Dominik

by Sawyer Bennett

  “I’m good,” I say as I see the bus pull up in front of the hotel. I rise from the chair I’d been occupying, then head toward the doors. “But I appreciate it.”

  “I’d also like to extend an invitation to you and any guests of your choosing to sit in the owner’s box with me, my father, and some of the family members of the Cold Fury.”

  Now this surprises me. There’s always a box made available for visiting owners and management, but never an offer to share the home team’s. Gray’s father also happens to be the Cold Fury’s owner.

  She goes on to explain. “I really love how we worked out a deal to help Rafe Simmons with his father. It’s just a great example of how we can be opponents and still celebrate our humanity by coming together. I thought it would be cool if some of the families from the opposing teams could spend time together this evening. Yes, I know this is a competition and it could get heated, but I also sort of like the spirit of us being together even while battling each other.”

  For a moment, I don’t know what to say. I reach the doors but hesitate before stepping out. Through the glass, I watch the bus doors open and the players start to disembark. I want to greet them, so I have to hurry this up. “Gray… I think that’s a phenomenal idea. I accept, and I’ll extend some invitations to a few of the family members I know are traveling here for tomorrow’s game. I’ll call you back.”

  “Sounds great. Talk soon.” And with that, she disconnects because she’s got important things to do such as run a professional hockey team.

  I push out the doors, catching the first few players coming off the bus. We’ve all come to a point in our relationships where I’m “Dominik” and not “Mr. Carlson” to them anymore. I shake each player’s hand as they step down, offering words of encouragement that are tailored to them individually.

  When Bishop steps off, I say, “There’s my team’s leader. All hail King Bishop.”

  He laughs and takes my hand, giving it a hard pump.

  I lean in closer. “Listen… can you grab the guys and wait for me? I need to go over something with you.”

  There’s no need for explanation as to whom I’m referencing when I say, “the guys”. He knows I mean the first line… the group of men I’ve actually become friends with over the past few weeks.

  “Sure thing, boss man,” he quips before stepping off to the side.

  I continue to greet all the players, same as the coaches and support staff. There are two buses that came packed with our team from the airport, and I make sure to touch base with each person for a few minutes before they file into the hotel to check-in.

  When I’m finally able to look for my first line, I find them huddled up together in a corner of the lobby. They’re all surfing their phones, some with earbuds in.

  When I join them, they put their phones away and give me their undivided attention.

  “So, I got a call from Gray Brannon right before you guys pulled up,” I tell them. Bishop, Erik, Legend, Dax, Tacker, Wylde, and Legend all study me curiously. “She’s opening up the owner’s box to just family members from both teams to sort of commemorate the spirit of how we came together to arrange for Rafe to come home to Raleigh. She’s asked me to attend and to bring some of our team’s family there. I wanted to offer it up to your families first.”

  Legend is the first to speak. “I know Pepper, Brooke, Blue, and Nora were all planning to sit together during the game tomorrow. I’m sure they’d probably enjoy that. We can give them a call.”

  It’s not lost on me that Willow’s name was not included in that group of women, and I’m not sure what that means. But neither was Regan’s, so it’s more than likely they’re going to be sitting with family.

  So I turn to Dax. “What about your family? I know your parents had planned on coming to all the finals.”

  I haven’t seen or talked to Dax since Willow and I broke up. I have no clue if he even knows or not because I don’t know if she’s told anyone.

  The look he gives me back is bland, and I can’t read a damn thing. “I’ll call my parents when they land. They’re flying in today. I’m sure they’d like that. Regan, too.”

  I hesitate, not sure whether I should question the obvious way Willow isn’t mentioned, but then again, he hadn’t mentioned his sister Meredith either.

  I decide it’s not my business. If they were coming, he would have mentioned them. So I give him a short nod, then address the rest of the guys. “Someone just text me a final list of who will be coming.”

  “Sure thing,” Bishop replies, and the men start to disband.

