Chapter 81 CHAPTER 81

Chapter 81 CHAPTER 81
Julian’s Pov

The stadium didn’t cheer, it ruptured.

The sound of twenty thousand people reacting to the sudden-death goal came down from the concrete risers like a physical weight, a massive, roaring shockwave that rattled the steel beams in the ceiling and made the white glass partitions flex inward against their iron clamps.

High above center ice, the massive four-sided scoreboard flashed in blinding, erratic pulses of red and white light:

NORTHWOOD: 4 | CENTRAL STATE: 3

NATIONAL CHAMPIONS

All around me, the world went completely wild. The Northwood bench emptied in a fraction of a second, blue jerseys spilling over the wooden boards like a dam breaking, heavy leather boots clattering frantically against the ice, sticks, gloves, and blue helmets flying thirty feet into the air under the blinding halogen floods.

Liam was screaming at the top of his lungs, his big hands thrown wide as he skated backward across the red line; Harrington was on his knees by the blue line, pounding his bare fists straight into the ice until white frost flew across his sleeves.

I didn't run. I couldn't run.

The moment the puck hit the back mesh, the artificial wire holding my body together snapped. My knees simply buckled, the Graf skate blades slipping out from under me, and I dropped flat onto my knees in the high slot.

I put both of my bare hands down onto the wet, chewed-up ice to hold myself up.

The white surface was melting under my palms, a cold, soft slush that soaked straight through my split gloves, numbing my bloody knuckles instantly. I hung my head low between my shoulders, my blue helmet hanging heavy, my chest heaving in shallow, desperate hitches as the white zinc tape around my ribs gave a final, stiff pull against my skin.

The relief wasn't sweet; it was terrifyingly vast. It hollowed me out from the inside, stripping away the months of fear, the suffocating shadow of the Thorne estate, the erased draft projections, the blackmail, and the endless, exhausting burden of holding my spine straight for a family that viewed me as nothing more than a temporary asset on a balance sheet.

Tears cut two clear, warm channels through the dry, crusted blood on my left cheekbone, dripping off my jaw and leaving tiny, dark red holes in the salt-white ice below my face.

I was completely, entirely free.

Through the frantic, blurred mass of blue jerseys and flying equipment, I saw him coming.

Jax didn't stop to hug Harrington. He didn't join Liam's wild, barbaric pileup near the boards, and he didn't raise his hands to celebrate with the bench.

He skated straight through the chaotic sea of players, his massive two-hundred-and-ten-pound frame plowing through the crowd like a heavy iron breaker cutting through river ice. He had thrown his gloves away, his bare, split knuckles dark with dried blood and ice grease, his dark hair plastered to his forehead in heavy, wet mats.

His dark eyes were locked entirely on me.

He didn't glide to a halt. He dug his steel runners into the sheet three feet in front of my knees, sending a spray of gray slush across my chest, and dropped down onto his knees right in front of me.

"Jules," he growled.

His voice was a raw, broken rasp, a sound that carried the entire weight of the Flint plant dirt, the cold miles of county highway, and every single tear we’d held back in that twenty-four-dollar motel room.

Before I could answer, he reached out with both hands. His big, calloused palms caught the wet fabric at the front of my blue jersey, his fingers locking into the collar, and with a single, explosive surge of raw, physical strength, he hoisted me straight off my knees.

My skates barely touched the ice. He pulled me up until our chest protectors slammed together with a loud, wooden CLACK, lifting me until my bare, bloodied face was level with his.

"Look at me, King," he choked out, his chest heaving like an engine running out of water, his hot, heavy breath hitting my cold lips in the tiny space between us. "Look at me."

I reached up, my long fingers locking into the heavy shoulder pads of his jersey, holding onto him with every ounce of strength left in my aching arms. I didn't care that my third rib was screaming under the tape; I didn't care that my body was broken to pieces.

