Damon’s POV
Standing over the cooling corpse of our head coach, my mind involuntarily flashed back to the very first day I had ever seen Noah Miller kill a man.
That first time had been infinitely more ruthless than this. Tonight, Noah had actually been kind enough to give the old bastard a relatively clean and quick death. That first victim from our past hadn’t been nearly as lucky; Noah had subjected him to a horrific, calculated series of tortures until the man was literally weeping, begging on his knees just to be put out of his misery.
I violently waved the dark memory out of my head. That was a thought for another day. Right now, a fresh pool of crimson was expanding across the desk, and we needed to find a way to clean up this catastrophic mess before some clueless janitor walked in on us.
"Call your rich daddy to handle it for you."
Noah’s flat, icy voice cut straight through my thoughts. Before I could even blink, he forcefully pressed my own bloody skate directly against my chest, blowing past me without a single shred of remorse.
"What?" I barked, gripping the slick, blood-stained steel of the skate as I scrambled to follow him.
Noah marched straight into the private locker room bathroom, immediately peeling off his soiled hockey gear and blood-splattered uniform. He stepped directly under the shower stall, completely unbothered by the carnage we had just left in the office.
"I thought we were actually going to handle the cleanup ourselves this time," I muttered, leaning against the tiled wall.
Noah adjusted the dial. "Ourselves?" he echoed, his voice dripping with pure disdain.
"Of course. You literally said—" I started, but Noah purposely cranked the water pressure to the absolute maximum, letting the deafening roar of the spray completely drown out the rest of my sentence.
I clenched my fists in a sudden spike of hot anger, my knuckles turning white.
’This absolute bastard.’
Grunting in deep frustration, I spun around and stepped back into the hallway to pull out my phone. I dialed my father’s private line, rapidly spinning a tactical lie in my head. The moment my dad answered, I kept my voice low, intense, and furious. I told him that the head coach had cornered me, grabbed my ass, and explicitly threatened my future because I was a Silver.
My father absolutely loathed it when anyone dared to threaten the Silver family name. It was a matter of pride.
Predictably, the lie worked like a charm. My father’s voice darkened instantly over the line, and he promised to send his personal cleanup crew to handle the entire mess immediately. His only condition was that I leave the campus arena right this second.
I nodded to the empty hallway and ended the call. Just as I pocketed the phone, Noah stepped out of the steaming bathroom, a white towel slung casually around his broad waist, water droplets glistening on his chest.
"My father is taking care of it," I announced, watching him carefully. Noah didn’t say a single word. He simply walked over to his locker and began pulling on his casual street clothes with practiced, entirely calm movements. "He’s also going to pull some strings and find a quick replacement coach for the team before the tournament."
Noah remained aggressively silent.
"Wow. A simple ’thanks, bro’ would completely suffice, don’t you think?" I mocked, spreading my arms wide in mock offense.
Noah paused, adjusting his collar before turning his piercing blue eyes onto me. "Didn’t you call your father for Micah’s sake? Why on earth should I thank you for that?"
"Facts!" I snapped my fingers, a wicked grin returning to my face. "But you still used my skates to do the heavy lifting."
"And I gave them right back to you," Noah countered smoothly, slamming his locker shut.
I chuckled, nodding along. Honestly, this was probably the single longest conversation I had ever had with Noah Miller since we started playing on the same ice. I watched him throw on his jacket while I quickly changed out of my own jersey... the one Noah had careless stained with the bloody skates.
The moment we stepped out of the back exit of the arena, my father’s cleanup crew was already arriving. A few stoic men carrying heavy, professional-looking toolboxes walked past us toward the facility doors. The lead cleaner gave me a short, disciplined nod of acknowledgment, and I returned the gesture with a smirk.
Noah walked straight to his car, completely ignoring the crew. Without uttering another syllable to me, he peeled out of the parking lot, clearly heading straight home to check on Micah.
I let out a dark laugh, jumping into my own sports car and hitting the gas. I was driving in the exact same direction... because I wanted to see Micah, too.
The moment my car screeched to a halt outside the Miller residence, Noah was already stepping out of his vehicle. He whipped his head around, shooting me a deadly, venomous glare that could have killed a lesser man.
"What the hell do you think you’re doing, Silver? Why are you here?" Noah hissed, stepping into my path.
"I’m here to meet Micah, obviously," I purred, leaning against the hood of my car.
Noah’s jaw clenched, his eyes turning entirely homicidal. "Do you honestly want to end up exactly like that damn coach? Stay completely away from Micah, you bloody..."
"Noah?"
A soft, hesitant voice broke the tension from the porch. We both snapped our heads toward the front door. Micah was standing right there under the porch light, looking completely adorable wrapped up in an oversized white sweater that made him look entirely too innocent for this world.
Noah’s terrifying expression instantly melted into something fiercely protective. He completely ignored my existence, stepping forward to stand directly in front of his little brother. "Why are you still awake, Micah? Did something happen while I was gone?"
"Oh..." Micah murmured, nervously scratching the back of his neck, completely unable to find an immediate answer.
Watching him stumble over his words, a highly entertaining thought crossed my mind. I wondered if the poor kid was currently up late writing Volume Two of his viral column about my anatomy. A wide grin spread across my lips. God, I couldn’t wait to read the student forums tomorrow morning.
Deciding to play along, I walked closer and casually rested a heavy hand right on Noah’s tense shoulder to "help" the kid out. "Were you up late working on your university assignment, little reporter?"
Micah’s eyes lit up with instant relief. "Oh, yeah! Exactly."
’Poor kid,’ I thought, a surge of possessive heat rushing through my veins. Why hadn’t he just thought of that simple lie in the first place? He was so incredibly innocent, so fragile, it made me want to do entirely dangerous, unspeakable things to him just to see how he’d break.
Noah violently shoved my hand off his shoulder, casting a warning look back at me before addressing Micah. "You should finish up whatever you’re doing and go straight to sleep."
"Right... I also need to head to the athletic office early tomorrow to get the head coach’s official signature for my media registration paperwork," Micah explained softly.
"You can worry about getting it tomorrow," Noah replied smoothly, his voice entirely steady despite knowing the coach was currently a corpse on a slab.
Micah gave a quiet nod. Before he turned to step back inside the house, he flashed a sudden, fierce glare directly at me. But as the door began to close, I bit my lower lip hard, my eyes lingering on the back of his head with a strange, heavy intensity.
"He really is incredibly cute..." I muttered aloud into the night air.
Noah didn’t hesitate. He forcefully shoved me straight off the concrete pavement, his face dark with pure menace. "Buzz off, Silver. I am not going to warn you again."
I lifted my hands in a mock surrender, chuckling as I backed away toward my car. "See you bright and early tomorrow morning, captain," I called out, slipping into the driver’s seat. Noah stood like a shadow on the lawn, watching my tail lights until I completely drove off into the dark.
As I cruised down the empty, winding roads back toward my side of the city, my grin only grew wider.
’Fuck,’ I thought to myself, tapping my fingers wildly against the steering wheel. If only I had been smart enough to capture that gruesome office murder scene on a hidden camera... I would have been able to completely control that arrogant captain for the rest of his life.
But as the adrenaline from the night finally began to fade, a cold, unsettling realization settled deep into my chest. I stared out at the dark road ahead, my smile slowly vanishing.
’But seriously... who the hell is Noah Miller?’