“Nothing… yet,” Luka says, tightening his skate. “His text was a threat because he’s losing control. That man doesn’t yell when he wants something—he strategizes. He’s hoping she breaks under pressure, or you do. And trust me, Scottie, he may be boxed in legally, but he’s still dangerous.”
My stomach knots.
“He can't touch you on American soil,” Luka continues, “not without lighting himself on fire. He’s already being watched by both countries. The U.S. wants him locked up for life. Russia wants to use him as a warning. One wrong move? He disappears into a Siberian hole forever. That’s why he’s pushing this political marriage. It gives him cover. Legitimacy.” Luka ties his other skate viciously tight. “But don’t mistake limited options for no options. A cornered wolf still has teeth.”
“Great,” I mutter. “So he’s playing mind games.”
“Exactly,” Luka says. “He’ll text, send threats, try to guilt Kat, and manipulate in any way that he can. Because if my grandmother blesses your marriage? He loses. Completely. She has a bigger pull in the New York theater scene than my father, and if she wanted to, she could loosen the reins on Kat’s renewal. She doesn’t have pull in Seattle, and neither does my father, and that’s why this is still our best bet.”
I huff a breath. “So he’s bluffing.”
“No,” Luka corrects with a humorless smile. “He’s calculating. And that’s worse.”
I let out a low chuckle. “Like our pool game.”
He snorts. “What can I say? He taught me one useful skill.”
I run my fingers through my hair and shake my head. This is all so complicated, and I can’t believe Kat is caught in the middle of it. Luka and Katerina’s father makes my mother’s attempts to match me with a girl from home look saintly by comparison.
“You need to stay close to her,” Luka says. “No distance. No gaps. Keep your schedules tight. Get photographed together, make this look real from my grandmother’s perspective. Remember that my grandmother built the family legacy, along with my grandfather. Letting Katerina go could mean the end of an era. She’ll only agree to it if she thinks this is real betweenyou, too, and there is no shot of a divorce so that Kat can marry Maxim. It’s still a long shot.”
I nod, the plan forming whether I want it to or not.
“And Scottie?”
“Yeah?”
His gaze meets mine. They’re icy blue, cold and serious, just enough anger in them to pin me to the spot, though his anger isn’t directed at me. He’s angry with his father, and I know it.
“I meant what I said. If he tries to take her back against her will, he goes through me first.”
Then there’s a small beat.
“And then,” Luka adds quietly, “he goes through you.”
It hits me exactly the way he intends it to.
Not as a threat, but as trust, as a joint responsibility to protect Katerina.
“She’s my sister,” Luka says. “If you’re going to wear that ring, you protect her like she’s your wife.”
I swallow.
Two nights ago, standing on that rooftop with her hand in mine, she felt exactly like that.
“I will,” I say. “You don’t have to ask.”
Luka nods once, satisfied, and some of the tension drains from his shoulders.
Before either of us can say more, the doors bang open and the rest of the team floods into the locker room. Practice time.
Coach Haynes appears in the doorway, clipboard in hand, whistle around his neck. He gives me a tiny nod. One that says congratulations without breaking his terrifying-coach persona—then barks for everyone to circle up.
Just like that, the world shifts back to hockey.
The ice is the only place that’s ever quiet in my mind. The only place where the noise shuts off and everything narrows into a single point: the puck, the play, the win.
It’s exactly the kind of noise my brain needs right now so I don’t spiral over the fact that Katerina’s father already knows we’re married and is currently sending ominous text messages across time zones.
