Page 92 of Dangle

Trey

Holy fuck! Is that Katie Carter’s new baby?

I laughed out loud, startling the infant in my arms, who pushed away to scowl at me while sucking frantically on the pacifier in his mouth. “Sorry, little one. I’m not so good at this shit.”

“Oh goodie, yet another person to expand their vocabulary.” The soft, melodic tones of the woman Trey seemed to be a huge fan of drew my attention, and the baby in my arms seemed content to stay with me.

“Katie Carter?—”

“Ahem!” Jackson cleared his throat, then said, “Katie Holt. She’s not on fucking stage.”

“Jackson, quit being a possessive ass and buckle Cal in so we can get back in the air.”

Moments later, they strapped their little girl in, and she dozed off while sucking on a pacifier like her younger brother when the plane raced down the runway and lifted into the air.Their oldest boy tugged at his ears and said, “Hurts, Mama.” I grimaced.

“Here, Cal,” Katie said, offering him the pacifier he’d pushed away several times already. “This will help.”

“My apologies, Katie, for hijacking your trip and disturbing the little ones.”

She smiled and said, “Don’t worry about it. Cal’s a horrible flyer. Has been since conception.”

That didn’t make me feel any better. “Still, I am sorry, but I need to get to New York tonight.”

She looked at me while still soothing the little one. “So Walker said. Anything we can do to help?”

“You wouldn’t know the owner of the Wardens, would you?” I joked.

Jackson snorted and said, “As a matter of fact, we do. Charlie?—”

“Charlotte.”

“Same difference,” Jackson argued with his wife, who rolled her eyes at him with an indulgent smile.

“No, it’s not, but to answer your question, Slone, we do know the owner of the Wardens. Why?”

Holy shit. Talk about six degrees of separation. If that.

“Would they talk to me?” I asked, giving nothing away.

“For a member of the family, yes,” Jackson said. “I’ll get you her number. But, just so you know, she isn’t really involved in the day-to-day things.”

Wheels turned. I wouldn’t talk to her about Trey, but I would offer her contact info to Trey so he could do what he wanted with the information. It was his life and his career, and something fucking told me there was some sneaky shit afoot.

TWENTY-FOUR

TREY

Ipaced my suite of rooms on the second floor of the Malachek mansion as quietly as I could while Slone was in the air. I couldn’t wait for him to get here. My dad had been on a rampage since I arrived two and a half days ago. Nothing I ever did was good enough, but it felt like something more drove his hostility this time, and all I wanted was to stay as far away from the man as possible.

Especially after taking a puck to the face. I didn’t tell Slone who hit the puck that hit me, but the man wasn’t stupid. If he hadn’t figured it out, then he would.

I wanted nothing more than to leave, but I had nothing of my own. No freaking way to support myself. At least nothing that wasn’t under the control of my father and grandfather and their business managers. Why my mother allowed them to assume control of my trust fund from the Petrov side of the family as well as her own inheritance, I’ll never know.

So yeah, screwed, especially with my dad and his agent handling everything hockey-related—contract, brand endorsements, NIL money—if I walked out the door, I would be destitute with no college degree, no NHL contract, no home, no car, nothing.

I needed to figure out how to extricate my life from theirs so I could walk away. I hated to do it. The scandal would be fucking massive, but I had lived in a nightmare of increasingly horrific proportions for as long as I could remember, and I was done. Twenty-one years old and I shouldn’t still be cowering when my dad raises his voice. I shouldn’t have to worry about what sets him off the next time.

My phone buzzed in my pocket.