All Chapters of Crossing The Blue Line: His Forbidden Puck Bunny: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO JAX’S POVThe second Riley hit the ground everything we were doing paused.Logan’s fist was still half raised while my own hands were still up. Then we both moved at the same time, dropping to the gravel like the fight had never happened.“Riley—” Logan called out to her with a cracked voice.I got to her first. Her eyes were closed and there was a cut near her hairline where her head hit caught the door frame. I pressed two fingers under her jaw, her pulse was there, beating steadily but really fast .“She’s breathing,” I said.Logan shoved me aside and checked for himself. His hands were shaking really hard. “Riley? Open your eyes. Come on, Ri. Wake up.”She didn’t move.I looked at the trucks. Logan’s was closer by a few feet. “Let's get her to your truck. Now.”He didn’t argue. We lifted her together, raising her head carefully. I climbed into the back seat with her while he ran around to the driver’s side. The engine started before the doors were fully closed.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR RILEY’S POVI woke up to the sound of machines beeping and the feeling of an ache in my head.For a second the room didn’t make sense. White walls everywhere, pristine white light, the smell of disinfectant?Then the memory of the fight hit me all at once—Logan’s fist, Jax’s face, the car door, the ground rushing up.I tried to sit up and I felt the room tilt, my shoulder was hurting me badly from where I had hit the car frame.I could also hear voices outside the door, they weren’t loud, rather they sounded controlled. I laid back down, stared at the ceiling and waited.The door opened and Logan walked in alone. He looked over his shoulder once, said something short I couldn’t hear, and whatever look he gave was enough because Jax did not follow him inside.The door closed behind him and the temperature in the room dropped even with the air conditioning on. Logan did not sit down, he just stood at the foot of the bed and looked at me like he was seeing someone

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX JAX’S POVI was still standing near the vending machines when the phone rang.It wasn’t a text this time, it was an actual call, from the same blocked number that had been reaching out for weeks.I answered on instinct more than decision.There was a long stretch of static-filled silence, it was long enough that I almost hung up on it. Then a woman’s voice came through, she sounded calm and deliberate.“It’s been a long time, Eli.”My grip on the phone tightened.“You’ve done a good job disappearing,” she continued. “But not one good enough. Rest assured that I will find you and you will pay for what you have done.”The call got cut off before I could get a single word out.I stood there with the phone still pressed to my ear, my heart beat was hammering in my throat. Whoever she was, she knew the name. She knew who I used to be.I shoved the phone into my pocket and took the stairs down two steps at a time. The parking lot was a lot more quiet than before. I scan

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT LOGAN’S POVI sat in the truck outside Scarlett’s building with the engine off.The sentence I’d said to Riley kept looping in my head.‘If you think this is the worst secret you’ve kept from the people who love you, you’re sorely mistaken.’I shouldn’t have said it, at least not like that. Not when she was already lying in a hospital bed looking at me like I’d gutted her. But the words had been in my heart for years and tonight they finally pushed themselves out.The memory of the accident was fully awake now. Mara died that night and Jax kept blaming himself for her death because he was the one driving.I stood in the rain that night after I found the car, already deciding I would bury Riley’s part in it so deep no one would ever dig it up. I had told myself it was love and protection. But the truth was way worse, covering for her kept her tied to me. It made sure she would always need me and always come to me first. But now, she’s going to Jax.I rubbed both

CHAPTER THIRTY JAX’S POVThe call came the next evening, just after I had left the hospital from seeing Riley.It was from an unknown number, I was this close to almost letting it go to voicemail but for some reason I answered anyway.A clipped, unfamiliar voice came through. “If you want the secrets of your past to stay buried, come alone to the Eastbridge arena tonight. Follow the side entrance, it will be left unlocked.”I stood there, quiet.“Eli Ford,” the voice added, almost casually. “Don’t make me repeat myself.”Then the line went dead.I stood in the parking lot outside the hospital with the phone still against my ear. Every instinct told me to ignore it. Delete the number. Drive home and pretend the call never happened. But the name made that impossible, no one at Chatham knew that name, none of the people here did and they were not supposed to. So I had to fix whatever this was.I drove out there once I felt the building should have been empty.The parking lot was dar