Breaking the Beast on Ice

Chapter 12 - Apparitions

My dreams are never quiet. Usually, they’re loud, brutal things, like the metallic bite of skates cutting into ice, the dull thud of a body slamming into glass, the roar of twenty thousand spectators blurring into a single, mindless pulse.

Tonight, there is no crowd. Nothing but silence, but it is cold, heavy, and oppressive.

I’m standing in a narrow hallway. There is only one flickering bulb to guide me through it. At the far end, I see a slumped figure.

Harper.

She’s wearing that emerald silk dress, but it’s torn at the strap. Her long, platinum hair is spilled over her shoulders, silver under the dim light, and her small hands are brought up to her chest as if she’s trying to hold herself together. Her pale eyes look up at me. They appear blank. Hollow. But perhaps suppressed by fear.

I reach for her. My hands look enormous, bruised, and calloused. The Butcher.

"Harper," I say, my voice sounding gravelly. "I’m not gonna hurt you."

She doesn't move. She just stares into me, her lips trembling.

I take a step forward even though my legs feel like lead. Her emerald gown fades, shifting from silk to a faded-out cotton floral print. The platinum hair darkens into a subdued brown, lined with silver at the temples.

I gasp, watching the transformation come into full bloom.

Harper’s face is replaced by someone else, someone beautiful but older. Tired. Wrinkles have begun to show.

My mother.

She’s sitting on the old linoleum floor of our old kitchen in South Boston. The air smells sour, like flat beer, bleach, and copper. Her hands are shaking while she wipes at her jaw, her knuckles bruised, a dark bloom of purple already forming along her cheekbone.

“Don’t look at me, Si,” she whispers, her voice scarcely a breath. “Just go back to your room. Put your headphones on.”

I’m twelve years old again. My throat contracts until I can’t breathe. I look down upon my hands, expecting to see small, helpless fingers, but I still have the broad, tattooed forearms of a six-foot-something enforcer. I have the strength now. I have the size. But in the dream, I’m glued to the floor, paralyzed while the heavy, drunken footsteps resound down the hall behind me.

“Silas.”

The voice isn't my mother’s anymore. It’s Harper’s.

My eyes snap open.

I hit the mattress with a sudden, violent heave of my chest, my hands instantly knotting into the dark charcoal sheets. The ceiling of the penthouse looms above me, bathed amid the faint blue wash of the early morning city skyline.

I lie there for a long minute, listening to the heavy, uneven rhythm of my personal breathing. Sweat slickens the back of my neck, sticking my short hair onto my skin.

Jesus.

I drag a hand down my face, my open hand rough against the stubble on my jaw. I haven't dreamt about my mother in years. I buried those memories along with the cheap plywood casket we put her in when I was nineteen, right before I signed my first entry-level NHL contract.

I sit up slowly, swinging my legs off the side of the bed, resting my elbows on my knees as I stare at the hardwood floor.

My mind flies back to Harper standing by the kitchen island hours ago. Barefoot, her four-inch heels discarded, her shoulders drawn tight like a coiled spring.

I know what violent men are like... I know what fear looks like.

I’d seen that look before. Long before I met Harper Holloway, long before I set foot into a professional rink. I’d grown up watching a woman try to run away from her nightmares. Sometimes, women like her are decked with thousands of dollars of silk and jewels, but it does not really change anything.

Does it?

No.

Dominic Mercer didn't just threaten her father’s company. He did something that taught her to treat every man like a loaded weapon.

And the thought of it makes a dark, ugly heat coil tight in my gut.

I stand up, pulling on a black t-shirt and grey sweatpants, not bothering with shoes. The penthouse is dead silent, the clock on the microwave reading 5:45 AM.

I walk out into the hallway, my bare feet tapping gently on the cold floor. I stop outside the guest bedroom door. It’s cracked open an inch, just like she left it last night.

I shouldn't look. It’s a breach of whatever weird, contractual boundaries we set up. But my feet don't listen to my head.

Isn’t that why I’m in trouble in the first place? I don’t listen to my head. I can become like a ball of pure instinct. A fist.

I quietly push the door open another inch.

The room is dark, the blinds drawn tight against the dawn sun. Harper is fast asleep, buried under the heavy duvet. Her platinum hair is spread across the white pillowcase as spilled ink. Without the heavy makeup, without the rigid posture, she looks impossibly small. One of her arms is resting beneath her chin, her fingers loosely curled.

On the nightstand, the glass of water is half-empty. The Advil packet lies open next to it.

I stand in the doorway for a long moment, my shoulder resting against the frame, watching the steady, slow rise and fall of her chest.

She thinks I’m just an enforcer. A mindless weapon hired to play a role, throw a few punches on the ice, and keep her father’s franchise profitable. She thinks my anger is just an athletic reaction to a corporate hit job.

She doesn't know that every time I look at her trying to hide her fear, I don't see an heiress. I see the apparitions of a broken kitchen in South Boston. I see the helpless kid who swore he’d never let another woman suffer while he stood by and did nothing.

He sounds like an asshole hiding behind his money and influence. I deal with those every day.

Mercer thinks he’s playing a game of chess with press releases, board meetings, and staged photographs. He thinks he can use a woman’s trauma as leverage to pull down a hockey team and enter a power vacuum.

He has no idea what happens when you corner a man who was built in the dark.

Harper shifts in her sleep, a small, faint murmur slipping from her lips as she turns onto her side, facing the door. Her brow furrows slightly, a shadow of tension passing over her face even in her sleep.

I don't touch her. I keep the boundaries between us firmly intact.

"I've got you, Heiress," I whisper into the quiet room.

I gently pull the door shut until the latch clicks softly into place.

Walking back into the kitchen, I pour myself a fresh glass of cold water and lean against the counter, watching the sunrise bleeding red and pink through the glass.

Today, the PR war begins. We have luncheons to attend, cameras to smile for, and a fake romance to sell to a hungry city. We have to look insufferably, ridiculously in love.

I remind myself that it’s just a strategy, and nothing more.