Sterling: A Carolina Reapers Novel

by Samantha Whiskey

  “Relax. He’s just pissed that I have a history with the woman he apparently…” He arched an eyebrow. “What? Developed a crush on in the elevator?”

  My chest tightened, and my muscles coiled. His words were too close to the truth for comfort.

  “That’s it, isn’t it?” Maxim grinned like the asshole he was. “You can’t really blame London for preferring me, can you? After all, our own father chose me, and as for your mother—”

  “Asshole!” I launched across the room and slammed my fist into his face with a satisfying crack.

  His head snapped to the side for a second before he snarled and launched himself at me, throwing a punch of his own as he took me to the ground.

  The first one connected with my mouth, and the coppery taste of blood splashed over my tongue before the pain of it even registered.

  My chest protector made me bulky and slow, but I deflected his second punch and rolled, getting him beneath me as I sent a series of jabs into his ribs.

  “Fucking hell!” a voice shouted to my right. Briggs?

  “Sterling!” That was Axel.

  “What the fuck?” Not sure who that was.

  Maxim landed another punch, and fire exploded in my cheek, but I got him right in the fucking mouth before I felt hands tearing me off him and pulling me up. He hit me one last time, but it barely grazed my jaw as I was lifted away.

  Maxim scrambled to his feet and came at me, but Foster and Axel had him by the arms before he could take a step.

  Demon and Briggs had me by the biceps and shoulders. I wasn’t going anywhere, even if I tried.

  “Bastard.” Maxim lunged forward, but Foster and Axel held firm.

  “Max!” Foster snapped.

  Briggs sucked in a breath, but I just grinned. “If the best you’ve got is throwing around medieval legal terms—”

  “What the fuck just happened?” Coach McPherson stormed in from his office, putting himself between me and Maxim.

  Maxim and I locked eyes, each daring to rat the other out, and both keeping our mouths shut.

  “I’d say the cause is pretty obvious, Coach,” Briggs remarked.

  Coach’s head swung both directions, studying both Maxim and me repeatedly before he cursed. “We have a game in less than an hour.”

  “That’s pretty obvious, too, Coach.” I said, earning me narrow-eyed glare from Coach.

  “Guess Bangor didn’t teach you any manners while you were up north, did they, Sterling? And to think, I actually missed you.” He shook his head, and his jaw flexed before turning back to Maxim. “And is this really how you want to make a name for yourself, Zolotov? Coming into my house and starting shit? Because I’ve coached Sterling for a couple years, so I’m pretty well acquainted with what it takes to prick his temper.”

  Maxim sneered but didn’t correct Coach.

  Huh.

  “I threw the first punch, Coach,” I admitted. “This one is on me.”

  “I got the last one in,” Maxim retorted.

  “Both of you shut the hell up,” Coach snapped. “You’re both out for this game.”

  My stomach hit the floor.

  “You’re fucking kidding me!” Maxim snarled.

  “I’m not.” Coach shook his head. “I’m not taking either of you out on the ice. Not like this. Get dressed. I’ll see you both upstairs after the game.”

  Shit.

  We won, according to the television screen in Persephone’s office, where I’d watched the entire thing play out. It was close, five to four, and I knew it wouldn’t have been if I’d kept my shit together in the locker room.

  Sawyer was exhausted.

  The planned lines were fucked without Maxim.

  The sinking pit of a feeling growing in my stomach was some well-deserved shame.

  A knock on the doorframe made me turn. Persephone stood in the doorway, offering me a kind smile. “You’ve been summoned to the headmaster’s office,” she said with a cringe, handing me a fresh ice pack for my busted lip.

  “Silas?” I guessed, coming to my feet.

  She shook her head and scrunched her nose. “Langley.”

  I sighed but nodded, following Cannon’s wife to the Reapers’ publicity office. Five minutes later, I sat across the small conference table from Maxim, who was glaring daggers at me as we waited for Langley.

  “You hit like a girl,” he growled, leaning forward.

