“Hey. Lincoln, just calm down, okay?” I lifted my gloves. “If you need something, I’m sure Emmersyn can help as long as you get Hayes to call her back. You need some money?”

He roared out a laugh, as maniacal and disturbed as the rest of him. “Hayes? That fucking piece of shit Hayes is halfway to Fiji or the Caribbean or goddamn Argentina. And you think he left that motherload of billions behind? Fuck no. It’s gone, you dumbass. And none of it would have happened if it wasn’t for you.”

The hell?

“Her money is gone?”

“Have you not been listening to a damn thing I’ve said? Yes, it’s gone. Fucking Hayes had access, I had Hayes, and I had Emmy until she got too smart for her own good.”

Everything was going so fast. His words were clipped and rushed and occasionally slurred, but I got the gist of it.

Fuck. Emmersyn was going to be devastated.

“What do you want then? Emmersyn? Because I gotta tell you, pretty sure you’re not getting that birthday wish handed to you.”

“No, you stupid fucking jock. I definitely won’t get Emmersyn back. Won’t be able to fix what you and her broke, at least, not while she’s still married. Will I?”

Oh shit.

He lifted the gun again, but he wasn’t smart enough to hold it with both hands. Typical rich kid who’d never shot a gun in real life. It wasn’t steady, so I moved quick, dodged his aim and pulled back my hockey stick. I lunged toward him, raising my stick, but that was when he fired.

A hot, searing pain tore through my arm. I stumbled on my skates, but Lincoln was moving again, raising his gun. I swung. This time, I made contact. I slammed my stick into his forearm. He cried out and gripped his forearm with his other hand. While he was howling in pain, I lifted my stick again and swung it like a baseball bat to his kidneys.

He collapsed onto his knees and screamed up at me. Sweat beaded at his forehead and dripped off his cheeks and his pit stains on his shirt were the size of grapefruit. He lifted the gun he’d managed to hold on to, and I raised my stick, and then out of nowhere, another stick slammed into the side of his head.

His eyes rolled back, a skate kicked away the gun, and he slumped to the floor, blood dripping from a gash in his temple.

“What the hell happened in here?”

“Alix.” A rush of breath left me, and I collapsed to my knees. Then my ass. “Fucking hell.”

“Who is this?” He stared down at the collapsed heap of man.

“Lincoln. Emmersyn’s ex.” A hot burning pulse tightened my pipe like a vise. “And I think he fucking shot me.”

“What?”

I grabbed at my jersey and tugged it off. Blood was already showing through the jersey, though, which left it obvious.