Chapter 141 Promise me

Chapter 141 Promise me
Tegan

The iron double doors at the end of the private training corridor flew backward against the concrete walls with a sudden, deafening crash that cut through the muffled, thunderous roar of the stadium intermission crowd above us.

Before Charlie or I could even take another step down the narrow utility corridor, a massive, dark shadow lunged out from the mouth of the tunnel.

Hayes.

He looked completely, terrifyingly feral. He had his helmet off, his stark white hair a chaotic, damp mess of sweat and melting ice, his broad six-foot-four athletic frame breathing heavily as the pads of his jersey rose and fell with a violent, erratic rhythm.

The second his blue, panic-stricken eyes locked onto my face, and the fact that I was physically standing there. He surged across the concrete floor in two brutal, ground-shaking strides.

He didn't say a word. He didn't ask questions. His massive, heavy arms reached out and violently grabbed my waist, hauling my body off the ground and crushing me fiercely against his chest.

He clutched me so tightly it felt like he was trying to physically fuse my skin into his pads, his head dropping low into the crook of my neck as he inhaled my scent of vanilla and mint with a desperate, suffocating intensity.

"Where the fuck were you?" he growled against my skin, his voice a raw, jagged rasp that vibrated straight through my collarbones.

His large, calloused hands trembled as they slid up my back, anchoring into my hair, his chest heaving as if he had just been pulled out of a deep ocean.

"Your seat was empty. The entire first period... I couldn't breathe out there. I couldn't see the ice. I thought... I thought something bad happened to you."

"Hayes, I'm okay," I whispered rapidly, my hands coming up to grip his broad shoulders, trying to ground him through the sheer velocity of his panic.

"I'm fine. The baby is fine. I just got delayed by Vanessa and her friends" I tell him, skipping the details.

The mention of Vanessa made his entire frame instantly lock up, an icy, murderous fury flaring deep within his pupils. He pulled back just a fraction, his large hands moving down to cup my face with a terrifyingly possessive warmth, his thumbs aggressively brushing away the residual sweat on my temples.

He leaned down, his lips slamming over mine in a deep, desperate, and entirely consuming kiss that tasted like salt and adrenaline, a silent, breathless declaration that I belonged to him.

He pulled his mouth away, his forehead resting against mine as he took a long, ragged breath, his thumbs still stroking my jawline. But as the silence of the private corridor settled over us, his eyes narrowed.

He looked down at the pale, ghost-like face of Charlie standing behind me, then back into my eyes. I almost forgot she was standing there.

He noticed the stillness in my posture. He noticed the way my hands were tightly clutching the fabric of his jersey, my fingers shaking against his chest.

"Tegan," Hayes murmured, his pitch dropping an octave.

He stepped back slightly, his hands sliding down to wrap securely around my wrists, his eyes tracking the frantic pace of my pulse. "Something is wrong. Your heart is racing. What are you hiding from me?"

I looked up into his rugged, handsome face, my throat going completely dry as the crushing weight of the whole thing settled into my chest.

I glanced at Charlie, who gave me a silent, trembling nod. There was no more running. I had to tell him.

"Hayes, you need to listen to me very carefully," I said, my voice dropping into an ice-cold, quiet register that cut straight through the distant thumping of the stadium speakers.

I pulled my hands from his grip, reaching up to firmly cup his face, forcing his wild, pretty eyes to lock entirely onto mine.

"Lino was able to fix the cloner. So our plan on Halloween didn't go to waste. He got the details of the hacker."

Hayes’s jaw clenched so tightly the muscle beneath his stubble looked ready to snap. "And?"

"The digital signature on Tessa Bloom's server logs belongs to Noah," I whispered, the name dropping like a lethal block of concrete into the dead silence of the hallway.

"Noah Brookes is the hacker."

A dark, suffocating aura of pure, unadulterated violence instantly exploded from Hayes’s massive frame.

His eyes turned into chips of black, murderous flint, his chest expanding so violently against his shoulder pads that the plastic groaned under the pressure. He didn't yell. He didn't rage.

He simply turned his head toward the heavy iron doors leading back to the bench, his boots hitting against the concrete floor as he prepared to march out there and deal with Noah.

"Hayes, wait!" I screamed, lunging forward with every ounce of my strength, my arms wrapping around his heavy forearm to physically halt his momentum. I threw my body in front of his line of sight, forcing him to look down at me.

"Look at me! You cannot do this! I am not finished!"

"He deserves whatever I'm going to do to him, Tegan," Hayes hissed, his voice a low, terrifying snarl that didn't sound human.

His fingers bunched into white-knuckled fists at his sides, his veins bulging violently against the skin of his neck. "I always knew that fucker was up to no good."

"You are going to listen to me first!" I shot back, my sharp wit flashing through his fury like a scalpel as I grabbed his jersey, forcing his face down to my level.

"His last name isn't Brookes, it's Fieldstone. He's Ethan's brother"

Hayes completely froze. The air left his lungs in a sharp, audible gasp, his entire frame locking up as the truth crashed over his mind with the force of a tidal wave.

"He thinks he's invisible, Hayes," I pressed, my voice thick with a desperate, protective emotion as I stepped closer into his chest, my hands trembling against his vest.

"He thinks he's still running the game from the shadows. But we have the files. We have the proof. We can take this to the board, we can hand it to the feds, and we can destroy him legally without a single ounce of violence."

I tightened my grip on his jersey, my eyes burning as I looked up into his wild, feral features. "But you have to promise me something, Hayes. Right now. Before you step back onto that ice for the second period."

Hayes stared down at me, his breathing ragged, his chest heaving as the brutal war between his violent instincts and his need to protect our future collided in his head. "Tegan..."

"No, promise me, Hayes!" I demanded fiercely, a hot tear finally escaping my lashes, tracing a wet path down my cheek.

"You cannot do anything on that ice to compromise your team. If you attack a teammate in front of fans and the media cameras, the athletic board will disqualify you for the entire season. Hayes, I am telling you right now, just play the game. You stay composed until the final buzzer sounds. Promise me."

The silence that followed was suffocating, the distant roar of the stadium horn signaling the two-minute warning for the second period echoing through the concrete walls.

Hayes looked at my hands clutching his chest, his eyes tracking down to the curve of my stomach beneath his jersey, before locking back onto my face. Looking completely at the mercy of my words.

He let out a long, slow, and ragged breath, his broad shoulders dropping just a fraction as his jaw clenched into a hard line.

"I promise, Tegan," he rumbled roughly, his voice a dark, jagged whisper that left a cloud of white mist in the freezing corridor air. He leaned down, his lips brushing my forehead one last time with a heavy, possessive certainty. "I'll play the fucking game."

He pulled his arm from my grip, turned on his heel, and walked down the dark tunnel toward the ice. But as I watched his massive shadow vanish into the blinding white light of the arena, a cold, terrifying dread suddenly locked around my heart.

He had given me his word, but there was still a gnawing feeling in my chest that told me he was going to do otherwise.