CHAPTER 2

Cole POV

I almost kissed her. I almost kissed Mia Vance, my head coach's daughter, completely off-limits, carrying something heavy in her eyes that she worked hard to hide and the worst part was, I had been thinking about doing it for three weeks. Tonight just almost made it real.

If she hadn't pulled back first, I would have crossed every line I spent eighteen months building.

Her father's voice faded down the hallway. The closet went silent and she was still pressed against me, her breath uneven, her body trembling for reasons I didn't understand yet.

I had my hand on her jaw. My thumb on her lip. Her fingers curled into my shirt like she wanted to kiss me too.

Then she turned her face away.

My jaw tightened.

"Don't," she whispered.

I let go immediately as I stepped back, putting a distance between us.

My heart was slamming against my ribs like I had just played five periods of overtime on a broken knee with nothing left in the tank.

Stupid. So incredibly, embarrassingly stupid.

She was off limits for a hundred reasons and the loudest one was the one standing ten feet away behind a closed door.

I had promised myself when I took this job that I would keep my head down, do the work, collect the paycheque and survive the season. Then I would figure out what came next for a man who used to be somebody and was now a footnote with a limp.

David Vance, her father.

That was reason enough to step back. That was reason enough to walk out of this booth, go home, pour a drink, and make peace with the fact that some things were permanently off the table.

I looked down at my knee. The one that ached every morning, the one that popped in the cold, the one that had ended everything.

I didn't blame the game, I never blamed the game. I blamed the man on the other side of that wall. But she didn't know that and she didn't need to, not tonight.

And now this. Her in the dark, those green eyes and that sharp tongue, the way her whole body had locked up when she heard that name through the wall. She was carrying something heavy, and I wanted against every sensible thought in my head to help her carry it.

I hated that.

I hated that she made me want things I had no right to want. I hated that she made me forget, for about thirty seconds in a cramped dark booth, exactly who her father was and what he had taken from me.

Some things couldn't be forgiven, some lines couldn't be uncrossed, but I still wanted to kiss her anyway.

She slipped out of the closet first, and didn't turn back to look at me. "Lock the door," she said, trying to hide the way her voice shook. But I heard it. She walked out of the office like nothing happened. I stayed behind, counted to sixty. Pressed the back of my head against the wall and stared at the ceiling.

Avoid her, I told myself. Keep your head down, do the job and survive the season.

I had been telling myself the same thing for three weeks.

It was working great.

*****

The next morning, I was on the ice before sunrise, running drills with the junior affiliate, a bunch of kids who thought they were gods because they got drafted in the third round.

My job was to keep them from destroying each other before the season started. Three Stanley Cup rings on my shelf at home, and this was what I was doing with my mornings.

I was the assistant coach.

I said that to myself every day like it might hurt less if I got used to it. It didn't.

"Again," I barked. "Faster on the breakout. You're skating like my grandmother."

They laughed, but I didn't. My knee ached, it always ached. The cold made it worse but I refused to wear a brace. A brace meant admitting I was broken and I would rather be limp than admit anything.

I scanned the stands before I even knew I was doing it, an old habit or a new one.

Mia wasn't there.

Good, I told myself. And then hated that I'd had to tell myself that at all.

I was engrossed in my thoughts when I heard screaming. Fucks sake. Carter and Reeves. They were both nineteen and still acted stupid. Carter slashed Reeves across the shins, and Reeves dropped his glove and threw a punch.

I blew the whistle. "Enough."

They didn't stop. Carter grabbed Reeves by the jersey. Reeves swung wild, missed, hit me instead... His elbow connecting with my ribs.

I stumbled back. My skate caught a rut in the ice.

I went down hard. .my left leg twisted underneath me. The same knee.

The same sound, a wet pop that I heard before I felt it. Pain exploded up my thigh, my hip, white and hot and familiar in the worst way.

I stifled the scream. Pressed my palm over my knee and felt it already beginning to swell beneath my hand. Oh no.

In a flash I was twenty-eight again. Same ice, same sound, same fire in my leg and the same sick feeling of knowing that something was over that could never be undone.

My breath came out in uneven pulls.

"Coach?" Carter called, his face going pale. "Oh shit. Coach, I'm sorry..."

"Get off the ice," I forced out. "Both of you. Now."

4yThey scrambled. The rest of the team followed. Within thirty seconds, the rink was empty, leaving me alone, flat on the back staring at the scoreboard that hadn't changed in years.

My knee was on fire. My chest was tight with anger. I should have left them to their stupidity.