  I turn for the elevators, thinking I’ll go to my room and get some work done, but then just as quickly decide I can’t let the Willow thing go.

  “Dax,” I call as I pivot toward him. “Got a minute?”

  The look he gives me doesn’t bode well. It’s the same one I used to get from him all the time when I would hound him for information on his sister. It clearly conveys he doesn’t want to be bothered about it.

  I’ve never let that put me off before.

  Dax approaches, and I ask bluntly, “Isn’t Willow coming to the game?”

  He shakes his head. “Work obligations.”

  This surprises me. I never thought she’d miss her brother’s games once the Vengeance got this far. “She took a job?”

  “Yup.” His face is stony, and he’s clearly not looking for extended conversation.

  “Why?” I demand, even though I’m thinking I know the answer.

  And that causes emotion to flicker in his eyes. He leans in, growling, “Why the fuck do you think she took a job?”

  His message is loud and clear. The accusation is I drove her away from watching her brother potentially win his first Cup championship.

  “Where did she go?”

  “Why do you care?” he retorts. “You clearly didn’t care enough to give her the time of day to talk this shit out. You’ve got no business even knowing a damn thing about her from this point on.”

  “Where?” I snarl. Because I have a sneaking suspicion it’s going to be somewhere I don’t like.

  “Syria,” Dax grits out. “You fucking drove her to one of the most dangerous places on this earth. You did this… and all because you couldn’t spare five fucking minutes to talk to her.”

  Goddamn it.

  He’s fucking right. I have no clue if we would have been able to work things out, but I don’t doubt for a minute that my ignoring her attempts to communicate with me is what caused her to go. It’s typical Willow, determined to live her life as she sees fit, and I know her well enough to realize this is clearly a display to everyone to prove she doesn’t need me and is moving on. The fact she took the job in Syria doesn’t necessarily mean she did it to spite me. I don’t believe she’s the type who would do that to get back at me personally, but I know damn well she wouldn’t be scared off by a particularly scary destination, so she wasn’t going to be held back by it.

  At this moment, Tacker sort of muscles his way in between Dax and me. He must have been watching us and while we weren’t loud enough to hear, Dax’s body language is menacing enough.

  “Is there a problem here?” he asks pleasantly, but the expression on his face says he’s ready to get physical if he needs to.

  I take a step backward only in deference to Dax, who has a right to be pissed. “We’re good here.”

  “We’re not good,” Dax snarls. “If something happens to her, I’m holding you responsible.”

  He spins away and strides right out of the lobby doors, presumably to cool off.

  “You good?” Tacker asks, his tone now filled with worry. It’s obvious he feels like he owes me something because of the help and support I’ve given him over the months while he figured out his own path, but he doesn’t owe me a fucking thing. Was glad to do it.

  “I’m good,” I say with a smile I know doesn’t quite reach my eyes. I clap him on his upper arm. “Thanks, though.”

  I head toward t
he elevator, once again thinking I’ve got a lot of work that needs to be knocked out.

  But now all I can think about is Willow in Syria, doing God knows what kind of assignment, and my gut is churning with guilt that I put her there.

  CHAPTER 27

  Willow

  If I have any regrets about taking this job, they are occurring in this moment.

  “Willow, Mark, John… I can’t stress enough how important it is for you to stay back here, no matter how curious you might get,” Malik Fournier tells us as he packs his gear. “We can’t be worrying about your safety.”

  “Understood,” I say.

  We’ve been embedded with this civilian team of hired soldiers who work with a U.S. based company called Jameson Force Security for the past two days. They’re working in conjunction with a small group of Special Forces soldiers from the United Kingdom and Australia to rescue some refugee workers who were taken hostage last week.

  This wasn’t my original assignment when I arrived in Syria. I’d been hired by the Washington Post to pair up with reporters who were doing a special piece on a refugee safe zone that had been set up on the border of Syria and Turkey. The bloody eight-year war that has displaced millions of Syrian civilians seems never ending, and awareness of the plight is always worth a news article.