  “Nice ice pack.” I motioned toward his cheek, where he held an identical compress to mine.

  “Both of you shut the hell up,” Coach growled, taking the seat at the foot of the table as the door shut. “I have no problem knocking your heads together.”

  “Now that everyone’s here,” Langley, the head of the Reapers’ publicity staff, sang as she sank into the chair at the head of the small table.

  London lowered herself into the chair between Langley and Maxim.

  Our eyes met and held for a moment that was just long enough to stutter my heartbeat and steal the breath from my lungs.

  Her suit was tailored to perfection and just as black as her hair, which only seemed to make her eyes stand out even more. Those strawberry lips parted, and she leaned in slightly.

  “I don’t know what happened in the locker room,” Langley launched in, drumming her fingertips on the table. “And I honestly just don’t care. But I do know that it can’t happen again.” Her lips pursed as she looked at Coach. “Sorry, did I just steal your thunder?”

  “Feel free,” he motioned her onward. “I plan to take it out of their asses during practice this week, so the floor is all yours.”

  “I can’t even begin to tell you what a fucking nightmare you two have the potential to be if you don’t pull your shit together,” she leveled a stare on both Maxim and me. “And I’m not just talking about the scoreboard. That’s not my department.” A tiny smile tugged at her lips. “But I bet my husband is going to have plenty to say to you about that one, too.”

  Maxim sighed, letting his head fall back slightly.

  At least I knew Axel…and Coach. Maxim was the outsider here.

  “But if you think we’re going to pull off any kind of family-centered promotion like we have planned…” She shook her head. “Just look at you!” She threw out her hands, pointing to each of us. “Black eyes and busted lips. How the hell are we supposed to bring in a photographer? Of all the unprofessional, immature antics to pull, a locker room brawl is right up there with a—”

  “Bar?” I helped her along, knowing she was probably up to her elbows dealing with Brogan’s arrest last night.

  “Don’t fucking start with me, Jansen. Not today. Not when I thought I could count on you to stand up not just for the Reapers—but for the Ronald McDonald House cause.”

  “Wait. What?” I leaned forward, bracing my elbows on the table.”

  “I told you he was going to be the problem.” Maxim reached across the back of London’s chair and rested his arm there.

  Fucker.

  “Right. Like I’m the problem.” I threw my ice pack on the table.

  “I’m sorry, what?”

  “Put that ice back on your Armani ad face, you idiot.” She pushed the ice pack toward me, and I took it, because it was Langley. Because as pissed as I was, she was my family. The Reapers were my family, not the smirking jackass across the table with his arm around my girl’s chair.

  Not. Your. Girl.

  “It was only one Armani ad,” I grumbled, wincing at the pressure against my lip.

  “The promo shots are scheduled for this week!” she snapped. “And I never thought you would be the issue here. Maxim already agreed!”

  Something was wrong. There was a loop here, and I wasn’t in it. I wasn’t even close to it.

  London sank backward, and her lip was back between her teeth. “Right, about that—”

  “I can’t even get these two to behave in the locker room, let alone make it through a game, and you honestly think they’re going to do some broth
erly promo?” Coach rubbed the bridge of his nose.

  “Brotherly what?” What the hell was he talking about?

  “The photoshoot with you and Maxim? The whole brothers-on-the-same-team aspect of our public relations strategy—” Langley explained.

  “I’m sorry.” I went rigid and tried to remember that I wasn’t just seeing red at the head of public relations, but my captain’s wife. “On what planet do you think I’m going stand next to that asshole and declare that he’s my brother?”

  “You picked a fine time to tell us that, Jansen!”

  “He already knew? I’m just hearing this for the first time!” I swiveled in my chair and threw the ice pack into the trash can. “And the last.” I rose to my feet.

  “The first…” Langley startled, her head swinging toward London.

  London scrambled out of her chair and came around the table, gripping the sleeve of my hoodie. “Outside. Now.”