And now, I couldn't even stand. I was still too proud to ask for help.

Eighteen months, eighteen months of physical therapy, of injections, of lying to myself that I could still be part of this world without paying for it and now this. Two kids who wouldn't listen.

I couldn't remain lying on the floor forever. I needed to stand up. I tried but my legs bucked, hitting the ground.

I exhaled.

I remained on the ice, the cold seeping through my clothes and I thought about her. Mia. The way her body pressed against me.

This was the wrong moment to be thinking about her but the moment her face flashed in my memory, somehow my heart relaxed.

I heard someone running on the concourse.

"Cole?"

Her voice. Of course it was her.

CHAPTER 3

Mia POV

I ran.

I told myself I was running because it was my job. Because I was the only medical staff on site. Because if something happened and I hadn't responded, there would be paperwork. I told myself all of that very firmly while my heart was doing something completely different.

I shoved open the door to the medical ward.

Cole was flat on his back on the examination table, one arm draped over his eyes, jaw clenched so hard I could see it from the doorway.

He was lucky I found him when I did. He was lying on the ice like he had all the time in the world, too proud to make a sound, too stubborn to admit he needed anything. In my years of medicine, I had treated exactly two types of patients: those who complained too much and those who would rather die quietly than ask for help. Cole Ryder was aggressively the second kind.

"You really can't do anything without me, can you?" I teased.

Cole didn't move. "Go away, Mia."

"Go away?" I repeated. "I'm the only medical staff on site. You're on my table so you're my problem."

I snapped on the glove. He finally lifted his arm. Those steel blue eyes pinned me with a look that should have come with a warning label. "I didn't ask for you."

"And I didn't ask for my father to hire a fossil with a death wish." I said. A small laugh came out of him. I pulled up a stool. "Let me see the knee."

He didn't move.

"Cole, the knee. Now."

His eyes widened at my tone. No one talked to him like this.

I'd seen the way rookies stammered around him. The way my father's Vincent shiver when Cole entered a room.

But I wasn't a rookie. A legendary hockey player with a bad temper didn't scare me.

He groaned and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. Every movement cost him... I could see it in the way he clenched his jaw, gripping the edge of the bed so tight that his knuckles turned white.

I knelt in front of him and rolled up the leg of his practice pants.

My breath caught.

His knee was like a roadmap. Six surgical scars, no seven. Two of them are old enough to have faded, the rest looks newer. The kneecap itself sat slightly wrong, pulled to one side by what must have been years of compensated movement. The muscle on his left thigh was noticeably smaller than his right, the kind of atrophy that happened when a joint was avoided, when the body learned to route around the damage.

But it was one scar that stopped me.

Long, diagonal, running from below the kneecap upward and to the left. I had seen this pattern before, in trauma cases. In patients who had been operated on under emergency conditions or worse, in patients who had been sent back into activity too early, before the tissue could bind.

A good surgeon didn't leave a scar like this, a rushed one did.

"What happened to you?" I whispered.

He shrugged. "None of your business."

I looked at the scar again, something nagged at the back of my mind, something I couldn't place yet.

"Hockey happened," he said, voice flat. "Are you happy now? Can you do the job?”

I looked at his leg, then him. I looked at the way his left leg sat slightly crooked, the muscle atrophied compared to the right. At the exhaustion behind his eyes that had nothing to do with sleep.

You didn't become an assistant coach because you wanted to," I said slowly. "You became one because it's the closest you can get."

I had known it somewhere in the back of my mind since the first time I saw him watching the players on the ice with that expression. The one he wiped off his face the second he noticed anyone looking. You can't play. And it is killing you every single day.

He rolled his eyes. " I became one because your father offered me a job."

"No." I shook my head. "You took it because standing at the edge of the ice is better than standing in a house somewhere pretending it doesn't exist."

His jaw tightened like I had hit something real.

"Shut up!" his hands curled into fists. "You don't know anything about me."

He didn't want to confront the truth or he just hated that I saw through him. I never knew he went through that. Watching others play, must have been killing him.

And yet, he swallowed the pain and never complained.

Cole grabbed my wrist, his hold firm. His thumb pressed against my pulse point, where my heart was betraying me by racing.

"Stop," he snapped. "Whatever pity party you're throwing for me, stop. I hate pity. I hate people looking at me like I'm broken."

He dropped my wrist and sighed, raking his hands through his hair. "I'm fine."

I opened my mouth to fire back. He wasn't fine and he didn't need to pretend with me, he didn't need to wear a mask around me.

But before I could bring the words out, the TV wall blinked on. Someone in the front office must have patched through the feed.

