The Detroit team swarmed in celebration. Sandin hung his head, grabbed his water bottle off the net, and took a long drink before resetting.
I searched for any sign of something — pain, hesitation in his push-off, a misread.
I found nothing.
I sighed, leaning back as the video kept rolling, though I wasn’t watching anymore. I didn’t know what the hell I expected to find.
He’d missed a block.
So what?
Daddy P had plenty of goals scored on him and I never poured over tape like this. Sometimes a puck goes in, even one that should’ve been stopped.
But I couldn’t shake the suspicion clawing at me. And it wasn’t just Sandin.
There was the rookie Nathan rostered when he put Wood on waivers — Ivan Baranov. Annoyingly, the kid was playing like a damn all-star. And that shouldn’t have annoyed me; I was his coach. But it did. Because Nathan had handpicked him, and now that he was performing, Nathan looked like some all-seeing genius with prophetic hockey intuition. Everyone trusted him implicitly.
Baranov was quickly becoming someone we could rely on to score. Twice now he’d earned star of the game.
But he’d also fucked up when it mattered most.
When I finally pulled Carter Fabri after he’d been stuck on the ice for nearly four exhausting minutes against Toronto, thanks to penalty kill chaos that wouldn’t let him change, I sent Baranov over the boards. Within twenty seconds, he lost the puck in our own zone, coughing it up right inside the blue line.
Toronto jumped on it instantly. And Sandin failed again.
We’d gone from up by three to tied with a team we should have walked all over, and then lost in a shootout after a scoreless overtime.
Was it a shit-luck game? Yeah. Did it happen? Of course.
But mysomething-is-offradar wouldn’t shut up.
I didn’t voice it. I reminded myself of everything I’d learned from my years in college and my decades of coaching — how lifebleeds into performance, how even the most reliable guys have off nights. I checked in with my players, centered them, and did my job.
But inside, I was stewing. And I felt insane because everyone else seemed to be under Nathan Black’s spell.
Staff loved him. They thought he was a genius for shaking things up, giving us an edge Richard Bancroft had lost years ago. He was “fresh” and “fun” in their eyes, and they ate up everything he served.
Players respected him — even the ones I hoped would see through his shit. But Nathan had brought in sponsorships and more money, which meant better equipment, upgraded recovery systems, and new therapy amenities. Hard to hate a guy who gives you cutting-edge hydrotherapy and a cryo chamber.
And the fans practically worshipped him. He’d launched the “fan of the game” program, sending PR out before puck drop to pick a lucky fan from the crowd outside — a crowd that grew bigger every game as people dressed up and camped out for their shot at rink-side seats and a spotlight during second intermission.
Then he opened one practice a week to the fans. Richard had always said it was too distracting — and he’d been right. But Nathan announced it at a press conference without telling a single damn person on staff. We just had to smile and pretend it was the plan.
Now I had weekly meet-and-greets when all I wanted was to prepare for whomever we played next.
It was good. All of it was good. The city was invested. We were in the news. We were being talked about. We had a winning record.
Which was why I wouldn’t voice my concerns out loud, and why I felt like I’d slipped into insanity. Because somehow, I was the only one who saw he was a snake dressed as a saint.
I pinched the bridge of my nose, letting out a long, calming breath as I squeezed my eyes shut against the headache building.
I had noactualreason to feel like Nathan was a problem other than the fact that he was with Ariana and I didn’t like it.
Basically, I was acting like a jealous fucking teenager, and yet no amount of common sense could snap me out of it.
A loud thump and subsequent rattling snapped my head up, and I whipped around with my heart hammering and my hand curled into a fist ready to fight.
Only to find Ariana standing with a giant box in her arms.