"We took it, Jax," I whispered, my voice breaking into a wet, sob-filled laugh against his skin. "We took the sheet."

"We took the whole damn world, Jules," he growled back, his forehead pressing hard against mine, his dark eyes shining with an unholy, beautiful light.

The high-definition broadcast cameras were hovering three feet from our shoulders, massive, black motorized lenses mounted on long mechanical booms, capturing every single square inch of our faces to beam live across twenty million television screens across the nation.

In the press box, thirty NHL scouts were leaning over the glass. In the front row, the league commissioner was standing frozen.

I didn't care. The "Ice King" was dead. The Thorne mask, that smooth, cold, manufactured porcelain shield my father had spent twenty-two years building, shattered into ten thousand worthless pieces right there on center ice.

I reached up with both hands, caught the hard plastic frame of Jax’s blue helmet, and dragged his head down to mine.

And I kissed him.

It wasn't gentle, and it wasn't quiet. It was a hard, fierce, and desperate collision of lips, a raw, unyielding declaration sealed with the taste of copper, cold ice, sweat, and my own fresh blood.

The deafening roar of twenty thousand people in the National Stadium seemed to instantly fade into absolute, silent nothingness. The flashing strobe lights overhead, the blaring horn, the screaming teammates, and the hovering camera lenses dissolved into a single, blinding point of focus: the crushing heat of Jax’s mouth against mine, and the iron grip of his hands locking around my waist, holding me so tight I couldn't have fallen if the whole stadium collapsed beneath us.

He didn't pull away. He let out a low, guttural sound from the back of his throat, his mouth opening against mine, his bare, bloody fingers digging deep into the small of my back, lifting me higher until my heart beat directly against his chest.

We stood at center ice, locked together in front of the scouts, the cameras, the national media, and the country, two boys built from ice and dirt who had burnt the entire corporate playbook to the ground.

When I finally pulled back, my lungs burning for air, Jax’s hands stayed firm on my hips, keeping me steady on my skates.

My lips were hot, bruised, and wet with blood. Jax looked down at me, a slow, breathtaking grin breaking across his dark, sweat-streaked face, a smile so bright, so victorious, that it made my chest ache with a joy so intense it felt like a brand new rib setting into place.

Over his heavy shoulder, past the swarm of photographers thrusting long black lenses through the photographers' cutout in the dasher boards, I looked toward the front row of the lower bowl.

Arthur Thorne was standing up.

He didn't look at the scoreboard, and he didn't look at the commissioner standing beside him with an empty paper cup in his hands. He was standing alone in his charcoal overcoat, his silver-framed glasses capturing the erratic red pulses of the goal light.

His face wasn't angry anymore. It was hollow, a pale, empty shell of a man who had realized, with absolute, terrifying finality, that all the money in the Merchant’s Trust, all the political favors, and all the blue-lined legal paper in the state could never purchase the thing sitting at center ice.

He looked at me across thirty yards of frozen water.

I didn't hide my face, and I didn't turn away. I stood tall inside Jax’s arm, my jaw set, the dry blood on my cheek shining like iron in the halogen floods, meeting my father's cold gray eyes with a quiet, devastating calm.

Arthur slowly turned his back on the ice.

He didn't say a word to the league officials. He adjusted the lapels of his charcoal coat, pulled his black leather gloves over his white fingers, and began walking up the concrete steps toward the dark exit tunnel.

His steps were slow, heavy, and completely alone, a fallen king walking out of an empty arena, leaving his crown lying face-down in the gray slush of center ice.

I watched him go until his dark coat vanished into the shadows of the concourse.

Then Jax squeezed my waist, pulling my attention right back to where it belonged.

"Hey," Jax whispered softly, his thumb gently wiping a tear off my cut cheek. "Stay here with me."

I turned my face into his hand, kissing his bare, split palm, and let out a long, peaceful breath.

"I'm right here, Jaxom," I said. "I'm right here."

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