A press conference.

My father stood on a podium, a big smile on his face. My hands paused on Cole's knee. Beside him, Harrison Cole, the team owner.

And between them…

My hands stopped moving entirely.

I knew that face before I heard the name. I would know it in any crowd, in any light, in any country I ran to. Clean-shaven, that perfect black hair and that smile, the one that tilted just slightly to the left, the one that made interviewers lean forward and fans cheered and every person in his world believed he was something good.

The smile he had worn while his hand was wrapped around my throat.

"Marcus Webb," my father said into the microphone, proudly, beaming. "Our newest addition."

Marcus Webb.

The name landed in my chest like a stone dropped into deep water.

He knew I was here, he had to know. My father bragged about me to every player who walked through those doors. "My daughter, the doctor." Marcus had heard that exact phrase a hundred times when we were together, always said in the same tone.

This was not a coincidence.

Marcus stepped to the microphone. His voice washed over me like ice water.

No, my father wouldn't do this. He couldn't. He couldn't bring the same man that I complained about to the same vicinity I was. He knew I had been running from Marcus.

He knew that the reason I had done my internship here was because I just couldn't keep running anymore and I was broke.

Yes, he didn't care but this was the worst that he could do to me.

"I'm grateful for the opportunity," Marcus said, eyes glinting with malice. "This is a fresh start, a new family and I can't wait to get on the ice and prove myself."

No. No. No.

My hands were shaking. I pressed them against my thighs to hide it. My breath came too fast. The room felt small. Smaller than the closet last night. Smaller than the car Marcus locked me inside while he screamed about dinner being cold.

"Mia."

Cole's voice, distant at first, like hearing someone call your name from the bottom of a pool.

"Mia, look at me."

I couldn't. The screen was still playing. Marcus was laughing at something my father said. His hand clapped my father's shoulder, friendly. The same hand that had…

"Hey!" Cole's hand cupped my face, turned my head and forced me to meet his eyes. "Whatever you're seeing right now, you're not seeing it alone. I'm right here."

I stared at him, my breath was still coming wrong. But something in those words, the particular way he said them, like a man who knew what it was to be somewhere terrible alone helped me a bit

I held onto that.

I wanted to tell him everything. The bruises. The hospital visits I faked. The restraining order I couldn't afford to enforce because Marcus always found me anyway.

I pointed at the screen instead.

"That man," I said. My voice was very quiet. "I know him."

CHAPTER 4

Mia POV

I saw him before he saw me.

Marcus Webb stood outside my father's office with his phone in his hand and his weight on one hip and an expression that was just relaxed enough to look like someone who had nothing to hide.

That was the thing about Marcus, he always looked like he belonged wherever he was. He had spent years perfecting it. In public he was easy, warm, the kind of man other men wanted to be around and women thought they understood. In private he was something else entirely.

I stopped midstep. My heart was beating so fast I thought I would vomit.

Not here, not now, not after everything.

My brain started running calculations the way it always did when Marcus appeared thinking of the fastest exits, who was nearby, and how long before someone would notice if I disappeared.

I turned around, fast. My shoes squeaked on the floor, I didn't care. I just needed to move, to disappear, to become invisible the way I'd practiced for two years.

I was faced with two options. Taking the stairs which were too long and far away or a long flight down to the lower level. If I ran, he'd hear. If I walked, he'd surely see.

Fuck it. I chose the stairs.

My hand gripped the railing, as I began to skip flights of stairs, my breath came in shallow gasps.

The memory slammed into me immediately. Memory that I had spent years trying to lock away. The first time he backhanded me across the mouth. I'd dropped my phone. He'd stepped on it, a big smile on his face as he crushed it under his heel. "You're not going anywhere," he'd said.

I spent years loving him. I believed that one day he would change and every day I woke up with bruises. Any time I tried to leave, it always got worse until one day that I had added sleeping pills into his drink as I sneaked out.

Two years of me being free but of course, it was just an illusion.

“Mia.” His smooth voice called from behind me. I didn't turn around. I took another step.

"Mia, wait." I heard his frantic footsteps, faster than mine. "I know you heard me."

I broke into a run. My ankle twisted on the fourth step. I caught myself on the railing, pain shooting up my leg, but I kept going.

He was faster.

His hand closed around my elbow, firm enough that I knew...I knew...he could snap my arm if he wanted to.

I squeaked.

"Where are you going?" He barked, pulling me to a stop on the landing between floors. The stairwell was empty, just the both of us and my legs shook. "You didn't even say hello."

