My breath caught as one player drove the other back, fists connecting with a force that felt too real, too close, the rhythm of it brutal and unrelenting.
And then I saw him.Müller. Number 91. There was no hesitation in him. No second-guessing. Just precision and force, his movements controlled in a way that made it worse, not better.
He didn’t start it. But he finished it.
The final hit landed with a sickening clarity, the other player going down hard enough that the shift in the crowd was abrupt—cheers twisting into something sharper, more uncertain.
Silence fractured the space for half a second.
Then movement rushed in. Medical staff. Officials. Bodies closing in. The stretcher.
My stomach dropped.
“That—” My voice faltered, my eyes still locked on the ice as the player was lifted, unmoving. “That’s—does that happen?”
Micah didn’t answer right away.
Which told me everything.
Ezra was already on his feet. His expression had shifted completely, the warmth gone, replaced by something focused, controlled, and deeply serious.
“I need to go,” he told Lo quickly, already moving. “I’ll meet you after.”
There was no hesitation. No question. Just action.
And something in my chest tightened again—but not from fear. From understanding. Because this wasn’t just a game to him. This was responsibility.
The arena felt different on the way out. Quieter. Heavier.
I walked beside Micah in silence for a few steps before the words finally pushed through. “I’m sorry.”
She glanced at me, brows pulling together. “For what?”
“For every time you asked me to come to one of these,” I admitted, shaking my head slightly. “For every time I said no like it wasn’t worth it.”
Micah studied me for a second longer, then her expression softened, something warm and knowing settling in. “Now you get it,” she murmured.
I looked back toward the ice, even though we were already too far away to see it clearly.
Yeah.
Now I got it.
And I didn’t know what to do with that yet.
Or with the image of him—Müller—still burned into my mind. Controlled. Dangerous. Magnetic in a way that made no sense. And worse—in a way I didn’t trust.
CHAPTER 3
ALOIS
PRESENT DAY
My pulse hadn’t come down yet.
It sat heavy in my chest, slow and deliberate, still deciding whether the fight was over. My hands ached in time with it, knuckles throbbing under tape, shoulder tight where I’d taken the last hit. Adrenaline always left behind a kind of quiet—sharp, hollow, and familiar.
Around me, the room started to exhale in pieces.