End Game (New York Stars Book 1)

Unknown: Gracie?

Unknown: Please talk to me.

Unknown: We didn’t mean to hurt you.

Unknown: If you’d let me explain, Chuck really needed the exposure.

MIA.

Oh, hell, no.

I blocked hers and Chuck’s numbers the day they appeared on TVGM, so she must be using a different phone but fuck this.

BLOCK. BLOCK. BLOCK.

I’ve got zero time for users.

Speaking of users, Paddy gives me the side-eye. “Everything okay?”

“It is now.”

He clears his throat. “Sure?” My glower has him lifting his hands in surrender. “Like I was saying before… You’re living with him?” he asks while we watch the first string attack Greco. When he holds off a goal, only one of them bumps fists with him in celebration. “That how you know about the nightmares?”

“No.”

He frowns. “Okay.”

“I’m not,’ I grumble, annoyed by his disbelieving tone. ‘I just stay at his place from time to time. It’s easier to sleep in his spare room than go across Midtown at 2am.” Before he can comment, I huff. “What do you want, Paddy? I don’t have all day to talk about this and I’m trying to watch Liam.”

“Why?”

“Why not?”

“You’re his PA,” he points out. “Not his coach.”

“You don’t say.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be polite to me?” Paddy complains.

“Nowhere in my contract does it say that,” I disagree. “I don’t even have to be polite to Liam. Now, that is in my contract.”

“You two have a strange relationship,” he grouses after harrumphing. “I’d say that you’re like his sister but if my kid was looking at his sister how he looks at you, I’d have a problem on my hands.”

I frown at him. “He doesn’t look at me any type of way.”

I wish.

But Paddy knows Liam as well as I know egg white omelets—i.e., not at all.

Yolks FTW.

He snorts. “If you say so. Anyway, this is the first I’ve seen you here.”

Squinting at him, certain he’s trying to throw me off, I mutter, “Liam asked me to come. Watching him and the rest of my brothers play is an old habit. I pick up on stuff that the coaches don’t.”

“Like what? These are pros, Gracie.”

“And I’ve got more family who are heading for the Hall of Fame, Padraig, than these so-called pros. I’ve also attended more hockey games in my time than you’ve had hot dinners.” I arch a brow at him. “Liam’s a leftie so why’s he favoring his right side?”

“Huh?”

I shrug. “Just something I noticed. You should tell Bradley.”

“Why’s it matter?”

“Could be overcompensating for an injury. Might be nothing.”

“I don’t have any sway with the coach.”

“That’s a lie. Liam’s only here and not in Montréal because of you. If you can move that mountain, you can make sure his coach uses his eyes to check in with the players.”

“If he was still in Montréal, Gracie, then he’d be losing his mind up there.” He turns to me, letting the soft scent of Cool Water, something that always reminds me of my Uncle Jak, drift toward me. “Still, maybe this hyperawareness will come in useful. If you could keep an eye on him, I’d appreciate it. Liam could have gotten into big trouble last year, Gracie. He bought himself a gun—”

“What?!” I shriek, gaping at him, aware that my shriek was loud enough to draw attention from the players on the ice. Ignoring them, I lean into Paddy’s side and demand, “You better be kidding me.”

“I’m not. Got himself a ghost gun of all things.”

“A what gun?”

“No numbers on it, ya know? Untraceable.”

I don’t think it’s possible for my mouth to be any wider but hey, never say never. “What the hell did he get one of those for? And where did he even buy one?!”

We’re Canadian, for chrissakes!

“Illegally,” is his wry answer, but I can see his worry in the pucker of his brow and the way he gnaws on his cheek.

“Where? How did he even know to get a gun?”

“An MC.”

I blink. “My Liam approached an MC and bought a big gun?”

Padraig’s lips twist. “Your Liam?”

“That’s the part that stuck out to you?”

“Like a sore thumb. But yeah, he did, and into shit he found himself. Only my connections got him out of trouble. They were going to blackmail him into throwing games, Gracie.”

I rub my forehead where a headache is suddenly gathering, and this is when it hits me—that ‘thing’ Liam hasn’t been telling me? That big secret that has him freezing up every time we approach it?

It’s gotta be this.

And somehow, it’s so much worse than I thought it could be.

I figured he had a cash flow problem—his investment portfolio might be solid, but hey, no one’s safe when a financial crisis hits. Or perhaps some weird aftereffect with his health after those bastard kidnappers cut off his ear.

I never suspected anything like this.

Turning back to stare at the guys on the ice, I find Liam skating around the rink again. His eyes are on me, though. Beneath his visor, he’s chewing on his mouthguard.

I wave at him, and he nods before refocusing on what’s happening around him now that I’ve checked in.

Bradley starts an off-the-cuff scrimmage which is downright cruel after two hours of nonstop power, shooting, and skating drills and, in the chaos of that, my mind’s able to wander.

Because I’m not the most linear of thinkers, as the game gets underway, I mumble, “Kerrigan’s hogging the puck rather than looking for an open teammate. It’s a team sport. These assholes forget that sometimes.”

Liam intercepts a pass from the dark team’s right defender, shoving the other guy into the boards in the process before passing the puck to Lewis despite the fact he isn’t wide open. Unlike Kerrigan, who is.

Lewis scores and he and Liam bump fists while Lewis does his crazy version of a celly.

Here’s one guy who isn’t ashamed of his ballet classes.

“The gun… It was to protect himself, right?”

“He didn’t buy a gun to break into a bank, Gracie,” Padraig retorts.

“I’ve noticed he’s spent a fortune on personal security. Almost twice what my brothers spend.”

Padraig sighs. “He’s had it rough the last couple years.”

“I still can’t get over what happened. It’s so hard to believe. Like something from a book.”

His father hesitates. “I didn’t have the cash for the ransom, Gracie, but I did everything I could to get him back, I swear.

‘I know we’re not close, but he’s my boy. This isn’t about making up for the past, just trying to improve things for the future.

“There’s family here for him, family that he can claim or not. He was pretty much alone up in Montréal. He needs people right now. He needs to know he’s safe. I figured that’s why he offered you a job.”

“I’m safe?”

I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or an insult.

Padraig scrapes a hand over his head. “Sometimes, in life, you meet people who bring out the best in you. That’s you for him.”

Before I can tell him he’s wrong, that Liam and I haven’t hung out in years until recently, that there’s no way the absentee dad can even judge that, Padraig pats me on the shoulder.

“I’ll let Bradley know about your suggestion regarding Kerrigan.”

“And that Liam’s favoring his right side,” I call out as he walks toward the aisle.

Then, he leaves me to my thoughts.

Which got a whole lot darker all of a sudden.