  The risk was always there, but it was as low as it could possibly be given such circumstances. We were in a fairly stable region at the time. I know that probably didn’t give my parents or Dax much comfort when I told them I was leaving, but they didn’t fight me too much.

  My parents didn’t understand the real reason I was leaving, and that was because I needed to put as much distance between myself and Dominik as I could. My heart was too shredded to continue on in his proximity. The way he wouldn’t see me, talk to me, or even acknowledge one of the many texts I’d sent him had been too crushing. Plain and simple, it was clear we were over, and this was my desperate attempt to move on with my life.

  I had sat and talked to Dax about it face to face, because I was experiencing some guilt over leaving while the Vengeance was on the verge of realizing their dream of a Cup championship. The day after they pulled off a victory over the Cold Fury in game one—the same game where Dominik didn’t even go into his owner’s box just so he could avoid me—I’d sat with Dax at the kitchen table and told him I was leaving for Syria the next day.

  He ranted and railed for a good five minutes about the dangers and how much it worried the family. I counter-argued about the necessity of living my life in a way that brought me career fulfillment.

  All the same arguments we’d had before.

  But then I told it to him straight. “I can’t be around here.”

  My brother isn’t stupid. He knew exactly what I meant by that, yet he still played dumb. “Why not?”

  And for the first time since Dominik broke my heart, I started crying. Just laid my head on my forearms and started sobbing.

  I heard the scrape of his chair, and then his arms were around me. I cried into his chest for the longest time, muttering and blubbering about lost love and missed chances and how Dominik was an awful person for ignoring me.

  He let me get everything off my chest, and he never once tried to convince me it was stupid to run all the way to Syria because of a broken heart.

  I’d finally looked up, then dashed the remaining tears out of my eyes. “Dax… I feel awful leaving when you’re in the playoffs, but this work I do… I love it. It’s going to get my mind off Dominik, and it’s going to make me feel good about myself. And I feel so bad right now that I just really need it. If you tell me that my absence in the stands is going to be detrimental to you personally, I’ll stay. But if you can understand in the slightest where I’m coming from, I need you to tell me it’s okay to go.”

  He cursed under his breath, but then gave me a hard hug. “It’s okay for you to go. But please promise me you’ll stay safe.”

  I promised.

  He let me go.

  And now I’d gone and put myself in extreme danger.

  John, the reporter I’d been paired up with, had gotten wind of the hostages who were taken and the rescue team that was coming in to make an extraction. He pulled strings and offered favors, then we were somehow allowed to travel with them while they did recon and gathered intelligence. Mark is our private security guy hired by the Washington Post to remain with us at all times.

  And now, they are ready to make the raid to rescue the hostages who are all Australian citizens. Jameson was hired as supplemental power to provide the Special Forces teams.

  I’d gotten to know and like the Jameson crew over the last few days. Jimmy Tate is easygoing with a pregnant wife back home. Tank Richardson and Sal Mezzina are gruff but in humorous ways. And Malik Fournier… well, I have a lot in common with him. His brothers, Max and Lucas Fournier, play hockey for the Carolina Cold Fury, who are currently battling against my brother’s team for the Cup. Thankfully, one of Malik’s coworkers is some tech genius woman named Bebe who was able to get us radio broadcasts of the games and we listened to them together. As it stands, the Arizona Vengeance is up three games to two, and Malik and I have a whopping twenty-dollar bet on who wins the Cup. It’s been a fun rivalry that helps to take our minds off the pressing danger that waits for him.

  As for me, I should still be relatively safe. We’re not allowed to advance forward with them. Instead, we’ve been ordered to remain at base camp.

  Unfortunately, game six is going to be starting soon. It’s closing in on midnight, and with the time difference since the game is in Raleigh, it starts in two hours. Malik’s team will be moving out soon, and we’ve been told to keep absolutely silent as we’re left behind.

