Sins on the Rink

“Chapter 4: Everything You’re Not Telling Me,”

“Chapter 4: Everything You’re Not Telling Me,”

────── ❅ VIANA ❅ ──────

I didn't sleep.

I lay in that obscenely huge bed replaying his eyes over and over, gold then brown then gold again, trying to convince myself I'd imagined the whole thing. Trick of the light. Exhaustion. Anything that didn't involve the man three doors down being something other than human.

By morning I'd almost talked myself into believing it. Almost.

Then I walked into the kitchen and found him standing at the counter with his phone in his hand, jaw so tight I could see the muscle jumping, and every rational excuse I'd built overnight collapsed at once.

"We need to talk," I said.

"We need coffee first." He didn't look up. "Then we talk."

"Cross."

"Viana." He finally met my eyes, and whatever he saw there made something in his expression shift, careful and guarded. "Sit down."

I sat. Mostly because my legs had started shaking somewhere around the word talk and I didn't trust them to hold me up much longer.

He slid a mug across the counter, black coffee, no sugar, exactly how I actually drank it, which meant he'd noticed that detail about me at some point without me ever telling him. That should have unsettled me more than it did. Everything about this man should have unsettled me more than it did.

"Last night," I said. "Your eyes. That sound."

"I know what you think you saw."

"Don't." My voice came out sharper than I meant it to. "Don't tell me what I think I saw. Tell me what I actually saw."

He was quiet long enough that I thought he wasn't going to answer at all. Then he set his phone down, flat on the counter, screen facing away from me like he didn't want me seeing whatever was on it.

"There are things about me," he said slowly, "that I don't explain to people. Ever. It's how I've stayed alive this long."

"Stayed alive." I felt my stomach drop. "That's a dramatic way to describe having weird eyes."

"It's not dramatic. It's accurate." He rubbed a hand over his jaw, and for the first time since I'd met him, he looked tired instead of untouchable. "I need you to trust me on one thing. Whatever you saw, whatever you heard, it's not going to hurt you. I would never let it hurt you."

"That's not an answer either."

"It's all you're getting right now."

Freaking hell. I wanted to shake him. Instead I wrapped both hands around the mug and stared at him like if I looked hard enough I could pry the truth out through sheer force of will.

"I signed a contract," I said. "I moved into your apartment. I'm supposed to stand next to you in front of cameras and pretend to be in love with you. I think I'm owed a little more than 'trust me.'"

Something flickered across his face. Guilt, maybe. Or something close to it.

"You're right," he said, quiet. "You are owed more. I'm not ready to give it yet."

"Then when?"

"When I know you're not going to run the second you hear it."

The way he said it, low and careful, sent a shiver down my spine that had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with the way his eyes had gone soft for just a second before he caught himself and shut it back down.

His phone buzzed against the counter, hard and insistent, breaking whatever moment had been building between us. He grabbed it fast, too fast, and whatever he read on the screen drained the color straight out of his face.

"What," I said. "What is it."

"Nothing you need to worry about."

"Cross."

"I said it's nothing." He was already moving, already pulling his jacket off the back of the chair, jaw set in a way that told me this conversation was over whether I liked it or not. "I have to go handle something."

"At seven in the morning?"

"Viana." He stopped at the door, looked back at me, and for one second the mask cracked wide enough that I saw something underneath it that looked a lot like fear. "Stay in the apartment today. Don't answer the door for anyone you don't recognize. Don't go near the rink. Please."

"You're scaring me."

"Good." His voice dropped, rough at the edges. "Scared keeps you careful. Careful keeps you alive."

He left before I could ask what exactly I needed to be careful about, the door clicking shut behind him with a finality that made the whole apartment feel suddenly, horribly empty.

────── ❅ CROSS ❅ ──────

Elias was waiting in the garage, engine already running, face grim in a way that told me this was worse than the message had let on.

"Talk," I said, sliding into the passenger seat.

"They confirmed it." He pulled out fast, hands tight on the wheel. "The Ashgrove family. They're the ones who hit your compound ten years ago. Retired from active hunting after that, or so everyone thought. Someone in their network flagged the engagement photo yesterday and ran facial recognition against old surveillance from the night of the fire."

My blood went cold. "They have a match."

"They have a partial match. Enough to start asking questions. Not enough to be certain yet." Elias glanced at me, something grave in his expression. "But Cross, they found your mother's maiden name buried in old pack records. If they cross reference that against Morvath Holdings incorporation documents from ten years ago—"

"They'll have everything."

"They'll have everything," he confirmed.

I stared out the window, watching the city blur past, thinking about Viana standing in that kitchen with fear and stubbornness fighting for control over her expression, demanding truth I couldn't give her without putting a target on her back bigger than the one already forming on mine.

"There's more," Elias said, quieter now.

"Of course there is."

"The Ashgroves don't just hunt wolves anymore. Since the compound, since they took you off their kill list as presumed dead, they've specialized in something else." He hesitated, which from Elias meant whatever came next was bad. "They hunt mates. Anyone connected to a surviving wolf. It's leverage. It's easier to draw out an alpha through someone he loves than to hunt him directly."

The car went silent except for the engine and the sound of my own pulse roaring in my ears.

"They don't know about Viana," I said. Needed to say it out loud, needed to hear it confirmed.

Elias didn't answer right away, and that silence told me everything I needed to know before he finally spoke.

"They will," he said. "The engagement announcement's already trending. Someone's going to make the connection between the timeline of your family's death and the timeline of you suddenly appearing with a public relationship for the first time in ten years. It's not a matter of if, Cross. It's a matter of how fast."

My phone buzzed in my pocket. A text from an unknown number, no name, no context, just seven words that made my whole body go rigid with a fear I hadn't felt since the night my family died.

We know what she means to you.

────── ❅ ──────