“I think I’m in shock,” I whispered back. I ticked all the boxes for it.

“I think you might be. Can you tell me what happened?”

I felt Devan’s eyes burning into me as I recounted everything, all the things Andrea had said—about me, about Huey, about the gun and the struggle. He wrote it all down, not interrupting unless he wanted me to clarify something. I told him the gun was under the bed.

The crime scene guys turned up, and one of them took photos of my injuries, their manner calm and gentle.

They were still talking to the big guy who saved me, Xander, but beside him was a short woman with killer curves and wild hair. She was talking animatedly to the cops, showing them something on her phone. The big guy had his hand on her spine protectively, and I had to assume she was his girlfriend, my other neighbor.

Their size difference was… alarming.

“How does he not split her in half?” I whispered to no one in particular, causing the cop beside me to make a choking noise.

Devan let out a snort. “Can I take her out of here?”

The cop nodded. “She’ll need to come down to the station and give an official statement sometime in the next twelve hours or so, but she can go home now. We’ll be here for a few more hours.”

“Come on, Star. I’m taking you to the hospital to get checked out, and then we’re going home.”

I went with him willingly. I didn’t ever want to come back here if I could help it.

Chapter Forty-Six

RIVER

The call I’d received from Devan that day was the worst one of my fucking life. Firstly, because I’d completely missed it while we’d been out on the ice training, and secondly, because if anything had happened to Nova and Huey… I shuddered even thinking about it.

I didn’t let either of them out of my sight for a week. Nova was putting up a good front, but she’d whimper and cry out in her sleep. We all ended up sleeping in the media room, and Rigby had dragged Huey’s crib in there too.

The press had a field day with the story. We were already newsworthy, so throw in a psycho stalker and a hostage situation, and we were nationally syndicated news. I heard from Ludo, whose sister was a marine biologist in Australia, that we’d even made the news over there.

We weren’t just an attention-grabbing headline, though; we were people. What they’d found in Andrea’s apartment had been terrifying. Pictures of me everywhere, like a fucking shrine. She had a body pillow with my damn player photo on it. Old condoms and sweat-covered towels. Jerseys and photoshopped pictures of us together. Compromising photos of her with me, but my face photoshopped on.