All Chapters of Icing The Heart: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

The lock felt heavier than it should have.It was ridiculous, really. A small piece of metal. A simple turn of the wrist. People opened doors every day without feeling like they were volunteering to be split open on the other side.But my hand hovered over the deadbolt as if the door was not wood and steel, but the thin line between the woman I had been and the woman every secret in the room was trying to make me become.Behind me, Jaxon’s medical file lay open on the coffee table.His name stared up from the first page.The ten-million-dollar envelope sat beside it like an insult in expensive paper.My stomach turned.Not now, I thought. He could not see that. Not yet. Not before I understood it. Not before I knew whether Evelyn Kane had handed me a truth, a weapon or another lie dressed in clinical language.“Rory,” Jaxon said again from the hallway.His voice was lower now. Less command. More wound.That was dangerous. Jaxon Kane angry was easy to resist. Jaxon Kane desperate was

“ I found the other clauses too,” I said after a while and Jaxon’s body went still behind me.“What other clauses?”I laughed quietly. “You really do not know?”“Tell me.”I faced him again.“The impossible performance standards buried in my contract. The limited ice time used against my own metrics. The injury reports written like character defects. The media notes. The behavioral summaries. The fact that my entire career with this team was designed like a maze with every exit marked failure.”His expression darkened with recognition and somehow, broke anything that was yet to be broken inside of me. “You saw your file,” he said in a matter of fact tone. It was not a question; it was clear that he knew. I glared at him. “So you knew there was a file.”He sighed before responding carefully, “I knew they tracked incidents.”“Incidents.” I smiled bitterly. “That is a lovely word for living.”His hands flexed again. “I did not know the full structure.”“But you knew enough.”“Yes.”The

For one endless second, I forgot how to breathe.The words hung between us, suspended in the air like a puck frozen inches before the goal line.Yes. She was pregnant. Like, she was pregnant with a child. My child. My mind refused to move beyond that single fact.Pregnant.Rory.The woman I had spent two years pushing away.The woman I had spent the last six weeks trying desperately to protect.The woman standing three feet away from me with tears shining in her eyes and every muscle in her body locked as if she expected me to become another enemy.I couldn't just understand it. Suddenly, the phone in my hand vibrated violently.Then again. And again.I didn't look at it.I couldn't. My focus was on Rory. Nothing existed except her."When?" I asked quietly.Her fingers curled protectively over her stomach."Don't.""When did you find out?""I said don't."Her voice wasn't angry. It was terrified.That realization hit me harder than any body check I'd ever taken.Rory Callahan wasn'

The world did not shatter dramatically.There was no cinematic explosion. No collapse of walls. No thunder cracking across the sky.Instead, everything became painfully, terrifyingly clear.I stared at the frozen image on my phone screen.The little girl holding the oversized hockey stick.The missing tooth. The crooked smile.The eyes. My eyes.A strange ringing filled my ears.For years, I had carried my father's memory like a sacred thing. Small. Fragile. Precious.My father teaching me to skate.My father waking before sunrise to drive me to tournaments.My father cheering louder than every parent in the arena combined.My father dying in what everyone called a tragic accident.Simple. Clean. Finished.Now a dead man was sitting inside a video recording telling me my father had died alongside him trying to expose corruption.Nothing about that was simple. Nothing about that was finished.Beside me, Jaxon looked equally stunned.His phone buzzed continuously from somewhere on the k

The photograph sat on Rory's phone screen like a loaded weapon.Lena was alive.At least, she appeared alive.She sat in a metal chair inside what looked like an abandoned warehouse. Her expression remained remarkably composed considering the circumstances. There were no visible injuries. No obvious signs of distress.That detail bothered me more than panic would have.Lena Brooks treated emotions the way surgeons treated unnecessary tissue. She removed them whenever possible.If Victor Shaw had managed to frighten her, then the situation was worse than any of us understood.I studied the image carefully.Years of hockey had taught me how to read details under pressure.The background. The shadows. The positioning.Anything. Everything.Rory stood beside me, staring at the screen.The apartment felt smaller than it had an hour ago.Outside, reporters continued shouting questions to anyone entering or leaving the building. The pregnancy story had already become national news. Sports ch