The Penalty Box (A Vancouver Wolves Hockey Romance Book 3)

“PETROV,” the guard called.

I stood up and walked to the cell, watching with interest as the guard opened the door.

“Where are we going?”

He ushered me out of the cell, flanking just behind me on my left side. We walked to a bright room, and he led me up to a counter.

I looked over my shoulder at him. “What’s going on?”

“You’re free to go.”

I signed the paperwork they put in front of me, indicating that they had returned all my possessions. I checked my cell phone, but it was dead.

“Is that it?”

“That’s it, sir.” They pointed to a doorway. I walked unaccompanied to the door. I looked over my shoulder, not quite believing my luck. I pushed through the door. Two men in suits were waiting for me.

“Who are you?”

They didn’t give me their names. “We’re Mark Ashford’s legal counsel. He’s waiting for you outside.”

Together the three of us walked out into the cool evening air. A sleek, black town car waited at the bottom of the steps. One of them opened the door. I got in and the door shut behind me.

Beside me, Mark Ashford waited.

I didn’t have time for his shit. I needed to get home to Charlie.

“Can I use your phone?”

He ignored me and motioned for the driver to drive.

“How are you doing?” He looked me over.

“Fine.”

He nodded. “I like your wife.”

“Charlie? Have you talked to her?”

He looked out the window. “She came to my office yesterday.”

I flexed my hands in frustration. “Do you know where she is?”

He looked over at me. “They say that behind every great man is an even greater woman. You are one of the lucky ones. That woman stood behind you on this. We had a long chat about your marriage.”

I froze. “What do you mean?”

“What I mean is that I understand how your relationship started. I knew what you and Krista had cooked up before you even got married.”

“You have my attention.”

He smiled, still looking out the window. “From the start, I knew the ruse you were trying to pull. I applauded it, to be honest. That’s why I called you the morning of your wedding, to encourage you to go through with it.”

Too much had happened in the past 24 hours to be talking about this. If Mark wanted to cut me from the team, I’d deal with the fallout later. “Where is Charlie?”

“She’s at home, waiting for you.”

A huge part of me relaxed, hearing that. “Are you sure?”

“I talked to Krista. She sent her home this afternoon.”

“I still don’t understand what the fuck happened. They weren’t telling me anything. They questioned me about Sabrina’s disappearance. I had nothing to do with that. They wouldn’t let me talk to my lawyer.”

“Sabrina is fine. She is no longer missing.”

My whole body reacted to that. “She’s alive?”

He glanced at me. “Someone escorted her into the police station. No one knows who, but she walked right up to the counter and told the officer she wasn’t missing.”

“Are you shitting me?”

“She gave a written statement that everything she wrote in her journal about you was false. She claimed it was never meant to be read by anyone. She said it was merely her fantasy.”

“She set me up. She deliberately set me up to take the fall for this. Has anyone asked her about this?”

Mark glanced at me. “Trust me, they are asking. She’s scared about something. She won’t talk, but it’s obvious she wasn’t the brains behind this scenario.”

“Who was?”

“We’re not sure.”

I watched as the car drove up my street. I wondered how all of this would affect my hockey career with the Wolves, but I didn’t care. I first needed to see Charlie.

The car pulled up in front of my house. The place looked dark and lonely. Charlie’s car was missing.

“I have to go.”

He nodded towards the house. “She went to bat for you, Mica. That one’s a keeper.”

I already knew that. “Thanks for the ride.”

I got out of the car and sprinted to the front door.

THE MOMENT I GOT INSIDE, I knew something was wrong. The house was pitch dark. Charlie wasn’t home. Even weirder, the dogs didn’t come out to greet me.

“Charlie? Sniper?”

A whimper sounded from the laundry room. I opened the door. Sasha bounded out past me, but no Sniper. I flicked on the light. Sniper lay on the tile floor.

“What are you doing in here?” Charlie never locked the dogs in small spaces. Part of Sniper’s duty was to protect the house. We always let him move freely around the house. Charlie would never lock the dogs up without food or water.

Sniper lifted his head and tried to scramble to his feet. He looked woozy, almost drugged. I felt a sinking sensation in my body. I knew something was wrong.

“Charlie?” I yelled. “Charlie!”

I moved to the bedroom. Dresser drawers were open, clothes were missing. So were most of her toiletries.

What the actual fuck. For a second, I thought she had left me, but I instantly dismissed that notion. That was not Charlie. If she left me, she would do it to my face, and she would never leave Sniper behind.

I was without a phone. I dug through my sock drawer, but my phone from Andrusha was gone too.

Sniper slowly moved to his water dish and drank the entire bowl.

I crouched down beside him. “Where’s Charlie? What happened to her?”

Sniper whined.

“Where’s Charlie?” I asked him again.

As if he understood, he moved to the front door and looked back at me. Seriously?

I opened the door. He wasn’t moving too quickly, but his nose was to the ground. He led me down the driveway, to the sidewalk. He slowly walked along the sidewalk and stopped at the end of Andrew’s driveway.

No fucking way.

I debated my options. Should I call the cops? I didn’t even have a working phone. Plus, only hours before, I’d been arrested for the disappearance of one woman. I didn’t exactly want to report another one missing. I moved closer. There was no movement in the windows. I walked around the side of the house and, hands over my face, peered in the garage’s window. There sat Charlie’s vehicle.

I’m going to fucking kill him.