"Let go of me, Marcus," I whispered.

His hand tightened on mine. He stepped closer. His cologne, the same brand he'd worn for years, filled my lungs like poison. "I came back for you. You know that, right? This whole trade, the new team...I did it for you."

The worst thing about Marcus was never the anger, the anger I could brace for. It was moments like this, when he looked at me with something that actually resembled love and expected me to be grateful.

My throat tightened. "I didn't ask you to."

"You never had to ask." His free hand came up to my face. His fingers traced my jaw. My skin crawled. "You look good. Tired. But good. Stressful job?"

I flinged his hand away. "Don't touch me."

He chuckled. "I've touched every part of you, Mia. Don't act like a stranger now."

He pushed me against the wall. Concrete scraped my back through my shirt. His body pressed against mine, heavy, familiar, sickening. His hand moved to my hip, gripped hard enough to cause a bruise.

"Stop." My voice broke. "Stop it."

"You used to like this," he drawled.

"I used to be afraid of you."

"Same thing." He smiled. That left-tilted smile that made everyone think he was charming. "You're still afraid, I can feel you shaking."

I was. My whole body trembled. My vision blurred at the edges, the stairwell spun. I was twenty-two again, locked in his apartment, watching him pace because I'd looked at another man for too long.

But I wasn't twenty-two anymore.

"Get off me," I said. Louder this time. "Get off me now."

He leaned close, his lips brushed my ear and I closed my eyes and thought about the stairs. About the door at the bottom and about how many steps.

"Scream," he said pleasantly. "Go ahead, your father is upstairs choosing which of my press photos to use. Your assistant coach is down on the ice somewhere trying to pretend his knee isn't finished."

He pulled back just enough to look at me. "I asked around about Ryder, by the way, sad story. Coaches who can't walk fast enough to get to you aren't really much of a plan."

The smile never left his stupid lips. "No one is coming, Mia.”

I screamed anyway. "LET GO OF ME!"

Marcus laughed, actually laughed with his hand moved to my throat. "That's not going to..."

For a second, just one, nothing happened. My scream echoed off the concrete and died.

Then I heard footsteps, slow and uneven. The sound of someone climbing stairs.

"Step back."

The voice came from below the stairs. Cole.

Marcus turned his head but didn't move his body. "This doesn't concern you, old man."

"I said step back."

Cole climbed the last few steps. His limp was worse than this morning. His face was pale from the pain, but his eyes were on fire.

He had heard me from the bottom. He had come up anyway, on a knee that had already been through enough today to justify staying down, and he was looking at Marcus the way a man looks at something he has already decided to destroy.

Marcus finally pulled away from me. Held up both hands in mock surrender. "Relax. I was just catching up with an old friend."

"She told you to let go. I heard her from the bottom of the stairs."

He scoffed. "She plays hard to get."

Cole's jaw twitched.

Marcus faced Cole fully. "What are you going to do, Ryder? Blow out your other knee trying to fight me? I've seen you walk. You're a cripple. Always has been. You couldn't..."

Cole's fist connected with Marcus's face. The crack echoed off the concrete walls. Marcus stumbled back, hand flying to his nose. Blood dripped between his fingers.

Cole didn't say anything. He just stood there, breathing steadily, and waited.

"You hit me," Marcus said, eyes widening.

"Get up," Cole said.

Marcus got up and swung back.

His fist caught Cole in the ribs, the same side from the practice fight. Cole grunted but didn't fall. He grabbed Marcus by the collar and slammed him against the opposite wall. Marcus kneed him in the thigh. Cole's bad leg buckled. He went down on one knee.

"No!" I grabbed Cole's shoulder. "Stop, both of you, stop!"

Marcus lunged. Cole caught him by the throat. They crashed into the railing. I pulled at Marcus's arm. He shoved me aside. I hit the wall, my head cracked against concrete and slid down.

Cole saw me fall and something in him snapped.

He drove his forehead into Marcus's nose. Blood sprayed. Marcus roared. They traded punches, ribs, and jaws.

"COLE!" I screamed his name, he didn't hear me or didn't care. Then footsteps pounded from above.

"What in God's name is going on here?"

My father.

He stood at the top of the stairs, face red, tie loosened, eyes wide. Behind him, the assistant GM, and two security guards.

Cole froze with his fist raised. Marcus shoved him off and staggered backward, blood pouring down his chin.

My father looked at Marcus, at Cole, then at me, as I slumped against the wall, crying, my shirt torn at the collar.

"Someone," my father said slowly, "had better start talking. Now."