Chapter 1
Lennox Storm
I looked around my office.
What the fuck was I supposed to do?
Seriously.
What. The. Fuck.
I grabbed the first thing within reach—a book off the corner of my desk—and launched it at the wall.
It hit with a satisfying thud before dropping to the floor.
“UGH!”
Real mature, Lennox.
I didn’t give a shit.
I slid down the side of my desk until my ass hit the floor, pulled my knees up, and stared at the office that had somehow become mine.
The Blades had been mine for two years now.
Two fucking years.
And all I’d managed to do was watch them fail.
Season after season.
Coach after coach.
Loss after fucking loss.
I dropped my head back against the desk.
“What the fuck am I supposed to do?”
The room didn’t answer.
Probably because even it didn’t fucking know.
It was like the heart of this team was gone.
Well.
It was.
Most of it, anyway.
And the worst part?
It hadn’t happened all at once.
It started ten years ago.
Coach Knight had already been getting up there in age, but that had never fucking mattered.
The man could walk into a locker room full of pissed-off hockey players, say five words, and somehow have every single one of them ready to run through a wall for him.
Then he had the stroke.
A bad one.
For a while, we’d all convinced ourselves he’d come back.
Because he was Coach.
Of course he’d come back.
He always fucking came back.
Except that time, he couldn’t.
Not really.
His body never fully recovered, and eventually we had to accept what none of us wanted to.
Coach Knight wasn’t coming back behind that bench.
And apparently, neither was any kind of fucking stability.
We started rotating coaches.
One lasted two seasons.
Another barely made it through one.
Then another.
And another.
Nobody stuck.
Nobody understood what this team was supposed to be.
What it had been.
I was currently on number eight.
Yes.
Eight.
Fucking.
Coaches.
I closed my eyes.
Coach died four years ago.
He’d fought for six years after the stroke, because of course he fucking had.
But eventually, his body couldn’t fight anymore.
Watching Sadie lose her dad had broken something in me.
Watching Knox lose the man who had been his coach, mentor, father-in-law—and eventually just family—had been worse.
But Emery and Knight?
Fuck.
Those two had destroyed me.
Especially Knight.
That boy had worshipped his grandfather.
And Coach had worshipped him right back.
Maybe because Knight carried his name.
Maybe because he’d practically grown up inside this arena.
Or maybe because Coach had looked at that little boy and somehow known exactly what he’d become.
A Blade.
Just like his dad.
Knight Callahan was on the team now.
I hadn’t made that decision.
I’d refused to.
The board handled his signing because there was no fucking way I was going to have anyone claiming the owner’s nephew got handed a spot because of his last name.
He didn’t.
Knight earned every second he spent on that ice.
The kid was fucking good.
No.
That wasn’t fair.
He was incredible.
Maybe even better than Knox had been at his age.
And if anyone ever heard me say that out loud, I would deny it until my dying fucking breath.
But Knight didn’t see it.
He saw the CALLAHAN stretched across the back of his jersey.
He saw the banners hanging above him.
He saw his father’s legacy every time he stepped onto that ice.
And somewhere along the way, my nephew had convinced himself he had to live up to all of it.
Knox Callahan.
Captain.
Stanley Cups.
The man who helped build the Blades into what they became.
Knight carried every bit of it on his shoulders.
And now?
He was trying to carry this broken fucking team too.
I stared at the Blades logo across the room.
“No.”
The word came out before I’d even realized I’d said it.
I slowly pushed myself off the floor.
Because that was the problem, wasn’t it?
We kept asking the next generation to carry what we’d lost.
Knight couldn’t fix this.
Emery couldn’t fix this.
None of these kids should have to.
This team had lost its heart long before they ever inherited it.
And maybe...
Maybe I needed to stop looking at the people who came after it disappeared.
Maybe I needed to go find the people who’d built it in the first fucking place.
I walked toward the windows overlooking the ice.
The guys were practicing below.
Or attempting to.
They were getting ready for the Blades Legacy event this weekend.
I smiled despite myself.
Mr. Phillips had started the damn thing ten years ago.
