Roxy POV
The ice-cold feeling of a billionaire’s eyes evaluating your net worth in a single, dismissive glance made the skin on my neck prickle with discomfort.
Richard Montgomery didn’t treat me like human standing in front of him.
He looked at me the way an inspector looks at a flaw on the factory floor—something small, inconvenient, and easily thrown away.
“Mr. Montgomery,” Coach Owen said instantly, stepping forward and extending a heavy hand.
“We didn’t expect you until the second period.”
Richard ignored the coach’s outstretched hand.
He didn’t blink.
He didn’t acknowledge Dean Cooper, who was practically sweating through his shirt as he adjusted his golden pen.
Richard simply walked past them all, his tailored dak suit pristine, and pulled out the leather armchair directly next to mine.
He sat down slowly, unbuttoning his suit jacket with calm ease.
“Sit, Miss Brooks,” Richard commanded.
It wasn’t a request.
It was an order backed by billions of dollars and a legal army that could erase my family before nightfall.
My knees felt heavy, but I forced myself to lower my body back onto the leather seat.
I kept my spine straight as iron, crossing my ankles beneath the emerald silk of my dress.
Across the room, Cassandra Belmont took a small, triumphant sip of her water.
She thought she had already won.
She thought this monster of a man was going to dismantle me piece by piece.
Down on the ice, the whistle blew, and the first period began.
The crowd roared as the Kingston Blackwells surged forward, the hard rubber puck clattering against the boards.
“You’re out of your depth,” Richard said quietly.
He didn’t look at me as he spoke.
His cold grey eyes—so like Jaxon’s, yet entirely dead—were locked onto the ice, tracking number 17 as Jaxon smashed a rival player against the glass.
“I beg your pardon?” I said, keeping my voice smooth, flat, and devoid of fear.
“Look around this room, girl,” Richard murmured, his deep voice barely carrying above the dull thrum of the arena.
“The hard wood. The glass. The people sitting in these chairs. My family built half of this campus. We pay the salaries of the men sitting behind us. You are a temporary distraction. A minor speed bump in my son’s carefully mapped trajectory.”
“I am Jaxon’s official academic tutor, Mr. Montgomery,” I replied, staring straight ahead at the game.
“And right now, I’m the only reason he remains eligible to skate for the Blackwells.”
Richard let out a soft, dry breath through his nose.
It wasn’t laughter, it was condescension.
The harsh overhead lighting caught the sharp, angular line of his jaw.
“Jaxon is twenty years old. He is reckless, impulsive, and full of foolish pride. He uses girls like you from poor neighborhoods to spite me. He thinks picking up a charity case gives him power.”
The word charity case burned like salt in an open wound.
It was the exact same insult Chloe had thrown at me in the dining hall.
The same poison wrapped in a thousands of dollar suit.
“I am not a charity case,” I said, my teeth clenching so hard my jaw throbbed.
“I earned my place at Kingston Academy with my mind. I work two jobs, I carry a maximum course load, and I don’t rely on my father’s bank account to secure my future.”
“And yet, your future hangs by a single thread in this very room,” Richard countered smoothly.
His cold gaze flicked down to my hands, which were resting flat on my lap.
“Cassandra’s father and I signed a preliminary merger agreement three months ago. Jaxon’s future wife has already been chosen, Miss Brooks. A woman with bloodline, capital, and legacy. Not a girl whose family lives off government vouchers in Ashenvale.”
My breath hitched in my throat.
Future wife.
The words landed in my chest like a blow, heavy and suffocating.
Jaxon had never mentioned an agreement.
He had called Cassandra crazy, a stalker who couldn’t take no for an answer, but he had hidden the dark truth—that his own father had already sold him off to protect their corporate empire.
I looked over at Cassandra.
She met my eyes through the reflection in the glass, a cold, smug sneer settling on her face.
She knew.
She had known all along.
Down on the ice, the buzzer sounded, signaling the end of a scoreless first period.
The players slammed their sticks against the ice and skated toward the locker rooms.
My mind was racing, a chaotic storm of hurt, anger, and betrayal.
I wanted to stand up and run out of the box.
I wanted to take off this stupidly expensive emerald dress and leave Kingston behind forever.
No, I told myself fiercely.
If you run now, they win.
If you break, you go home with nothing.
The second period started shortly after.
They knew if they took down number 17, the Blackwells would crumble.
Richard adjusted his gold watch, his patience clearly wearing thin as the game remained tied at zero.
“When this match ends, you will step up to that table and sign a voluntary resignation from the athletic tutoring program. In exchange, I will personally see to it that Dean Cooper drops Cassandra’s complaint.”
“And if I refuse?” I asked, turning my head to face him directly for the first time.
Richard finally looked me dead in the eye.
His expression was as blank as a tombstone.
“Then I pull the Montgomery Foundation’s endowment from Kingston before midnight. Dean Cooper will be forced to cut twenty full-ride scholarships to balance the budget tomorrow morning. Yours will be the first name on his desk.”
A cold, vicious anger erupted deep in my chest.
It washed over the fear, replacing my terror with fire.
He wasn’t just threatening me, he was willing to ruin twenty other innocent students just to bend his son to his will.
“You really don’t know your son at all, do you?” I said, my voice dropping into a low, deadly whisper that made Coach Owen shift uncomfortably in his seat behind us.
Richard’s dark eyebrows pulled together by a bit of a millimeter.
“What did you say?”
“You think Jaxon is failing because he’s stupid or lazy,” I said, looking him dead in the eye, refusing to break eye contact.
“He’s failing because he hates you. He wrecks his grades, he starts fights, and he acts out because it’s the only way he can force you to pay attention to him. But under my watch, his macroeconomics score went from a pathetic thirty percent to an eighty-five. His GPA has doubled in three weeks.”
Richard’s jaw tightened so hard the bone looked ready to snap through his skin.
His cold composure cracked, a flash of genuine, furious shock registering in his grey eyes at my utter audacity.
“You dare speak to me about my son—”
A deafening, crack echoed through the glass, cutting Richard off mid-sentence.
The entire arena gasped in unison, followed instantly by a wave of furious screaming from thousands of fans.
I whipped my head toward the ice.
Jaxon had been sprinting toward the opponent’s zone, tracking a loose puck along the blue line.
But their huge, heavy-set defenseman had come out of nowhere, extending his elbows and delivering a filthy, illegal blindside hit straight to Jaxon’s side.
The force of the impact lifted Jaxon entirely off his skates.
He airborne for a second before crashing headfirst into the thick steel goalpost.
The sickening sound of helmet striking metal echoed all the way up into the luxury box.
Jaxon crumpled onto the ice like a ragdoll.
He didn’t move.
He didn’t reach for his head.
He just lay completely motionless on the white surface, his black jersey pool of shadow as his helmet popped loose, rolling away into the red circle.