So Over You (Chicago Rebels #2)(21)

“Who is telling the world,” Vadim finished for him.

“Her sister,” Erik said.

With a big hand on Vadim’s shoulder, Cade turned him so he was no longer facing the table or Shay’s ugly face.

“You got any sisters, Vad?”

He thought of Mia. Beautiful, perfect Mia, who was equally as infuriating as Isobel Chase. “Yes, I have one. She’s difficult.”

“I’ll bet. So I’m guessing this sister of yours probably isn’t telling you all her deep, dark secrets, but it’s different when it’s sister-on-sister.”

Erik made a weird noise.

“Ah, hell, that’s not what I meant, Swede. Now, when a girl speaks to her sister, that’s like she’s writing a ‘dear diary’ entry. She’s not telling the world. She’s telling her best friend, or somethin’ close to it. So I wouldn’t equate a sisterly confidence with a post on her Facebook page. Now, she probably should have kept this girly chat for a bottle of vino and a pillow fight back at Chase Manor instead of sharing the deets in a drafty old office in the basement of Rebels HQ—”

Vadim turned, ready to tear Shay fifty new assholes, only to have Erik block his path as if Shay stood in the goalmouth. These D-men were impossible.

“But she didn’t,” Cade continued. “And if you do what you want to do to Shay, believe me when I say this will no longer be between a few buds in a bar, but it’ll be spreadin’ faster than a prairie wildfire with a tailwind. And while this will probably have very little impact on your day-to-day, you being the Czar of Pleasure and all, it won’t look so good for Isobel, especially considering the current situation vis-à-vis her employment aspirations.”

Vadim considered this, plucking the essentials from Cade’s circuitous reasoning. “She’ll be slut shamed.”

Cade finger pointed in the manner of a pistol. “Bingo, budski. Now I don’t know Isobel all that well, but I do know her sister Violet. She’s the kinda girl who could brush that off with a fuck-you-haters, but she’s not the Chase sister trying to get a foothold coaching men’s professional hockey. You want to make that harder on Isobel or you want to calm the fuck down and figure out a plan?”

Vadim was forced to admit the Texan was right. Rumors about a past—or current—relationship with a hockey player she was coaching would not make Isobel look good. Instinctively, he knew he could trust Cade and Erik. Ford, too.

That left Shay.

“I will be calm,” Vadim said in his fake-calmest voice.

The Swede asked, “Really?”

“Yes, I will be as calm as the Caspian Sea on a clear summer day.”

Cade looked to Erik for a translation and, satisfied with what he found there, took a few steps back. “After you.”

They returned to the table and sat again. The drinks had been replaced, the broken glass cleared away. No evidence remained of the burst of violence from a few moments ago, except for the tingle of tension tainting the air.

Shay smirked. “All right there, Petrov?”

Inside his chest, Vadim’s organs were playing musical chairs. He was unsure what would happen when the music stopped.

“I said—”

“I heard what you said.”

Shay’s lip curl was downright ugly. “Oh, I see. You’re gonna wait until you get me alone. Maybe jump me in the showers.”

He didn’t sound scared, although he should. He really should.

“Actually, what I have to say to you would be best with witnesses. This way, there will be no misunderstanding. Yes, it is true I was with Isobel a long time ago when we were teenagers. That’s in the past. Today we have a professional relationship. She is a coach. A good coach.” He rested his forearm on the table and moved closer. He preferred to look a man in the eye before he threatened to terminate his life. “Do you keep your skate blades sharpened, Shay?”

Confused by the change of subject, Shay huffed out a cough of acknowledgment.

“That is good. It will certainly make things easier. If I hear that you have spread this information or that you are talking trash about Isobel, first, I will take your skates and strangle you to semiunconsciousness with the laces. Then I will use the blades to slice off your balls. If your blades are not sharp enough, this will be more painful than it needs to be.”

The entire table had stilled, the only movement a sheen of sweat breaking out at the side of Shay’s temple.

Vadim sat back, satisfied. “Another round, my friends?”

Shay stood quickly, his thighs banging the table. “I’m out. Calling it a night.” He glanced around, perhaps waiting for his teammates to urge him to stay. No one did. “We good, Petrov?”

“That is up to you, Shay.”

With one nod, he slithered out like the snake he was.

A moment of stunned shock passed. Then another.

“Gentlemen, why so serious?” Vadim asked when the silence became awkward.

Cade shook his head. “That’s some twisted imagination you got there, Petrov.”

“I am Russian. We do not fuck around when it comes to revenge fantasies.”

This set them off into noisy laughter. Nothing like the threatened castration of an asshole to bond a group.

Another round of drinks was ordered, and Erik and Cade picked up an earlier conversation about whether a vampire or a robot would win in a fight. The important issues of the day. This gave Vadim time to brood on what Shay had said, specifically the words he had used.