  “Or?” I challenged.

  She looked up at me and swallowed, a flash of fear streaking through those glacier-blue eyes. “Please,” she whispered.

  I nodded. What the fuck else was I supposed to do when she looked at me like that?

  She tugged me out of Langley’s office and into the deserted hallway, then closed the door and marched me right into another office.

  This one was small. Windowless. She took one, sweeping look and shuddered, yanking me back into the hallway, where she dropped my sleeve so she could pace.

  I leaned back against the wall and folded my arms over my chest, doing my damnedest not to notice that the sexy little black heels on her feet were the same height the others had been. I bet she barely comes up to mid-chest on me when those things aren’t on.

  “Are you going to tell me what the hell is going on?”

  “I did something.” She stopped right in front of me. A single step, maybe two, and she’d be right between my feet. “And you wouldn’t pick up your phone, so I just went with it, and…” She sighed, then turned those blue eyes on me. “I need your help.”

  4

  London

  “Jansen,” I sighed his name as I tried and failed to collect the right words to explain myself to him.

  Something deep inside me trembled at evidence of raw power rippling off of him—the slightly swollen cheek, the cracked lip. The way he’d slammed the ice pack down in the office moments ago, the look he’d given Maxim, all pain and rage.

  It was absolutely stupid and reckless to even think ask this of him. To put myself in the middle of two thrashing beasts…

  But I had to.

  “Jansen,” I said, more gently this time. He had let me drag him into the hallway, trailing behind me with an eerie sort of silence as I pulled on that muscled arm.

  I gazed up and up at him, those dark blue eyes churning with barely leashed hate and pain. My fingers itched for more contact, to trace the hard line of his jaw, to smooth those furrowed lines between his brow. A few blinks, and his emotions were replaced by cool calculation as he finally met my gaze.

  “How deep does this issue with Maxim go?” I asked after a few moments of heated silence.

  I asked that question instead of what I needed to ask him because part of me couldn’t bring myself to admit what I’d done—that I’d already booked the brother promos and had tried constantly to speak with him about it for the past month. Granted, with how easily Maxim had agreed to the promos, I didn’t think the hate ran this deep. But, after their locker room brawl, and the evidence on his face…God, I don’t know what I’d gotten myself into.

  The tension practically vibrated off him, his muscles bunched and flexed beneath the tight black Reapers T-shirt he wore.

  He parted his lips a few times, then shut them.

  I blew out a breath, shaking my head as the adrenaline tried to cool in my blood. “Why would you go after Maxim like that? Your own brother?” Why did no one know until recently you were brothers? Why is there so much pain there?

  Something ice-cold flash in his gaze—shock and disappointment. “Figures you’re worried about Maxim,” he grumbled, and my concern quickly shifted to anger.

  “I’m worried about both of you!” I snapped. And the truth in those words hit me in the chest. It wasn’t just because of my job and that their cooperation depended on it—it was because of that look in Sterling’s eyes…

  It bothered me.

  Like an itch I couldn’t reach. I wanted to soothe that hurt I’d seen flash behind his eyes—not physical echoes from the brawl, but emotional. That pain radiating out of him before he’d had the sense to hide it from me. I wanted to know more so I could help him.

  “You don’t need to worry about me,” he said, narrowing his gaze. “I don’t start these things. He does. Maxim is the problem—”

  “He’s your brother,” I cut him off, exasperated. How could two people bound by blood be so vicious with each other? “Can’t you cut each other some slack?”

  “You have no idea,” he said, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. “No clue.”

  “Then tell me,” I said. “Explain it to me.” He had no reason in the world to open up to me. Just because we’d shared a charged moment in an elevator didn’t make us connected. But I couldn’t help it—I felt connected to him. Like those moments together had solidified something in my heart that begged and ached for more.

  More of Jansen.

  More snarky teases and gentle questions.

  More molten looks that turned my insides liquid.