Of course he had.
He’d wanted one night every year where the old players came back.
Families filled the arena.
Retired numbers didn’t matter.
Contracts didn’t matter.
Standings sure as fuck didn’t matter.
For one night, everyone who had ever been part of this place came home.
Legacy.
At the time, I thought it was sentimental as hell.
Now?
I understood.
My smile faded.
Because after Coach Knight, we’d started losing Mr. Phillips too.
Not physically.
Not at first.
His mind.
It was little things in the beginning.
A meeting he’d forgotten.
Paperwork that hadn’t been signed.
A conversation he swore hadn’t happened even though I’d been standing right fucking there when it did.
Things fell through the cracks.
And Mr. Phillips never let things fall through the cracks.
Ever.
That was when we knew.
Before it got too bad, we all sat down together.
I could still remember that day.
Harper and Jace were there.
So were Declan and me.
Mr. Phillips sat behind the same desk I’d seen him behind for fucking years.
And then he looked directly at me.
He told me he wanted me to take over the Blades.
Me.
Lennox fucking Storm.
I about shit myself.
Actually, I’m pretty sure I asked him if the dementia had already gotten worse.
Harper had laughed.
Mr. Phillips hadn’t.
Then Harper looked at me, smiled, and gave her stamp of approval.
She didn’t want the team.
Not like that.
She loved the Blades.
God, did she love them.
But she had her own life.
Her own career.
Her family with Jace.
And she believed in me.
Apparently, so did her dad.
Which was fucking terrifying.
Me as the owner of the Aurora Blades?
Weird, right?
Except I’d been here under Mr. Phillips for years.
Fucking years.
I’d learned this organization from him.
I’d watched him build it.
Protect it.
Fight for it.
And when his own mind started betraying him, he’d trusted me with the thing he’d spent his life building.
For a while, I thought that meant I knew how to save it.
I looked back down at the ice.
Clearly, I’d been fucking wrong.
I made my way down toward the rink.
The closer I got, the worse it looked.
The guys were frustrated.
I could see it in every fucking one of them.
The new coach just wasn’t clicking.
Again.
Jesus Christ.
His eyes met mine as I stepped up to the boards.
“Coach Alan?”
He turned.
“Yes, Mrs. Storm?”
I looked past him toward the ice.
At my boys.
Zane Mercer.
Right wing.
I’d acquired him in a trade recently, and that might’ve been one of the few decisions I’d made lately that hadn’t completely blown up in my fucking face.
The kid was fantastic.
Fast.
Smart.
Fucking lethal when you gave him an opening.
Then there was Cade James.
Technically, Donovan-James.
Defenseman.
Melody and Cole’s nephew.
Trevor Donovan’s son.
But if you asked me who’d actually helped turn Cade into the man standing on that ice?
Cole.
Without a fucking doubt.
Trevor had been around.
Sometimes.
But he’d never exactly won Father of the Year.
Cole, though?
Cole helped raise that boy.
And it showed.
Cade was a hell of a guy.
Steady.
Dependable.
The kind of player you wanted standing beside you when everything went to shit.
Then my eyes landed on our goalie.
Nash Calder.
I sighed.
Good goalie.
Great goalie, actually.
Shitty fucking attitude.
The kid needed someone to knock him down a peg or six.
Maybe Elena could do it.
Although from what I’d seen lately, Roman’s daughter already had her fucking hands full with him.
And then...
My nephew.
My expression softened before I could stop it.
Knight stood near center ice, one hand gripping the top of his stick while he listened to whatever Coach Alan was telling them.
He looked frustrated.
Not pissed.
Not annoyed.
Frustrated.
There was a difference with Knight.
He was a center.
Just like his dad.
And fuck, did that kid have talent.
I wasn’t saying that because he was my nephew.
I wasn’t saying it because I remembered him running around this arena when he was little, dragging a hockey stick twice his fucking size behind him.
I was saying it because it was true.
Knight Callahan was one of the best players I’d seen come through this organization in years.
Maybe the best.
And somehow...
We were fucking wasting him.
