The Penalty Box - Teagan Kade Page 0,18

his jaw setting. That’s how I know I’m hitting the spot.

He stands, the chair he was seated in pushed back as he paces the length of the table, swiping a finger across its glass surface and bringing it up for inspection.

“Your mother didn’t know about decorum either, Linnea, but I showed her and I will show you.”

It takes all my restraint not to launch myself over there and strangle him with that stupid houndstooth tie he’s wearing.

Instead, he gets the finger again.

I sense the goons getting itchy behind me. Let them.

I can’t believe my father’s acting like this is perfectly normal, his bodyguards keeping me at the table while he talks to himself. It’s pathetic.

I half jump when a speaker in the middle of the table starts to squawk. “Everything okay there, Rex?”

Harry leans over to speak. “Perfectly fine, Dad. We’re really hitting it off,” he says, winking at me.

Vom.

So it’s Daddy listening in. Even better.

My father pauses his pacing, speaking louder. “Everything’s under control, Benjamin. The mic’s a bit hard to hear. That’s all.”

I smile and give him the finger.

He’s starting to rage all right.

But that’s perfectly fine. All I have to do is sit here and wait for Nolan, because regardless of what I said I know he’ll take action.

I doubt even the mighty Rex Marsden is ready for what happens when you fuck with a King.

CHAPTER NINE

NOLAN

I find Phoenix and Peyton in the media room playing UFC on the PlayStation.

Peyton tosses his controller across the sofa, pointing at the screen. “Clean fight, my ass. What was that?”

Phoenix, smiling away, simply shrugs. “It’s the Ultimate Fighting Championship, not Wrestlemania, bro. A little dirty elbow to the groin never hurt anyone.”

Peyton leaps onto Phoenix, wrangling him to the floor trying to dig his elbow into his nuts. “Is that so? Never hurt anyone, huh?”

I stand at the back of the room shaking my head. If a stranger was to walk in here, they’d either think it was strange for two grown-ass men to be acting like ten-year-olds, or some weird sexual ritual.

“Oi, assholes,” I call out.

They stop. Phoenix popping his head up to spot me, his arm around Peyton’s neck. “Nol, you want in on this?”

“On the love-in you’ve got going on? No, thanks, but if you are looking to expend a bit of physical aggression, perhaps I can help.”

Phoenix releases his arm, Peyton falling forward and coughing. “What did you have in mind?”

I take out my car keys and rattle them in the air. “Road trip.”

*

We pull up on the other side of the street. I thought my father was top of the pile when it came to ugly, over-the-top houses, but the white-washed abomination on the other side of the road belonging to one Rex Marsden would argue otherwise.

Peyton’s looking out the window of my car. “You’re saying they’ve got Linnea, in there?”

I nod. “It’s up to us to get her out. What do you say?”

Phoenix leans over Peyton for a better look. “I say it’s a suicide mission.”

“So you’re in?”

“Fuck yeah,” he replies, elbowing Peyton. “And you, superstar? You only good on the field or can you actually put that muscle to use in the real world?”

I see Peyton smile in the rear-view. “Just point me in the right direction. Cops?” he queries.

I watch the house. “No, we can handle this.”

“You know how many guys are inside?” asks Phoenix.

“Three or four, I’d imagine, but it’s hard to know for sure.”

Phoenix puffs his cheeks out and exhales, drumming the window with his knuckles. “Titus is going to be pissed he missed this.”

“It’s likely to be a good, old-fashioned brawl—nothing we haven’t been through at Crestfall before.”

Phoenix picks up two baseball bats from the footwell, handing one to Peyton. “Understood. Let’s go break something.”

“You didn’t bring one for me?” I ask.

Phoenix shrugs. “Man, you couldn’t swing a bat to save your life. Besides, don’t you have like fifty hockey sticks in the trunk?”

He’s right.

“Small problem,” says Peyton, looking over to the house and its massive double doors. “How the fuck are we going to get in? Ram raid?”

“And ruin a perfectly good car?” I reply, checking my watch. I spot the van coming up the street. “Right on time.”

Peyton swivels to look. “You dragged Dan into this?”

Dan is one of Crestfall’s finest hockey players…and delivery driver in his spare time.

I turn around in my seat to face my brothers. “Dan will drive up with a box.” I point to the walls at the driveway. “We’ll be behind those