  Just more…

  And maybe, if he could enlighten me on the situation, then I could talk to Langley and—

  “That’s none of your business.” His words cut into my racing thoughts, and I inwardly recoiled.

  But he was right.

  It truly wasn’t my business. Just because I’d developed this…feeling around him didn’t mean he’d done the same for me.

  Fine. Fair enough.

  “Okay,” I said, my stomach twisting as the confession rose on my tongue. “I honestly didn’t realize how deep this went, and I’m sorry. But I’m going to put myself out there and beg a favor.” He tilted his head, so I hurried on. “I’ve been trying to reach you for weeks to talk this out,” I said, my breath shaking. “But you’ve ghosted me for some reason, and that’s okay!” I spoke a little quicker when he looked like he might apologize. “I get it. Kind of. I’m not someone you want to pick up the phone for. But, if you would have, then I would’ve asked you weeks ago.”

  “Ask me what?”

  He knew what. He had to after what Langley had said. He wanted to hear me say it.

  “To agree to take part in these promos. The exposure will be so good for the family image we’re going for—”

  Jansen scoffed, cutting off my words. That anger returned sizzling in my chest. I cooled it, taking a deep breath. Yes, I had tried to contact him for a month. No, I hadn’t realized how shitty the situation was. This was on me, not him. But still, he wasn’t even hearing me out.

  “What’s it going to take for you to cooperate?” I popped my hip out, resting my hand there for good measure. If he was about to shut me down, then I wanted to at least appear strong enough to take the blow.

  He tracked the move with a hawk-like gaze, the corner of his mouth ticking up into that smirk that drove me crazy.

  “Why is it important to you that I get along with him?”

  “You know why,” I said. “Langley has left me in charge of the pair of you. The promo spots are incredibly important for this season’s direction.”

  Sterling shook his head. “I think you should convince her to drop the idea.”

  “Give me a good enough reason, and maybe I will.” I arched a brow at him, waiting.

  He tilted his head. “You’d do that for me?” Was that hope in his eyes? “Or for Maxim?”

  “Maxim has already agreed to be a professional. He’s willing to set aside whatever this is between you two and do what’s best for the team.�
�

  A muscle in his jaw flexed, those blue eyes turning hard as gemstones. “You already talked to him about it.” It wasn’t a question, he knew as much from the meeting prior.

  “Yes,” I said, the air suddenly tight in my lungs. Why did that feel like a betrayal? That’d I’d gone to Maxim first. “He was at my brother’s house,” I hurried to add, relieving some of the pain in my chest. “It wasn’t hard to talk to him.”

  “But it’s hard to talk to me?” He folded his arms over his massive chest. “You didn’t have too hard a time in that elevator.” His eyes trailed the length of my body, and warm shivers danced along my skin.

  But I saw the deflection for what it was—hide whatever this anger was behind teasing flirts and distracting looks.

  “What’s it going to take, Jansen?” I asked again.

  “What’s between you and Maxim?” he fired back.

  I furrowed my brow, then shook my head. “That’s none of your business,” I hurled his own words back in his face.

  He flinched as if I’d smacked him, but something clicked in his eyes, some mixture of disappointment and anger.

  I blew out a breath. He’d had an attitude ever since Maxim had rushed to help me out of that elevator, and I was so beyond done with the bullshit. They had issues, clearly, and I wasn’t about to get in the middle of a family squabble. Didn’t matter how much I ached to help Sterling through whatever plagued him so badly. Didn’t matter that I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him since that night in the elevator. I couldn’t and wouldn’t allow these sensations to stand in the way of my work.

  “This is that important to you?” he asked after a few tense moments of silence.

  “It’s important to the team—”

  “I’m asking if it’s important to you.”

  A crackle of fire licked up my spine at the primal tenor in his tone.

  “Yes,” I breathed the word. “What’s it going to take to get you to play nice for the season?” I asked for the final time.

  Sterling shifted, something playful returning to his eyes. “I’ll agree to work on this issue and play nice if you work on yours.”