Chloe POV:
The name on the screen was Eleanor Hayes. My adoptive mother. My heart tightened again, but this time, for an entirely different reason.
I swiped to decline the call. I didn't want to talk to anyone from the Hayes family. But a text immediately followed.
"Chloe, come home for dinner tonight. We all miss you."
"Home?" I scoffed at the screen. That place was never my home. It was a gilded cage where I was always the outsider.
I tossed the phone aside and curled up on my bed, pulling my knees to my chest. Was last night a mistake?
My mind drifted back a month ago, to the engagement party for Xavier Hayes and Babette Franco. Xavier, the boy I'd loved for ten years, my nominal brother. Babette, my former best friend, the girl who took him from me.
At the party, Babette had flaunted her enormous diamond ring in my face. "Thank you, Chloe," she'd whispered, her voice dripping with venom only I could hear. "If you weren't so boring and pathetic, always following him around, how could he ever see how amazing I am?"
Xavier had just looked away, embarrassed, but silent. He let her humiliate me. In that moment, my heart finally died.
I couldn't let it go. I needed them to feel the same pain they had caused me. I needed to destroy the one thing they valued most: their obsession with climbing the social ladder. Babette had spent her entire life dreaming of reaching the highest circles of society, and Beckett was the peak she could never reach.
So I made a plan. Using my internship with the Stallions, I would get close to the one man in the league famous for being untouchable, for his absolute disinterest in women. The Ice God, Beckett Sterling.
I would become the one thing Babette could never be: the woman by Beckett Sterling's side. Even if it was only for one night, it would be the cruelest revenge I could ever give her.
I spent weeks studying his habits, his schedule, manufacturing "accidental" run-ins. I played the part of a bold, flirty, carefree puck bunny-exactly the kind of woman I thought he'd be interested in for a night.
And it worked. He noticed me. And then came last night.
But what was the price? I looked at the bruises on my wrists and laughed, a bitter, hollow sound. I thought I was the hunter, but I was the one who ended up torn apart.
I never wanted to get this entangled with a man like Beckett. He was a predator. Unpredictable, violent, and he made me tremble to my core.
I just wanted my revenge, and then I wanted out. But now, it felt like things were spinning out of my control.
The pain in my abdomen flared again, a brutal reminder of last night's violence. I struggled out of bed and into the bathroom, swallowing two painkillers.
Looking at my haggard reflection, I made a decision. This had to end. I couldn't keep his money. I had to break this connection.
I picked up my phone again, ready to transfer the money back, but the text from the Hayes family stared back at me.
I sighed. I couldn't avoid it. If I didn't go tonight, Eleanor would find a hundred ways to make my life hell.
She always did. Using the excuse of "caring for me" to control every aspect of my life. It had been that way since my parents died and they took me in.
"Okay, I'll be there," I texted back.
A wave of exhaustion washed over me. On one side, the terrifying Beckett. On the other, the predatory Hayes family. I was trapped in the middle of a spider's web.
But before I went to the Hayes house, there was one more thing I had to do.
I pulled up a map and searched for the nearest pharmacy. I had to get the pill he commanded me to take.
I changed into a turtleneck sweater to hide the bruises, adding a hat and a mask, covering myself completely.
Outside, the sunlight was harsh. I felt like a vampire, allergic to the day.
The corner coffee shop was playing sports news on the TV. Beckett's cold, handsome face filled the screen. He was giving a post-game interview, his answers short and clipped, the same impenetrable wall he showed on the ice. No one would ever guess what kind of monster he was behind closed doors.
I looked away quickly and hurried down the street, desperate to escape anything related to him.
I walked into the pharmacy, my head down, and found what I needed in a forgotten corner of the store.
The small box felt like it weighed a thousand pounds in my hand.
At the checkout, the pharmacist's sympathetic glance made me feel ashamed.
Outside the store, I leaned against the brick wall, tore open the package, and swallowed the pill with a bottle of water I had in my bag.
The bitter taste spread from the back of my tongue, just like the taste of my life right now.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.
