recovered like a pro. “Wren, perfect timing. This is Rhett. He insisted on being part of the discussion about your scholarship tonight.”

I forced the half-smile they’d drilled into me all morning. The one that said the world owed me and I knew it. Inside, something ugly twisted. This girl had no clue the real Rhett was hooked up to machines across town. No clue the guy standing in front of her was the bitter half-brother who’d spent years resenting every Kane on the planet.

And now I had to become him. Starting with her.

“Wren,” I said, voice low and smooth like his would be. “Finally. I’ve been looking forward to this.”

She didn’t know what she had just stepped into.