I worked to get my emotions under control. I needed to play this smart and safe, and I needed to get into the house.

I thought about my strategy before I rang the doorbell.

I heard footsteps, and then Andrew opened the door. He wore a button-down shirt and an apron.

“Hey, Mica.”

“Hey, Andrew. How’s it going?”

“Not bad. You?”

I shoved my hands in my pockets, trying to appear casual. “Have you talked to Charlie lately?”

He frowned and shook his head. “No, why?”

I looked over my shoulder and winced. “Well, I was in some trouble and I couldn’t get a hold of her. When I came back tonight, she was gone.”

Surprise registered on his face. “What do you mean, gone?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “She packed up all her shit, and her car is gone. My phone is dead. I can’t even call her.”

“That doesn’t sound like her.”

“I think she left me.”

“Are you sure?”

I lied, needing to get him to relax. “We were having some big issues before. To be honest, I’m not surprised.”

“That’s too bad.”

I put my most hopeful look on my face. “You mind if I use your phone? Like I said, my phone is dead. I plugged it in and everything, but the cops did something to it. I think they busted it.”

He looked uncertain.

“It’ll be quick. I just need to call my agent and let her know I’m out.”

He held the door open. “Yeah, why not?”

“Thanks, man.”

I followed Andrew into the kitchen. He handed me his cell phone.

I dialed Andrusha’s number.

“Who is this?” he answered in Russian.

“Hey, Krista,” I said. “I just got out of jail. You have a moment?”

“Talk.” Andrusha knew something was up.

I feigned my end of the conversation to give him as many details as possible. “My phone is dead, so I’m borrowing my neighbor’s cell.”

“Where is this?”

“No, not far, just a couple doors down.”

“Where is Charlie?”

“She left me and she took off.”

“She’d never do that.”

“The cops broke my phone. No, don’t call them. I’ll deal with them on my own.”

I was telling him Charlie was missing, where I was, that I didn’t have a cell, and that I was trying to deal with this situation on my own.

“We’re on our way.”

“Yeah, I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

The entire time I was talking, I was assessing the kitchen and the dangers. There was a knife block on the counter, boiling water and hot pans. All potential threats, all potential weapons.

I handed Andrew his phone. When he reached for it, I grabbed his wrist and twisted it. “Where is she?”

The guy was strong and to my surprise, I could tell he was trained in martial arts by the way he moved. He twisted out of my grip and moved just out of my grasp.

“She’s not yours.” His eyes were moving around the room, also assessing.

He reached for the pots hanging above the island. Interesting choice. I charged him and drove him back into the kitchen table. We crashed through chairs, and he landed half-on, half-off the table before rolling off and springing to his feet.

Fuck. This guy was good.

“Where did you learn to fight?”

He grabbed a towel off the counter and twisted it, flipping it with some ninja moves, making it into a high-tech weapon that whizzed past my face. I picked up a chair and threw it at him.

Chair vs. Towel. Let’s see who wins that round.

The chair grazed his shoulder. We circled in the kitchen. He went for the boiling water next, but I grabbed a knife. I threw it, hitting him off-center in his upper arm. It didn’t do much damage, but he dropped the pot. The splashing hot water made him flinch and jump out of the way. When he pulled the knife out of his arm and lunged towards me, I took the defensive for the first time.

My military training kicked in. I picked up a cutting board, chopped vegetables went flying, and used it as a shield as he started coming at me with fast hand-to-hand combat. Technically, he was a better fighter than me, but I was a lot bigger than him and in much better shape.

He was breathing hard. I wasn’t even breaking a sweat. My goal was to tire him out and then take him out when he got sloppy.

I swung the cutting board at him, hitting the bottom on his wrist, and the knife went flying. I swung the other way, and he ducked, narrowly missing getting beaned in the head. He grabbed the toaster and wrapped the cord around my wrist, yanking me off-balance, but I put all my weight into it, reversed the motion and ended up pulling him over my head. He recovered before he even hit the floor and swung the toaster towards my face.

It narrowly missed hitting my face.

By the time I had untangled myself from the toaster, he was back on his feet, heading towards the dining room. Which meant unknown territory. Two steps and I was flying, landing on his back.

He rolled over and got in a series of decent punches, most of which I wasn’t able to avoid, before I got my arm under his neck and had him pinned.

I hit. Once, twice, three times. My fourth hit completely knocked him out, but I kept on hitting him. I knew I was getting close to killing him and I forced myself to stop. I looked around, spotting an extension cord behind the couch. Yanking it free, I took two minutes to hog-tie him before standing up and screaming.

“Charlie!”

I heard a rustling at the front door and then Sniper barked once. Sharp. I ran to the door and let him in.

“Sniper, where is Charlie?”

Sniper, nose to the ground, led me down the hallway before disappearing downstairs.

He sat down in front of a shelf.

“Where’s Charlie?” I asked him again. I looked in the laundry room, recreational room and Andrew’s pathetic workout room, but she wasn’t anywhere.

Sniper barked again and looked up at the shelf.

Breathing hard, I looked closer. The shelf was on a track. I slid it along the track, and then I saw the door.

I opened the door, and she came out, screaming like a banshee, arms flailing, teeth bared.

“It’s Mica.” I grabbed her flailing, windmill arms, trying to keep out of striking distance. It took her a moment to realize who I was. Then, with a cry, she fell into my arms.

“It’s over.” I held her head to my chest. “It’s over.”