Warden of the Penalty Box

Dax Vail has one job: hit people. It has kept him in the league for eleven seasons and will put him in a wheelchair by thirty-five. When the Vipers' new owner benches him, Dax gets a new houseguest: Kit Sandoval, rookie defenseman, the kid Dax ruined on live television two years ago, assigned to live under Dax's roof and write reports on his behavior. Kit hates him. Dax respects that. What keeps the peace is Dr. Andrei Solovyov, team medical director and former KHL winger, who has spent four years keeping Dax out of suspension hearings and has never once told him why. Sixty days under one roof. Three men and one hard rule about not touching each other. The rule does not survive the first road trip. A dark MMM hockey romance of forced proximity, slow-burn obsession, and two men learning that the third one was never going to let either of them go.