“This—” I pressed harder against him, forcing space where there was none. “This is exactly what we are not supposed to do.”
Alois didn’t move. Didn’t budge. If anything, his hold tightened just enough to make the point.
“No,” he murmured, his breath warm against my ear, controlled and certain, “this is exactly why it works.”
Heat surged through me, unwanted and immediate. My temper snapped to meet it, sharp and reckless.
Shoving him back with everything I had, I finally broke free of his hold, stumbling half a step before catching myself.
“We have a plane to catch,” I bit, dragging every ounce of control back into place.
Alois’s mouth curved—not soft, not kind, but unmistakably amused.
“Good,” he said, his voice low, threaded with something that felt dangerously close to approval. “There’s the fire that I was hoping for.”
My glare sharpened. The words landed somewhere between a taunt and a compliment, and I hated that I couldn’t immediately decide which.
Something flickered in his expression—approval, maybe, or something more calculated—but it was gone as quickly as it appeared.
Then he shifted. The ease dropped from his posture, replaced by something more deliberate, more aware. His attention moved past me, toward the door, toward the noise building just beyond it.
“Stay close,” he ordered, already stepping forward, his tone no longer teasing.
The second the door opened, the noise hit us. Reporters had spilled into the hallway, voices rising again the moment they saw us, questions firing before we even had a chance to step fully into the open.
“Beatriz—how long has this been going on?”
“Is this appropriate within the organization?”
Flashes went off in rapid succession, bright and disorienting, forcing my eyes to narrow against the sudden burst of light.
Alois didn’t hesitate. His hand found mine again—firm, unyielding—and then shifted, pulling me closer, angling his body acting as a shield in front of mine as we moved forward.
His shoulder took the brunt of it, bodies pressing too close, voices too loud, cameras shoved into space that shouldnot have been occupied. I felt the force of it through him, the way he absorbed it without breaking stride, without slowing, without giving them anything more than what he chose to give.
My fingers tightened in his without thinking, my body instinctively staying close as we navigated the pandemonium, the air thick with allegations and speculation.
By the time we scrambled to the street, a black car was waiting, engine running. Alois guided me in first, his hand steady at my back, as I ducked into the seat. He followed immediately after, slamming the door closed as the driver pulled away from the curb.
I stared straight ahead, my pulse still racing, my breath not quite steady, my thoughts struggling to catch up to everything that had just happened.
CHAPTER 12
ALOIS
The locker room was louder than it needed to be. Every sound carried sharper than usual—the scrape of skate blades against rubber flooring, the rip of tape, the hollow knock of a stick hitting the bench. Even the ventilation hummed wrong, a low mechanical buzz that sat at the base of my skull and refused to fade. The air smelled like sweat that hadn’t fully dried, damp cotton, menthol, and the faint chemical edge of fresh laundry detergent that never quite masked what this room really was.
I sat at my stall with one skate laced tight and the other loose, elbows braced on my thighs, fingers working the tape around my wrist with steady, practiced pulls. The motion was automatic and comforting.
Across the room, a laugh cut through the noise—too loud, too deliberate. “Ah, there he is,” Marco De Luca announced, already performing. “Our favorite headline. Tell me, Müller, how is it that you royally fuck up and instead of getting the boot, you get a press conference make-out session?”
A few guys chuckled. Not all of them. I didn’t look up.
The tape tightened around my wrist. I pulled it once morethan necessary, feeling the pressure bite into the joint before smoothing it down with my thumb.
Marco wasn’t done. “I mean, the commitment alone,” he continued, gesturing vaguely in my direction. “The intensity. The mystery. Bravo.”
As Marco started a dramatic slow clap, Cam Dunne’s voice cut in, flat and unamused. “Marco, enough.”