  I’m not going to be able to listen to the game because of that—not here in the still of the night. If all goes according to plan, they’ll be back long before daybreak with the hostages safely in hand, and John and I will have the story of a lifetime.

  It’s tense within the camp as the Jameson guys pack up their gear. They’re dressed in desert camo, their flak jackets strapped with grenades and their assault rifles locked and loaded.

  I take the opportunity to snap photos as they work, focusing in on the grim determination on their faces.

  Malik gives me a wry grin. “Gonna make me famous, Monahan?”

  No one calls me Willow out here.

  “You’ll have the ladies lined up for miles once this publishes,” I assure him with a laugh.

  For a moment, I get a spontaneous and genuine smile of amusement before he goes back to his packing.

  “And when you come back, I’ll be ready to collect that twenty bucks off you because the Cold Fury is going down tonight.”

  “In your dreams, sister,” he replies with a chuckle.

  At this point, I don’t care who wins tonight. I only hope these guys come back safely.

  It’s at this moment I realize I haven’t thought about Dominik in almost twenty minutes. I’ve been so consumed with receiving last-minute instructions of what to do when they leave camp and going over all the possible scenarios in my head, I’ve had some blessed relief from the pining I’ve been doing.

  If I had thought distance from Dominik and pressing danger would obliterate him from my mind, I would have been wrong, because even now I wonder what he’s doing. I’m sure he’s excited that, in mere hours, he could be the owner of a championship team. He’s probably at the arena already, maybe even giving a last-minute pep talk to the team.

  No matter how things go down—here in Syria or back in Raleigh—all I know is I miss him terribly and I am nowhere near past the heartbreak he gave me. I wonder if it will ever go away.

  ♦

  I glance down at my watch. They’ve been gone for almost forty-five minutes, and I’m antsy. I know it could be hours before they return, and I also understand they might not ever come back.

  Their intelligence shows the hostages are being held in an abandoned homestead abo
ut a click away—in civilian terms, about a mile and a half away. It’s the night of the new moon, the darkest time of the month, and was specifically chosen for them to make their move. John, Mark, and I sit outside our tent with only our jackets on to ward off the slight chill of the night. We all have our electronics powered off, so we are covered by the night pitch as well. We’ve kept our talking to a minimum, only murmuring in the lowest of tones if we need to communicate.

  By my calculations, the Vengeance is deep into the first period of game six, and I intersperse my prayers for the safety of the men who just went to rescue innocent hostages with requests to God to let the Vengeance win tonight. I try to push thoughts of Dominik out of my head by focusing on Dax and imagining what his face would look like as he skates around the ice, holding the cup high above his head.

  Fuck, I made a mistake coming here. I should be there for my brother, no matter he gave me his blessing to run away.

  A crack rings out in the night, a single lone gunshot that shocks me to my core. While my eyes have adjusted to the darkness, I can’t see John or Mark’s expressions, but I can sense their bodies going taut.

  And then… all hell breaks loose. Rapid gunfire ensues, short bursts of ten-to-fifteen rounds. I can’t tell what direction it’s coming from or how far away it is.

  Then there’s an explosion.

  A grenade.

  I know all too well what those sound like.

  “We have to go,” Mark whispers harshly, popping to his feet but keeping his profile low. He has an assault rifle strapped across his back and a pistol at his hip. We’re all wearing flak jackets and helmets, but John and I aren’t armed. I do have possession of a personal satellite phone, though. Once we’re settled in somewhere, we can hopefully call for help.

  John and I jump up, following Mark at a run while keeping our bodies low to minimize ourselves as targets.

  This was not an unplanned-for event.

  The Jameson guys explicitly told us if we heard gunfire we were to leave camp immediately and hide among the hills. If they ran into trouble, our camp would eventually be sought out and we’d be found.