The Hockey King's Coveted Billionaire Heiress

Bethany Marsh POV:

"Just leave the door cracked, Sullivan, it stinks like sweat in here," Dedric's voice drifted through the gap, followed by the dull, rhythmic thud of a hockey puck being tossed against a wooden bench.

I froze two inches from the varsity locker room door.

The freezing gale from the Massachusetts blizzard outside was still melting down the collar of my worn parka, sending icy rivulets down my spine.

My bare fingers, stiff and aching from the three-mile trek across campus, clamped tighter around the waterproof binder in my arms.

It held seventy pages of biomechanical breakdown—three sleepless nights analyzing the opposing team's goaltender weaknesses just so Dedric could keep his second-line minutes on Friday night.

"You really keeping that nerd around all semester?" Bradley Sullivan's mocking drawl echoed through the locker room.

"She's an unpaid intern who lives to tune my skates and run my stats," Dedric snorted, the sound dripping with lazy arrogance. "Bethany is useful, that's all."

A knot in my stomach twisted into a hard, cold rock.

"What happens when your dad finalizes the sponsorship deal with the Henry family?" Bradley asked, accompanied by the clatter of shoulder pads. "Edwina won't want your stray hanging around the team benches."

"When I lock down Edwina, the stray goes back to the gutter," Dedric dismissed with a harsh laugh. "Bethany is a classic Puck Bunny without the looks or the trust fund. Even after I dump her, all I have to do is snap my fingers, and she'll still hand over her tactical models on her knees."

A chorus of frat-boy laughter erupted inside the room.

The bile rose thick and scalding in my throat.

Three years of tuning his titanium runners, rewiring his kinematic profiles, pulling him through academic probation so his athletic scholarship wouldn't get pulled by the NCAA board.

The numbness in my chest calcified into pure, blinding rage.

I lifted my right foot and kicked the solid oak door with the heavy sole of my combat boot.

The heavy door slammed violently against the concrete wall with a concussive bang that shook the lockers, instantly killing the laughter inside.

The locker room fell dead silent.

Ten half-dressed varsity forwards stared at me in stunned paralysis.

I strode into the center of the room, my boots tracking wet gray slush over the pristine Briar University crest painted on the floor.

Dedric stood up from the bench so fast the puck slipped from his grip, bouncing with a hollow clatter across the rubber matting.

"Beth..." The color drained entirely from Dedric's tanned face. "What are you doing here?"

I stopped two feet away from him, close enough to catch the sickening mix of his expensive cologne and stale sweat.

"Delivering your crutches for the rest of your pathetic career," I said, my voice dead, even, and terrifyingly calm.

Dedric reached out to grab my wrist, his eyes darting nervously toward his watching teammates. "Look, babe, you heard that out of context. The guys were just busting my balls—"

I yanked my arm back before his fingers could graze my sleeve.

With a snap of my shoulders, I hurled the thick, damp binder straight into his chest.

The heavy metal rings slammed against his sternum, bursting open on impact.

Seventy pages of pristine velocity charts, heat maps, and stress-strain calculations exploded into the air, fluttering down like a dirty blizzard across the locker room floor.

Dedric stumbled back, stepping on his own tactical charts, his face flushing from chalk-white to a humiliated crimson.

"Don't flatter yourself, Dedric." I tilted my chin up, curling my lip into a razor-sharp sneer. "You don't get to dump me. You're fired. We're done."

Bradley Sullivan sucked in a sharp, audible breath from the corner.

Dedric's jaw worked convulsively, veins bulging along his neck as his ego shattered in front of his line-mates.

"Are you out of your mind?" Dedric hissed, lunging forward with a shaking finger pointed at my nose. "Without me and the Salas family name, you're nothing at Briar! You can't even afford your tuition!"

"Then let's see how fast you drown without me," I replied, meeting his bloodshot gaze without blinking.

I turned on my heel, grinding his precious shot-trajectory diagrams beneath my rubber soles.

"Get back here, Bethany!" Dedric's roar tore through the corridor, followed by the metallic crash of a kicked locker.

I didn't look back once.

I shoved open the heavy glass exit doors, stepping back out into the roaring gale of the New England storm.

The icy wind tore at my hair, but for the first time in three years, the suffocating weight in my lungs was completely gone.

I pulled out my cracked smartphone, blocked Dedric's number across every channel, and deleted three years of shared history in four swipes.

A new text message from an unlisted international number flashed across the top of the screen:

Have you seen enough? Are you ready to come home now?