The Devil on Ice

Three

Aurora's POV

By the time I made it to the game, it had already started, but I didn't mind.

With my VIP pass, I took a seat near the front of the private box and pulled my notebook from my bag, my eyes trailing to the players on the ice.

They were all playing well, but I only had eyes for number twenty-nine.

Killian moved across the ice like a force of nature. Even from this distance, his six-foot-four frame dominated the rink, and he played with a speed that made my breath catch. Every hit he delivered was brutal, slamming opposing players into the boards with a force I could feel through my sternum.

He looked like he was born for this.

Late in the second period, a rookie on his own line took a hit that left him slow to get up. The crowd didn't care, already following the puck, but Killian skated back from center ice, hauled the kid up by his jersey, and said something short against his ear guard before shoving him toward the bench rough, but not unkind.

I lowered my binoculars slowly. Nobody else in the arena seemed to have noticed. It didn't fit anywhere in the file I was building on him, the one with clean columns for triggers and aggression patterns and loss of control. There was no column for a man who checked on a rookie quietly, gently, in the middle of a game, when no one was watching.

I made a note anyway. I just didn't know yet what heading to put it under.

By the time the buzzer sounded to end the second period, my nerves were strained and my head was pounding. I stood and left the suite, bypassing the crowded public restrooms in search of a quieter corridor.

I turned a corner, looking for a sign, and froze.

A few yards down the hallway stood Killian, helmet and shoulder pads off, soaked jersey clinging to him, head back against the wall, chest heaving as he caught his breath.

I took a step forward, about to say his name so it wouldn't look like I was following him, when footsteps sounded behind him. A few seconds later, three men rounded the corner.

My stomach dropped. Brian, one of the billionaire executives who owned the team, flanked by two other men from the league's board. Men who ran empires and answered to almost no one.

I stepped back and pressed myself flat against the wall, out of sight.

The moment the executives came into view, the temperature in the hallway seemed to drop. I expected them to berate him. Instead, all three men went quiet.

When they reached him, Killian turned, and the dynamic in the hallway flipped, he didn't look cornered. He looked like their boss. But it wasn't the relaxed posture of a boss. His shoulders were too tense for that, and his jaw kept tightening like he was forcing himself to hold something back. Whatever power he had over these men, he didn't look like he enjoyed using it.

Brian actually took a step back under Killian's stare before he cleared his throat and reached out to tap his shoulder.

"Keep it clean out there tonight, Hayes," Brian murmured, voice dropping low. "We're handling the situation from last week, but we can't afford another mess. Keep your head down, do your job, and keep everything quiet."

He glanced once toward the empty end of the hallway before adding, quieter still, "And keep her out of it. That was the deal."

Killian answered with a nod at first, fists clenched, before his voice came quiet in a way I hadn't heard from him yet. "I know what I signed up for." It didn't sound like agreement. It sounded like a sentence he'd said too many times to believe anymore.

The silver-haired man beside Brian checked his watch, impatient. "The harbor shipment isn't the priority right now. The Vale situation is. If that story resurfaces before the board meets Thursday, none of this holds."

My whole body went cold.

Vale? My name or My sister's name?

I must have made a small sound, a sharp breath I couldn't stop in time, because Brian turned his head slightly toward the dark end of the hallway where I was standing.

I didn't wait to find out if he'd seen me. I ducked sideways into an open supply closet, heart slamming so hard I was sure it was audible through the door, and stood in the dark among the cleaning carts, listening to footsteps come closer, stop, and finally move away.

I counted to sixty before I let myself breathe normally.

Vale situation. Not Iris, not her name specifically. Just Vale. Close enough that it could have meant either of us, and I hated how long it took me to feel relieved that it probably hadn't meant me.

When the hallway finally went silent, I let myself out and walked fast in the opposite direction, my legs unsteady in a way that had nothing to do with two hours in heels.

I made it back to my seat for the third period, but I wasn't physically present there. I couldn't have told you a single thing that happened in it.