I force my body into autopilot.
Skate. Stop. Turn. Warm-up shots.
I go through the motions because that’s what I know how to do. When everything else is falling apart, I can still play hockey. I can still hit, still score, still be the guy everyone expects me to be.
But the whole game, there’s this gnawing hollow under my ribs.
With every line change, I glance up.
Still empty.
By the time the final buzzer sounds, I couldn’t tell you the score if my career depended on it. I know I played. I know my body did what it was trained to do. I know I checked and shot and took hits and gave them.
But the only thing I really remember is that she wasn’t there.
Luka’s waiting by my stall after we get off the ice.
“How bad?” he asks quietly.
I stare at my gear like I don’t recognize it. “She moved out.”
His face changes, all the color draining. “What?”
“She moved out,” I repeat, words numb. “Said your grandmother blessed the marriage, and now we can get a ‘quiet divorce’ so she can go back to New York and live her dream. Said this was always temporary. You know, like we planned.”
“Scottie—”
I stand up so fast my helmet tumbles off the bench. “I need to get home.”
He doesn’t argue.
We barely shower. Jerseys off, suits pulled on half-assed, we’re out of the arena and into my truck so fast security barely has time to blink.
The drive to The Commons is a blur of red lights and Luka cursing in Russian under his breath.
“Kat wouldn’t just—” he says once, then cuts himself off, sounding like he doesn’t even believe his own sentence.
I park crooked in the garage and we bolt for the elevator. The ride up feels like it takes an hour and two seconds at the same time.
My key fumbles in the lock.
I shove the door open.
The penthouse feels wrong immediately.
Too quiet. Too… empty.
“Katerina?” I call, even though I already know. Then Luka calls out her name too.
No answer.
I move through the place on instinct.
Her room is first, while Luka runs to the guest bathroom to check.
The bed is made. Perfectly. The way she never leaves it, because we’re always rushing in and out. The dresser is bare. Nojewelry tray, no scattered hairpins, no stack of worn ballet novels Irina mailed her.
Closet doors hang open onto nothing but hangers.
