We stand together. Not touching. Not talking. Just breathing the same cold air, two kids who shouldn’t be standing on the same ice but somehow ended up here anyway. Before we leave, he taps his stick to mine. A quiet sound. A private one. Nowords. No promises. But it means something. Something I won’t understand fully until it’s too late.
Chapter Eight
The Year Everything Goes Wrong
Winter in Moscowdoesn’t end. It just changes temperature. Some days the cold is sharp enough to wake you up. Other days it’s dull and heavy, like hands closing around your ribs. This month, it’s the second kind.
My brother is stretched thin. Work has been brutal. And my father—our father—has started sniffing around again. He wants money. He wants apologies. He wants control. He always wants something. He shows up twice outside our apartment. Once drunk. Once pretending he isn’t. Both times he catches me off guard. Both times my brother shows up like he knew something was wrong and threatens to call the police. Both times, the man disappears before it gets that far. It wears on my brother. It guts me. It doesn’t touch the rink. Nothing touches the rink. Until it does.
It starts the morning I walk into school with a bruise across my cheekbone. I iced it. Covered it. Pulled my hood up. But bruises have a way of announcing themselves, even under fabric.Most people don’t look twice. Pain makes them uncomfortable. But Mikhail? He sees it instantly.
He stops mid-step in the hallway, eyes narrowing. “What happened?”
Not a question. A demand.
“It’s nothing,” I say. “Drop it.”
He steps in front of me, blocking my path. He’s taller. Broader. But he doesn’t use size like other boys do. He uses presence.
“Kilovac,” he says again, voice low, “what happened?”
“I told you,” I snap. “Nothing.”
The look he gives me says he knows I’m lying. But he lets it go. For now.
Practice that afternoon is brutal. Coach is irritated. The ice is rough. The team is restless.
During a full-ice scrimmage, two older guys from the junior team—Gregor and Anton, both seventeen, both assholes—start chirping me.
“Nice bruise, scholarship.”
“Daddy hit you again?”
“Maybe you should take up figure skating. Less contact.”
Normally I ignore it. Today I don’t. They try to pin me in the corner. Gregor hits me late, elbow up. Referee isn’t watching. My vision flashes white. When the boards stop rattling, I shove off the wall and charge Gregor without thinking. I slam him onto the ice. He swings at me. I swing back. We grapple. He rips off my helmet, land a punch that makes his head snap sideways. Someone shouts. Someone whistles. Skates scrape. Chaos blooms.
Anton jumps in next. And then suddenly— Mikhail is there. He doesn’t hesitate. He doesn’t calculate. He just grabs Anton by the collar and yanks him backward so hard the kid’s skates leave the ice for a second.
“Back the hell off,” Mikhail snarls.
It’s not his usual biting humor or his charming arrogance. It’s something darker. Protective. Dangerous.
Gregor tries to get at me again. I meet him halfway. We go down, rolling. Throwing punches. Landing them. And the whole time Mikhail is beside me, fighting Anton like it’s a war he trained for.
Coach blows the whistle so many times it sounds like an alarm.
Hands separate us. Voices shout. Boys swear. Blood hits the ice in tiny drops that freeze almost instantly. When they drag me to my feet, my lip is split and my pulse is still racing.
Mikhail is panting hard, chest heaving, hair sticking to his forehead, a bruise blooming under his right eye. We look at each other. And for one breath, everything goes still. Not the ice. Not the noise. Not the adrenaline. Just us. Like some unspoken truth has finally stepped into the light.
Coach loses his mind. We get suspended from practice for two days.
Architects of chaos, both of us.
Gregor and Anton get the same punishment, except Coach pulls them aside afterward and says something low that makes them glare at me with new hatred. I do not care. I walk out of the locker room with my jacket half-zipped, still buzzing with leftover fury. Mikhail catches up to me. Grabs my sleeve. Pulls me into an empty hallway.
His voice drops. “Who hurt you.”
