LOGINChapter 63 Izzy"Do you want me to come in?"Callie had both hands on the steering wheel even though the car was in park. She was not looking at the house. She was looking at me, the way she used to look at me in high school when I said I was fine after my mom forgot to pick me up from practice again."No," I said."I can say I needed the bathroom. Nobody says no to a girl who needs the bathroom.""Callie.""I am just saying it is an option.""It is almost midnight. You have a fake boyfriend to impress tomorrow. Go home and sleep."She made a face. "Do not call him my boyfriend. Not even fake. Not tonight.""You called him that first.""I was being sarcastic.""You were blushing."She slapped my arm. Not hard. I almost smiled. Then I looked past her out the windshield, and the smile died before it got anywhere.Riven's car was already in the driveway. Parked crooked, half on the grass, like he had pulled in too fast and did not care where it stopped. The headlights were off. The engi
Chapter 62 Riven “Sorry,” Vesper said, quieter. Then she turned back to me and the quiet was gone. “You are all the same. All of you. Silas will not tell me what Sunday is. Corvin will not tell Larkin anything. Nyx tore a page out of Callie’s notebook like it was his. And you sat on this for two days like Izzy was something you needed to protect instead of somebody you needed to talk to.”“That is not fair,” I said.“Is it not?”I opened my mouth. Nothing good came out of it, so I closed it again.“She is right,” Larkin said.We all looked at her. She was standing a little apart, arms wrapped around herself. “She is right and you are right. Both things.” She looked at the ground. “Corvin told me nobody can help him. That was the same thing. He thinks if I do not know, I am safe. But I already know. I heard it through a wall. Now I am not safe and I am also alone.”“You are not alone,” Callie said. She stepped next to Larkin and bumped her shoulder. “We are literally standing in a pa
Chapter 61 Riven My hands were fists before the door finished swinging shut behind me. I did not decide to walk. I was just walking. Past the bar. Past a table of guys in Thunder jerseys who started to say my name and then stopped when they saw my face. Jax Mercer’s chair was turned backwards, pulled so close to Izzy’s that his shoulder touched hers. His hand was under the table. On her knee. I could see the shape of his arm going down. I could see the way Izzy was sitting, stiff and pressed back against her chair like she was trying to fold herself into the wall. Ten more steps. That was all it would take. Then something caught the light in the booth to my left. A phone. Held up. Steady. Pointed right at me. Blaze Dorsey sat behind it with his boots up on the seat across from him. Vipers defenseman. The guy who got thrown out of a game last month for jumping a ref. He was not watching the girls. He was not watching Jax. He was watching me, through his screen, with a little smil
Chapter 60Izzy“You knew for two days.”Riven did not answer. He kept both hands on the steering wheel even though the car was parked. We were sitting in the arena lot with the engine off and the heat dying, and the windows were starting to fog from the inside.“Two days,” I said again. “You promised you would tell me. You sat next to me at breakfast. You held my hand under the table at dinner. And you knew Lily was the one with the video.”“I needed to be sure.”“You read her notes. In her own words. How much more sure did you need to be?”“Sure enough to prove it.” He finally turned and looked at me. He looked terrible. Grey under the eyes, his jaw dark with stubble he had not bothered to shave. “I met Marcus on Wednesday. At the diner. He checked the recovery email on the drive against everything we found. It matches her. Her old school account. From the lake house summer.”“Little Lil,” I said. It came out bitter.He flinched. “Yeah.”“Your stepsister.”“For eight months. When I
Chapter 59VesperThe envelope was on my desk before I was.That was the first thing wrong with the morning. I always got to the media office at six forty five. Nobody else came in before eight. But when I unlocked my door, there was a cream colored envelope sitting square in the middle of my keyboard, and a woman was sitting in my chair.Liora.She had her long legs crossed and her expensive coat folded over the arm of my chair. She was drinking from my mug. My mug. The white one with the little gold V that Callie bought me for my birthday.“Good morning, Vesper,” she said. “Your coffee machine is terrible.”“How did you get in here?”“I asked nicely.” She set the mug down. “Sit. Or stand. I do not mind. This will not take long.”I stayed standing. My heart was already going too fast. The last time I saw this woman I was hiding in a hotel bathroom with Silas’s marks on my neck and my shoes in my hand.“Open it,” she said, nodding at the envelope.I did not want to. I opened it anyway
Chapter 58LarkinThe first time I saw Corvin Hale bleed, it was on my hands.Morning skate. Eight forty. I was taping a rookie’s wrist when the whole rink went quiet in that wrong way. The kind of quiet where nobody cheers and nobody yells. Just skates scraping to a stop.I looked up through the glass.Corvin was on his knees in the crease. His mask was off. His left arm hung from his body at an angle arms do not hang at.I was over the boards before anyone told me to move.“Do not touch it,” he said through his teeth when I slid down next to him. Blood ran from a cut over his eye where his own mask had cracked against his face. “Larkin. Do not.”“I have to.”“Not here.”“Corvin, it is out of the socket.”“I know where it is.” His eyes were wet with pain but his voice was flat. “Not on the ice. Not in front of them.”Them. Twenty players standing around us in a circle. And at the edge of the circle, still holding his stick, Brody Kemp. Fourth line. The guy who never hit anybody in pr
Izzy Dear Diary, I think I’m finally ready to stop being a virgin. I’ve been good my whole damn life, keeping my head down, chasing jobs that barely paid rent, and now this one thing, this one infuriating, stupidly hot guy has me twisted up so bad I can’t even think straight. But I have to play
Riven I couldn’t shake it no matter how hard I tried, the whole thing kept replaying in my head like some bad loop I couldn’t pause, her standing there in my doorway with her eyes wide and her mouth dropped open after she barged in without knocking like she owned the place too now that our parents
Izzy I dragged myself through the front door way later than I meant to, legs aching from running around the rink all day trying to get decent shots while Riven acted like I was invisible except when he wanted to glare at me. The house was lit up like always, and right away Mom and Mr. Holt were
Izzy I spent the whole afternoon in that room they gave me trying to make it feel like mine instead of some fancy guest suite I didn’t earn. Mom kept popping in every ten minutes with that bright new-wife smile, handing me extra hangers and asking if I needed help unpacking, while Mr. Holt Dad







